Greenford – The Place Where Modern Carpet Cleaning Was Made Possible
In the northwestern segment of the Greater London area, and tucked inside the borough of Ealing, you’ll find the suburb of Greenford. Greenford is sandwiched between Yeading, Perivale (also known as Little Greenford), Dormers Wells and Sudbury Hill. Greenford, as well as being a dormitory suburb that is a popular place to live with many, has two main claims to fame. The first is musical: it was in Greenford that the very popular band The Who started up, first performing in the Oldfield Tavern in Greenford. The Oldfield Tavern is linked with the second claim to fame that Greenford has, as the tavern was constructed on what was the “parking lot” of an old factory – it was a field for grazing horses in – run by William Perkins. Perkins was a chemist who liked to experiment a bit (and probably created quite a bit of Greenford carpet cleaning for whoever did the tidying up around his laboratory and/or office), and in 1856, as an 18-year-old, he discovered the first aniline dye. He was tinkering around with this organic substance, trying to find a way to synthesise quinine, which Perkins’ teacher had suggested as a possibility. The result was a very brilliant purple.