It was December 1864 that John Charles Morgan retired from Consular Service in Brazil where he had followed his fathers footsteps as a diplomat.

While in Brazil John Charles Morgan had loaned a business man £500 - £600 hardly insignificant sums at the time but it became apparent the loan was unlikely to be repaid so a rather crude and basic formula was accepted in lieu of payment.

John Charles Morgan came to England in the eighteen seventies and began experimenting, refining the basic formula to discover if it was remotely possible to produce a breed of cement that would resist heat and so replace the fire clay that was at the time commonly used for building and repair work where high temperatures were present.

His work was a great success and he had a marketable product that was sold bearing the name PURIMACHOS a word derived from the Greek language, loosely translated as "resistant to heat" or "resistant to fire".

The first consignment was despatched in November 1882 to the New Gas Light Company Worcester.

Exports were made in the first year of trading to numerous countries including France, Belgium, Sweden, Canada, United States and Russia.

Throughout the UK iron, steel, gas, electricity and other industrial concerns were using Purimachos fire cement for their repairs as were plumbers, heating engineers, builders and households, ranging from the people next door to Royal Palaces.

Purimachos fire cement was undoubtedly a success right from its introduction to the market. The diplomat turned industrialist who had spent two years experimenting had lunched the product that superseded fire clay, saving time and money in both the industrial and domestic markets.