Natural cement gave way to portland cement, which is a predictable, known product of consistently high quality.
Today, about 98 percent of the cement produced in the United States is portland cement. In Aspdin's day, however, this new product caught on slowly. Aspdin established a plant in Wakefield to manufacture portland cement, some of which was used in 1828 in the construction of the Thames River Tunnel.
But it was almost 20 years later when J. D. White and Sons set up a prosperous factory in Kent that the portland cement industry saw its greatest period of early expansion, not only in England, but also in Belgium and Germany. Portland cement was used to build the London sewer system in 1859-1867.