Boson oil works, France

Broxburn Miners go to the Riviera

The Holmes shale mine was described as a “dangerous and unhealthy place”. From the pithead at Roman Camp, the mine plunged into the steeply inclined seams of Pumpherston shale that lay north of the Edinburgh to Bathgate railway. Difficult working conditions made life hard for mining contractors who were paid for the tonnage of shale they produced. In 1888, when the price of oil reached a new low, the small Holmes Oil Company felt it necessary to reduce the amount paid to its miners for each ton of shale produced. After a succession of cuts in price, the Holmes miners felt they had no option but to strike. For much of the year, a succession of bitter strikes raged, with accusations of victimisation by management, and talk of retaliation against “blacknebs”. In this toxic environment, it is hardly surprising that Holmes men jumped at the chance of free passage to the south of France and the opportunity to mine shale beneath the warmth of the Mediterranean sun.

Shale oil was produced in France twenty years before the first Scottish shale oil works. By 1848 “schistes bitumineux” were being worked at Boson, where seams outcropped along the side of the steep valley cut out by River Reyran. This centre of industry lay just seven miles north of the port of Frejus, not far along the coast from fashionable watering spots of Cannes, Antibes, and Monaco

It's unclear how the Boson Oil Company Ltd. came into being – perhaps it was the result of a chance encounter at a fashionable party? According to the company's 1884 prospectus, a new oil works had been built at Boson just a few years previously but it's proprietor had then died. Works, mines, housing and other necessities were already in place, the oil shale at Boson were much richer than that found in Scotland ,and the price realised for oil in France was much higher. Once £150,000 had been raised by the share issue, a healthy return on investment seemed inevitable.

The scheme had been pulled together by George Simpson, a plausible rogue who had his finger in most shale oil projects at that time. Simpson started out as proprietor of the Benhar collieries. During the 1870's he was a part of many shale oil partnerships, and during the 1880's specialised in assembling ambitious (and often fanciful) shale oil schemes that were promoted as public limited companies. These included hopeless schemes taken forward around the same time by the gullible boards of the new Lanark, Binnend, and West Lothian shale oil companies. Simpson was never shy of taking legal actions as well as being their subject, and several cases associated with the Boson company hints at shady share dealing. By the end of the decade Simpson's luck ran out, he was bankrupted, but subsequently started a new career as a coal master in South Wales, where he found a new pool of gullible investors.

The first board of the Boson Oil Company were mainly directors of the respected Dalmeny Oil Co. Ltd., however after little more than a year, and following little practical progress, they were replaced by a new board. Still no dividend was paid and the blame was placed on retaining the original management which was described as “putting old cloth in a new garment”. In 1888 it was agreed to wind up the Scottish-registered Boson Oil Co. Ltd., and set up a new company registered in England; the Frejus Oil Co. Ltd. Shareholders in the old company received a similar number of shares in the new company, although as part of a complicated legal deal this excluded the shares held by the troublesome George Simpson.

The surviving reports of the company's public meetings give a little insight into the company's operations in France. Initially the company had difficulty mining sufficient shale to feed its twelve retorts, although there was mention of using spare refinery capacity to process imported American crude oil. There are references to shale production at the “Aqueduct pit”, “Bridge mine” “No.5 pit” and a coal mine. It seems that the works were fitted with “rotary retorts” - a type not known in Scotland, but these were later replace with the Scottish type of retort.Quite a number of Scots seem to have moved to France to serve the works. The general manager was John Laing, previously works manager at Midlothian oil company at Straiton. John James Scott of the Lanark oil company was appointed cashier, although it was suggested that his knowledge of the French language “was not sufficient to enable him satisfactorily to perform the duties” and had to take his employers to court to release his wages. The Holmes miners departed for France at the end of 1888, when the new Frejus oil company were improving and extending operations. It was noted that “other tradesmen connected with oil works are to follow” Unfortunately this influx of experienced men was not sufficient to turn the fortunes of the company and in 1892, its the plant and assets were put up for sale. No doubt the Holmes men had already headed home.

This didn't quite mark the end of Scots shale men in the south of France. In 1918 Uroz Oilfields Ltd. - an English-registered company - acquired various French coal mining concessions. Renwick Cowan, formerly of the Pumpherston Oil Co. Ltd was their manager in France and conducted a detailed study of reserves at Boson. Plans to resume oil operations were progressed but never realised, although others continued to mine shale in the area to produce “houille et schistes” until 1944.

The precise location of the Boson oil company's works is not known, but any remains may have been obliterated following the catastrophic failure of Malpasset dam in 1959. In one of France's greatest disasters of the 20th century, a wall of water swept along the Reyran valley, killing 423.

A survey of mining remains in the area were conducted in 1995, which included ruins of some of the mines thought to have been worked by the Boson oil company. Part of the purpose of this report was to assess the best way of filling in old workings to make them safe, so sadly it might be expected that many of the remains pictued in the report no longer survive.