Turkey red

The breakthrough did not come until 1827 when the Croftengea Works announced it had successfully dyed yarn Turkey red, followed by cloth dyed at Dalquhum the following year. The process, jealously guarded by the individual works was long, up to four months for one piece of cloth, and complicated, involving up to 38 different stages. As the industrial revolution gathered pace and the sciences of chemistry and biology evolved the process was repeatedly shortened and simplified. Despite this, key ingredients remained rancid olive oil, sheep/horse manure and reputedly bulls blood. Whatever was in it worked, and sales soared.

In 1747 Prince Charles Edward Stuart disguised himself as Betty Burke by wearing a block printed madder dress to escape from the English. From the middle of the eighteenth century chemists and industrialists from all over Europe had tried to find the industrial process that would give them a bright, fast, non fade red. Ultimately French chemists obtained the secrets from what is now Turkey and the name stuck. It was not until 1785 however that David Dale (the father in law of Robert Owen) persuaded a Frenchman Pierre Jacques Papillon to travel up from London to teach him the long and complicated process. By 1801 the Encyclopedia Britannica referred to Turkey red as "that beautiful red dye which distinguishes the cotton manufactured in the Ottoman Empire". Certainly at this time it was not manufactured in the Vale of Leven. The famous white spotted red bandanas exported to the West Indies and elsewhere were still being made using simple madder dyes.