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Born in Glasgow in 1811, James Young was a chemist and entrepreneur. Young literally greased the wheels of industry by supplying lubricants to mills and factories. His supply of oil ran out, so Young looked for a new source. He found it near Edinburgh. It’s called torbanite; a kind of mixture between a coal and an oil shale. It was first mined at a hill in West Lothian called Torbane Hill which is why it’s called torbanite and it’s amazing to think that this rock kick-started an industry that kept tens of thousands of people in jobs in the central part of Scotland. In 1851, James Young opened his first manufacturing plant and for a short time at least, this small patch of Scotland could honestly call itself the oil capital of the world. It became the centre of global oil production, where - thanks to Young - thousands flocked to get in on the oil boom.

Young piled up the superlatives. First holder of a patent for distilling oil from shale. First commercial oil works in the world. He piled up his rubbish too – what was left after the oil had been extracted was collected in huge heaps or bings. They still dominate the landscape, which isn’t surprising when you consider that for every ton mined and burned to extract the oil, eighty per cent ended up as waste.