Photos

These 5 man-made hills, just west of West Calder, are affectionately known locally as the Five Sisters. They are “bings” or heaps left over from mining and processing shale for the production of shale-oil and represent the World’s first ever commercial oil production.

James Young (1811 – 1883) was born in Glasgow, the son of a carpenter, and had little early education. However, his quest for knowledge was such that, at the age of 19, he took evening classes at Anderson College (now Strathclyde University), later studying at University College, London and becoming an analytical chemist. During this time he met the famous missionary and explorer, David Livingstone, who was to be his lifelong friend.

After extensive experimentation, he found he could extract quantities of paraffin oil and paraffin wax from shale and cannel (candle) coal which he had discovered lay in abundance in the earth of West Lothian. He set up factories near Bathgate and West Calder and, in the latter half of the 19th Century, 3 million tons of shale per year were being mined for the commercial production of oil which was being used for industry, domestic lighting and, latterly, for the new automobiles.

As a result, James Young rapidly made his fortune and later became known as James “Paraffin” Young. He was responsible for the very beginnings of the commercial production of mineral oils in the World, an industry which escalated beyond all recognition during the 20th Century. The fortunes of the Scottish oil industry, however, floundered during the First World War with the importation of cheaper crude oil from the Persian Gulf.