John Stephenson's (Snr) 'Treatise on the Manufacture of Saltpetre' printed Calcutta 1835, is now available as a Google Ebook. Has 113 pages and original is sourced from the British Museum, with a reference to the writer as John William James Stephenson. However the Treatise only states by John Stephenson.
A couple of interesting points.
He states he was responsible for the Government Factories in Behar which included the Singhea Factory. Pages 69 to 86 detail his Experiments at Singhea over the period 1831 to 1834. Singhea was where Henry, Harriet (Indianna) & Catherine were born 1832,1833 and 1835 respectively.
Page 33 has the following statement;
'But in a climate like India, an Englishman would sink under the usual work that his fellow Indian labourer effects, especially over a steaming saltpetre boiler. From 1824 to 1828, I paid my workmen in London at the rate of 16 shillings a week, equal to £3-6s per month.'
We know he went to India in 1829, but the assumption was that he came from Newcastle. However given the above he might have actually been based in London.
The Ebook can be found here:
https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=a8Gw9YWu84cC&printsec=frontcover&dq=JOHN+STEPHENSON+SALTPETRE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjPvZCniv3cAhUW5LwKHWnOArkQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=JOHN%20STEPHENSON%20SALTPETRE&f=falseCheers Ian
PS Re the name of John William James Stephenson I knew I had commented on this before and did so here on page 19 as follows;
Maggie,
I went to British Library for a few hours in 2009 to search for one of JS Snr's Journals, in the hope it may give educational titles or any other reference that could assist in researching him further.
THe 1835 Journal was part of a rare book and could not be copied or scanned, but I was able to review.
British Library had the author down as John William James Stephenson, so I was quite exicited by this as only seen references as just John Stephenson. However in reviewing book the cover page showed the following:
'Treatise on the manufacture of saltpetre, descriptive of the operations and proper plans to be used for the manufacture of culmee & cooteah'
'Dedicated by permission to the Chamber of Commerce of Calcutta by John Stephenson, Calcutta 1835 Late Superintendant of the Hon Company's saltpetre factories in Behare'.
Where the BL got the name JWJS from this was unclear. However they did have another reference to a Elementary Treatise on Mechanics by JWJS but this was dated1864. In the end I concluded the 1835 book indexed to JWJS was incorrect.
Just mentioning this so you don't repeat this search when you are at BL. BL Ref:
http://catalogue.bl.uk/F/Q45IBS2IDSB1C38T3MLVSM29X33BSAGLRAHMXABEJRBNK4K19N-16024?func=find-acc&acc_sequence=027669987