It is just a century ago since an ingenious Wicklow man, John Ward Kyan, by his discovery of a means of preventing dry-rot in wood, added a new word to the English language. To "Kyanise" timber intended for use in building became a common expression with contractors and masons from 1831 onward. The inventor's father was owner of the valuable copper mines now worked by the Wicklow Copper Mines and Company, and, when a young man, he observed how operations were from time to time hampered in the mines by the decay of the wooden beams and supports. His experiments led to the discovery that timber impregnated with bichloride of mercury withstood the dry-rot disease. All the tests to which it was subjected in the Admiralty's dockyards proved its efficacy, and in 1832 he patented his invention, extending it to the preservation of paper, canvas, cloth, ropes and other textile products. Kyan's process soon became generally adopted. Sir Michael Faraday's lecture before the Royal Institution of London in 1833 gave it a world-wide advertisement; and in 1835, the inventor having sold his rights, a company with a capital of £250,000 was formed, which secured contracts from all the newly-formed railway companies that were then beginning to link up all the important English towns with London. He attained great success in chemical science, and at the time of his death, in 1850, was engaged in New York on a plan for filtering the water supply of the city.
The Irish Times, February 10th, 1931.