Pub history

The James Young

Thanks to James Young, Bathgate has a claim as the oil industry’s home. In 1850, James Young set up the world’s first commercial oil refinery here to process oil-rich coal from nearby Torbanehill. The Bathgate plant was set up when a search for other oil-bearing sites discovered ‘Torbanite’. Young’s patent gave him a monopoly of the oil industry, collecting 2c on every paraffin gallon produced by over 20 American firms. After 1864, when Young’s main patent expired, a Scottish oil boom began.