Tears of The Tree

Tears of the Tree
This page intentionally left blank

Tears of the Tree
THE STORY OF RUBBER — A MODERN MARVEL
JOHN LOADMAN
AC
AC
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide in
Oxford New York
Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi
Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi
New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto
With offices in
Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece
Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore
South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam
Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press
in the UK and in certain other countries
Published in the United States
by Oxford University Press Inc., New York
# J. Loadman 2005
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
Database right Oxford University Press (maker)
First published 2005
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press,
or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate
reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction
outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department,
Oxford University Press, at the address above
You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover
and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Data available
Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India
Printed in Great Britain
on acid-free paper by
Biddles Ltd., King’s Lynn
ISBN 0–19–856840–1 (Hbk.) 978–0–19–856840–7
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
For Lina
Marriage for over thirty-five years to someone with a
passion for rubber must often have been difficult!
Acknowledgements
The basic framework of this book grew out of over thirty years of
reading and collecting snippets from colleagues at the Tun Abdul
Razak Research Centre (TARRC). The library there offered a
range of early twentieth century books on rubber technology
which were an invaluable source of primary data. Second-hand
bookshops and internet searches for referenced books slowly
filled in the gaps, as did the disposal of books and journals such as
the India Rubber Journal and India Rubber World to the Plastics
Historical Society (PHS) by universities which had no space in
their libraries (or syllabuses) for old science books.
More recently, information and illustrations have come to me
from a wide range of sources. Many of the illustrations come from
two locations, the photo-archives of the TARRC and the PHS.
The latter set of some 700 glass lantern slides has an interesting
history in that it was accumulated and catalogued in the 1920s by
the Research Association of British Rubber Manufacturers, where
it remained, virtually unknown and forgotten, until it was about
to be thrown away in the 1990s. Luckily, the archivist of the PHS,
Colin Williamson, saved them and they were donated to the PHS.
Acknowledgement is given to both of these sources for the use
of their collections and to Colin for scanning many of the slides
onto a compact disk for me. Other illustrations have a range of
histories. Those of the ball courts were supplied by my niece,
Nesta Waters, whilst Ridley’s letter to Turrill, dated 8 July
1950, was initially located in the ‘Miscellaneous Correspondence
Collection’ of the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew by Hew
Prendergast, and was supplied to me by Michele Losse and
viii Acknowledgements
Julia Steele. The final paragraph is published with the permission
of the Trustees of the Royal Botanical Gardens. The photograph
of H. M. Stanley was unaccountably missing from the two large
collections mentioned above and was supplied by the Royal
Geographical Society, whilst the illustration of the principles
of injection moulding was supplied by REP UK. Permission to
reproduce them is acknowledged. Wong Fot Jaw kindly e-mailed
me the photograph of the 1877 Hevea tree in Kuala Kangsar. The
cartoon showing ‘imps’ attacking a piece of rubber in Fig. 13.4
was drawn by my old TARRC colleague, Peter Lewis, and is used
with his permission. This truly is a case of one picture being better
than one thousand words.
The early history of the steamship Amazonas was found in the
Maritime Navy List Maritime Directory by Bryan Smalley, who
gave me its identification number—70893—from which later
records could be traced. Details of the voyage to and from South
America in the summer of 1876 including the crew agreement,
records, and release documents were located at the Maritime
History Archive of the Memorial University of Newfoundland by
Paula Marshall, whilst the Amazonas’ ‘bill of entry’ was found in
the Liverpool Records Office by another retired colleague and
friend, Dr Arthur Edwards.
Particular thanks are due to Frank James, a descendant of
Thomas Hancock’s brother, John, and the family archivist who
provided me with much biographical detail of the Hancock family.
It was he who set me on the trail of the more than 700 lantern
slides mentioned above. It was during this search that I contacted
Jackie McCarthy at the Rubber and Plastics Research Association
(Rapra) who, whilst searching unsuccessfully for the slides with
Sheila Cheese, came across a dust-covered box containing
numerous documents and correspondence relating to, or written
by, Thomas Hancock which had been ‘loaned’ to the forerunner
Acknowledgements ix
of Rapra in the early years of the twentieth century and had lain
‘lost’ ever since. My thanks are extended to Carole Lee at Rapra
for giving the documents to me to be returned to Frank James.
My thanks are also due to Ted Rogers of the Hackney Borough
Archives who was able to trace the location of Hancock’s home,
Marlborough Cottage, from census and land registry records,
although its well-established name was not found in any of the
documentation. This enabled the PHS to place a plaque on a site of
great significance to the whole of the industrialised world. I would
also like to thank Ovidio Lagos, who is currently writing a bio-
graphy of J. C. Arana, for supplying me with a portrait of the man
himself. Finally, my thanks go to my friends at the TARRC,
particularly Gail Reader for her help in many ways and David
Cawthra for supplying me with the cover photograph of the Hevea
tree being tapped.
If any illustrations have ‘sneaked through’ without being
accredited, I hope I will be forgiven and the original owner will be
content to see his or her work published here.
Contents
List of Illustrations xii
Outline xvii
Introduction xxv
1. The Mesoamericans and the ‘all-American

ball game’ 1
2. Europe goes west 12
3. What’s in a name? 22
4. The battles of the giants—Charles Goodyear 29
5. The battles of the giants—Thomas Hancock 45
6. Rubber goes east 81
7. The King and the Congo 108
8. Slaves to rubber 143
9. Competition! 164
10. The heavy mob 188
11. Chemicals and curatives 207
12. Padding or performance enhancer? 220
13. The rot sets in 239
14. Death and destruction 258
15. Timeline 277
Bibliography 315
Index 319
List of Illustrations
0.1 Mayan doll made from fabric and rubber. xxvi
1.1 Classical design of a ball court at Yagul. 3
1.2 Mayan ball players. 4
1.3 Ball court at Uxmal. Close-up of the ring. 5
1.4 Severed head inside a Mayan ball. 7
2.1 Charles Marie de la Condamine. 14
2.2 La Gataudière. 20
3.1a Hevea braziliensis 27
3.1b Castilloa elastica 27
3.1c Ficus elastica 27
3.1d Landolphia owariensis 27
4.1a Nathaniel Hayward 39
4.1b His concrete ‘rubber tree’ memorial. 39
4.2 Charles Goodyear. 42
4.3 Charles Goodyear’s tombstone. 44
5.1 Marlborough Cottage. 47
5.2 Hancock’s pickle. 51
5.3 Hancock’s first metal pickle. 52
5.4 Charles Macintosh. 54
5.5 The Hancock factory, Goswell Road, 1850. 55
5.6 The ‘Grasshopper’, built by Easton & Amos, 1822. 57
5.7 The Chas. Macintosh & Co. shop in Charing
Cross, 1840. 61
5.8 William Brockedon. 63
5.9 The Chas. Macintosh & Co. trademark—HAN
(d) COCK. 67
5.10 Stephen Moulton. 68
5.11 Rubber moulding of a pastoral scene which may
have been shown on the Hancock stand at the
Great Exhibition of 1851. 71
List of Illustrations xiii
5.12 The Chas. Macintosh and Co. factory in
Manchester as it was in 1857. 75
5.13 Thomas Hancock: (a) an ebonite medallion, and
(b) a portrait. 78
5.14a Hancock’s memorial in Kensal Green Cemetery
5.14b The inscription on Hancock’s memorial. 79
5.15 Plaque erected on the site of Marlborough
Cottage, 2003. 80
6.1 A smoked ball of rubber (pelle) being cut in half
in Pará to check quality. 82
6.2 Bill of Entry for the SS Amazonas, Liverpool,
12 June 1876: (a) heading, and (b) details. 91
6.3 The last paragraph of Ridley’s letter of 1950. 94
6.4 Henry Wickham with one of the original Heveas
at Heneratgoda in 1911. 98
6.5a One of the original Heveas planted at Kuala
Kangsar in 1877 100
6.5b Its associated plaque. 100
6.6a H. N. Ridley with a Hevea tree showing
herringbone tapping. 102
6.6b A modern tapping panel. Thin slivers are
removed each time the tree is tapped. By tapping
progressively the trunk can regenerate and the
process can continue. 102
6.7 Sir Henry Wickham, 12 october 1926. 105
6.8 Tapping Hevea trees on a modern Malaysian
plantation. 106
7.1 How to get rich in the Congo. 109
7.2 ‘Henry Morton Stanley’. 115
8.1 Graph of rubber exports from Pará, 1836–1872. 144
8.2 Sketch map of Brazil, Colombia, Peru, and
Ecuador showing the rubber rivers and towns. 146
8.3 Rubber dealing in Manaus in the early
twentieth century. 147
8.4 The public face of rubber tapping: (a) Amazonian
Seringueiros, and (b) tappers smoking rubber pelles. 152
xiv List of Illustrations
8.5 The not-so-public face of the rubber industry: an
Indian woman condemned to death by starvation
on the upper Putumayo. 159
8.6 J. C. Arana in 1925 as senator from Loreto. 163
9.1 Graph of natural and synthetic rubber production
1900–1997, and natural rubber production as
a percentage of the total elastomers produced
worldwide. 167
10.1 A simple spreading table. 189
10.2 Hancock’s 1840 masticator. 191
10.3 Single-roller masticators manufactured by
(a) Francis Shaw, and (b) David Bridge. 191
10.4 A three-roll calender. 193
10.5 Moulton’s three-roll calender—the Iron Duke. 194
10.6 Diagram of mastication and the addition
of additives. 195
10.7a An early electric two-roll mill 196
10.7b A modern sixty-inch two-roll mill. 196
10.8a A diagram of a Bridge–Banbury 198
10.8b A Banbury internal mixer. 198
10.9 Three-mould hydraulic press. 200
10.10 Milling and extruding. 202
10.11a A schematic illustration of injection moulding,
supplied by REP UK 203
10.11b A bathing cap being injection moulded. 203
10.12 Batch dipping of (a) bathing caps, (b) catheters,
and (c) balls and bladders. 205
10.13 Modern continuous production of dipped
medical gloves. 205
10.14 Various toys made from latex. 206
11.1 A rheometer printout for the vulcanisation of a
‘conventional’ mix. 212
11.2 Sheets of natural rubber after smoking in a
smokehouse. 215
11.3 A vulcanised blend of natural rubber and
nitrile rubber. 217
List of Illustrations xv
11.4a A two-phase polymer system with weak
bonding (white areas) between the phases 218
11.4b A three-phase polymer system where the
third polymer (thin black line around the
white areas) acts as a ‘compatibiliser’ between
the other two phases. 218
12.1 An advertisement for rubber fillers which
appeared in the early twentieth century. 221
12.2 A representative virgin carbon black as seen using
a transmission electron microscope. 227
12.3 A micrograph of (a) a two-elastomer co-continuous
blend, and (b) a two-elastomer blend showing
one discrete (dark) phase and one continuous
(light) phase. 230
12.4 Ebonite articles: (a) a jumble of necklace chains,
(b) pendants, (c) buttons and brooches, (d) detail
of one brooch (top right in (c)), (e) fountain pens,
(f ) flute, (g) pipe bowl, (h) revolver hand grips,
(i) brooch, ( j) Queen Victoria Jubilee medal,
(k) ornamental comb, (l) combs, (m) medicine
holders, and (n) cigarette lighter. 236–237
13.1 Examples of degraded rubber fabric. 240
13.2 ‘The Proofer’s Song’. 241
13.3a Substitution positions on a phenolic ring.
This is the basic phenolic group. At each point
(2–6) there is a C–H group and the substitution
positions are named. 245
13.3b Possible atmospheric degradation routes illustrated
by formulae. A commercial phenolic antioxidant
(top) has alkyl groups at the ortho- positions which
‘block’ it from further attack. The left-hand product
shows two molecules oxidised and joined together
to give a quinone. The right-hand product has been
nitrated in the para- position. 245
13.4 Pictorial illustration of possible routes to rubber
degradation—the ‘imps’. 246
13.5 Sulphur bloom seen under a microscope. 252
xvi List of Illustrations
13.6 Stress-induced surface oxidation showing loss of
the smooth surface. 255
14.1 ‘The Rubber Doll, A Christmas Story in Verse’. 259
14.2 Old tyres used as (a) boat fenders in Crete, and
(b) planters in Malaysia. 267
14.3 A Mexican house using old tyres filled with soil
to create a level stable (?) foundation. 268
14.4 ‘Tyred’ furniture. 269
14.5 A Malaysian rubber plantation (or factory?)
in 1996. 275
Outline
Introduction
What is it all about? Can a natural product which has been in use
for over three and a half thousand years still be relevant in today’s
age of synthetics? This book sets out to look at the history of
rubber, a unique material without which the modern world could
not exist, and poses the question ‘If it was not there would we
have invented it?’
1. The Mesoamericans and the ‘All-American

Ball Game’
Although the story of rubber begins between thirty and sixty
million years ago, genuine records of its use began with the earliest
settlements in Mesoamerica. This chapter tells of the history of the
‘ball game’ from its earliest beginnings with the Olmecs around
1600 bc through to Cortez in the sixteenth century ad. It discusses
the cultural significance of the game and its religious significance
as set out in the Mayan ‘Council Book’, the Popol Vuh.
This was the start of a long story of blood, sacrifice, and
murder which was to last into the twentieth century!
2. Europe goes West

This chapter covers the period from the early sixteenth century
through to the development of Western interest in the material
due to the exploration of Amazonia by Charles Marie de la
Condamine and his relationship with the ‘Father of rubber’,
xviii Outline
François Fresneau, towards the end of the eighteenth century.
La Condamine used many words relating to rubber for the first
time, including caoutchouc, generally translated as ‘the weeping
tree’, but it is suggested that its origins could be from ‘caa ochu’—an
ancient Inca word relating to mysticism and witchcraft—a con-
nection quite possible in view of the horrors of the Popol Vuh. The
chapter includes biographies of both men and describes their
cooperative work, including the presentation of the first scientific
paper on rubber, presented to the French Academy of Science
in 1751.
3. What’s in a Name?
Many plants produce latex and several plants of possible early
significance are described here. There was much confusion over
who was talking about what due to the range of botanical names
given to many of these plants, and it took a sudden flash of real-
isation by a young student that different people were talking about
different trees to make sense of the literature. The chapter also
looks at the history of rubber-related names (including ‘rubber’
itself ) which are common today and discusses their origins.
4. The Battles of the Giants—Charles Goodyear

Goodyear is well known as ‘the inventor of vulcanisation’ and this
chapter, basically a biography of this perpetually ill man who
sacrificed himself and his family in an attempt to cure rubber of its
propensity to turn sticky when hot and brittle when cold,
attempts to put some balance back into US presentations of the
man as a genius and to look at what he was really like—his life of
failures except for one fluke! It also contains a quote in full from a
letter printed in a magazine in the mid-1860s which suggests that
Outline xix
it was a friend of Goodyear—a Mr Eli—who actually made the
discovery (a letter believed to have been referenced nowhere
before). Goodyear’s own description of his actual moment of
discovery is so vague as to be historically useless and many dif-
ferent versions have been published since his original one. These
are discussed.
5. The Battles of the Giants—Thomas Hancock

Hancock was the founder of the UK rubber industry and this is his
biography. It draws on family archives and many documents
recently unearthed by the author ‘in a dusty box in a dusty
cupboard under some dusty stairs’ which had been ‘lost’ since the
early part of the nineteenth century. It looks at his siblings and
their contribution to the world of rubber, as well as his complic-
ated business relationship with Charles Macintosh. It describes
the machinery he invented to process rubber and how this ran
hand in hand with the industrial revolution—often at the ‘cutting
edge’ of what could be made. Hancock’s independent discovery
of vulcanisation, having seen from a sample of Goodyear’s
material that it could actually be done, is described in some detail
and should be recognised as possibly one of the first ‘design
experiments’ in chemistry. For many years from 1836 onwards he
was involved in numerous legal battles and these are detailed. The
interesting fate of his home in Stoke Newington (which the author
identified and documented for the first time) from his death until
1941 is briefly summarised. Many of the illustrations used in this
and other chapters were discovered in a unique collection of
lantern slides prepared in the early 1920s. The author discovered
these slides in the archives of the Plastics Historical Society where
they had been ‘forgotten’ after having being discarded by the
company which had them ‘taking up space’.
xx Outline
6. Rubber goes East
The first part of this chapter describes the work of Clements
Markham in organising the shipment of rubber seeds from
Amazonia to the UK and their propagation at Kew. This includes
Henry Wickham’s biography and the famous story of his ‘seed
theft’, as it became known after he told the story, initially in
1908. Investigations by the author discovered new documentation
on the ship which brought the seeds from Amazonia, including
detailed crew records and the bill of entry of the cargo into the
UK which indicated that much of Wickham’s story was untrue.
The question of how much was true is discussed. The irony of the
Brazilian Government in labelling Wickham as a thief when the
original idea of plantation rubber came from a Brazilian (at that
time there was no restriction on the export of the seeds), and
another Brazilian had stolen coffee seeds from Cayenne to begin
the Brazilian coffee industry, is mentioned.
The second part of the chapter is concerned with the shipment
of rubber seedlings to the Far East and the establishment of
plantations in Malaysia. It was a time of chaos and confusion, and
to this day some confusion exists as to whether the seedlings which
formed the basis of the plantation industry were those brought to
the UK by Wickham or by the plantsman, Robert Cross. Although
many authorities have firm ideas on this, mostly favouring
Wickham, the evidence is listed which shows that many quoted
references are selective and there must remain some doubt.
A paragraph of a letter written by Henry Ridley (the founder of the
plantation industry in Malaysia) which claims that the seedlings
were from ‘Cross’ plants and not from Wickham is illustrated.
Wickham’s life after delivering the seeds to Kew is docu-
mented. As with Goodyear, he seemed to be beset by failure and
the chapter ends with an assessment of his flawed character.
Outline xxi
7. The King and the Congo
This is the story of King Leopold II and his ‘rape’ of the Congo. It
tells of his early days and his desire to have an empire (and money)
for the new country of Belgium, and how he manipulated public
opinion into allowing him to take over a country larger than
Europe and to strip it of anything of value. He was not aware that
rubber could be a significant crop until demand rocketed and it
was found to be collectable from a vine growing throughout the
country. He enlisted the aid of H. M. Stanley and his biography is
contained in the chapter. Some details are given of the procedures
Leopold and his agents used to obtain the rubber. However,
nemesis was on the way in the name of Edmund Morel, a young
clerk in the office of a shipping company used by Leopold. The
chapter continues by describing his (initially) one-man attempts to
expose Leopold and shows how he got support from Roger
Casement and missionaries in the region to eventually persuade
the British Parliament to take action to publicise the truth and
force Leopold out of power. They never succeeded as he died
fighting a series of rearguard battles and it took the Belgian
Government a long time, even after Leopold’s death, to act.
The chapter ends with some statistics on the weight of rubber
obtained from the Congo, its value and its cost in lives—one
native for every 10 kg of rubber!
8. Slaves to Rubber
What happened in the Congo was also ongoing in Amazonia as
various ‘rubber barons’ carved up the river valleys and worked
them to death—along with the indigenous natives and those
bought in to labour with them. This chapter tells of these barons
and uses one particular exposé by a young American engineer,
xxii Outline
Walter Hardenburg, of Julio Arana to illustrate the cruelty in this
region. The story is of particular significance in the UK as Arana
established his company here to raise money and have ‘protection’
from the British establishment. It details Hardenburg’s adventures
on the Amazon and the court case in Britain in which Arana and
the British end of the company were brought to book. The ratio of
rubber to native was rather more cost effective than in the Congo,
with an estimated 150 kg rubber for every native life.
9. Competition!
Inevitably, the Victorian scientists believed that they could do
better than God (nature), so they set out to discover what rubber
actually was and then to synthesise a synthetic material which
would do the job just as well. Here we look at their attempts to
understand the structure of natural rubber and then the devel-
opment of the synthetic rubber industry. Particular reference is
made to the lives of Waldo Semon and Wallace Carothers who,
in the first half of the twentieth century, developed synthetic
rubbers (and plastics) which are still elastomers of choice in many
applications today and which set the basis of the synthetic rubber
industry.
The chapter concludes with a list of the majority of synthetic
rubbers available today, in many cases what they are used for, and
how they are designated.
10. The Heavy Mob

This, and the following chapters, although ‘scientific’ and ‘chemical’, are
written to be understood by non-technical or non-expert readers.
The growth of the rubber industry through the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries would not have been possible without the
Outline xxiii
development of machinery to mix rubber chemicals, mould the
mixture, and vulcanise (cure) it to produce rubber products. This
chapter describes this development from Hancock’s ‘pickle’ in
1819 to the modern equipment of today.
11. Chemicals and Curatives

A vulcanised rubber product of today contains many ingredients,
often a dozen or more, and a number of these are associated with
the vulcanisation process. This chapter shows how a realisation
that much more than just sulphur and rubber were involved in the
process developed, and how different collections of chemicals
(cure systems) were developed to give final products with optim-
ised properties for their particular applications.
12. Padding or Performance Enhancer?

Given the ever-increasing demand for rubber products through
the second half of the nineteenth century, a demand which is still
increasing today, and the shortage and expense of natural rubber,
it was not surprising that it was soon found possible to add a whole
raft of inorganic powders and still retain sufficient of the rubbery
properties to make a commercially viable end product. This
chapter investigates the history of the powders (fillers) used, the
peculiar effects produced by some, and a realisation that some of
them had much more to offer than just a ‘bulking-out’ effect.
13. The Rot Sets in

Although Hancock claimed that the advent of vulcanisation had
solved all the problems associated with rubber, he and many
others soon found that the anticipated working life of many goods
xxiv Outline
was cut short by degradation of the rubber so that, in the worst
cases, they just fell apart. Here we consider the reasons for those
problems and the development of chemicals which were able to
slow down, but never halt, the inevitable deterioration. Some of
these chemicals caused problems of their own and the reason for
one—the bright yellow colouration of fabric in contact with
rubber containing one type of chemical—shows that this is an
ongoing area of research.
14. Death and Destruction

As is implied in the previous chapter, all rubber goods have a finite
life and the user or the producer is left with the problem of waste
disposal. Recycling is the ‘buzz word’ of today and this final
chapter discusses what ‘recycling’ options are available to a
material which has been modified by vulcanisation so that, unlike
glass or paper, the original rubber cannot be reclaimed. It has
already been said that a rubber vulcanisate performs as it does
because of its numerous additives, so we discuss what problems
these might cause during any recycling process. Perhaps the final
paragraph provides a new light with which to look at the argument
between natural and synthetic elastomers.
15. Timeline
A chronological listing of some 600 events in the history of rubber
from the earliest days to 2000 ad.
Introduction
There can be no one living today who is not familiar with rubber
and its properties, but perhaps it is that very familiarity which has
bred, if not contempt, at least an unthinking acceptance of the
material and its position in society. This natural material has been
used for almost four thousand years that we know of. It may, even
today, be used ‘raw’ for crêpe soles of high-quality shoes, or
mixed with chemicals in the latex state, prior to having formers
dipped into it, to produce such articles as baby bottle teats,
condoms, or surgeons’ gloves. The mixed (or compounded) latex
may also be treated to produce latex thread suitable for the finest
underwear whilst, at the other extreme, dried rubber can be
mixed with more chemicals, often including carbon black, to
manufacture the strongest of engineering products, such as base
isolation units for buildings in earthquake zones, conveyer belts,
and, accounting for by far the greatest area of usage of elastomers,
aircraft, off-road vehicle, and car tyres. If you doubt the
remarkable properties of this material, then remember the faith a
motorist puts in those few square inches of tyre which are all that
hold a car (as well as its driver) on the wet tarmac as it powers
down a precipitous mountain road.
The history of the evolution of natural rubber, or NR as it is
usually known, is a fascinating story. It is also a story confused
in some important details, complex, and containing elements of
greed and mayhem where, even today, the truth is sometimes
obscure.
For at least three thousand years before the first Europeans saw
natural rubber, the Mesoamerican communities had developed
xxvi Introduction
Fig. 0.1 Mayan doll made from

fabric and rubber.
ways of collecting it and forming it into a wide variety of objects

ranging from toys (see Fig. 0.1) and domestic products through
medicinal devices and items relating to ritual sacrifice to tribute
payments. They had also discovered ways of treating many of
the objects to minimise their subsequent degradation during
service.
For some two hundred and fifty years following early European
reports concerning this remarkable material, the ‘developed
world’ was remarkably disinterested in its properties, and it was
only in the mid-eighteenth century that the work of two
Frenchmen, Charles Marie de la Condamine and François Fresneau,
inspired the earliest stirrings of today’s rubber industry. Their
reward was to be treated badly by history. La Condamine (1701–
1794) has several biographies on the Internet but only one, the
Introduction xxvii
‘Catholic Encyclopedia’ (sic), notes ‘It is claimed that he intro-
duced caoutchouc (natural rubber) into Europe.’ Of Fresneau
(1703–1770), who has the strongest claim of all to be called ‘the
father of the rubber industry’, even less is available unless one
knows that his descendants are the Chasseloup-Laubat family and
the family home is the Chateau de la Gataudière at Marennes.
Two or three lines on that website provide his epitaph. There is
also a picture on the site, but this contradicts the observation of
his biographer (as we shall see in Chapter 2) that none exists.
The embryonic industry grew slowly. It had a long history of
failed applications, virtually all due to the different climatic
conditions in Europe compared with those of Mesoamerica.
Nevertheless, it was kept alive by a small number of dedicated
scientists and entrepreneurs who believed that somehow rubber
could be cured of its problems, which were mainly its tendency
to become sticky when warm and brittle when cold.
The door to solving this problem was opened in 1839 by the
American Charles Goodyear, but he failed to patent his process
until 1844. By this time the first patent for a similar process, based
on the action between sulphur and rubber, had been granted to
Thomas Hancock in the UK (BP9952/1843). This caused con-
siderable resentment in the US, where it was claimed, an irrel-
evant point never denied by Hancock, that he only developed
his procedure after examining a piece of Goodyear’s ‘cured’, or
‘vulcanised’, rubber.
The embryonic industry passed rapidly to maturity without the
usual childlike and teenage tantrums and, by 1868, the Frenchman,
Turgan, was able to write:
Rubber has, at the present day, become not only an essential
factor of industry but also, and to an equal extent, of everyday
life . . . it enters, under every size and shape, into the equipment
of civilization.
xxviii Introduction
It is perhaps ironic that these words were written some ten
years before the invention of the internal combustion engine,
twenty years before the pneumatic tyre, and thirty years before
natural rubber latex medical gloves and condoms came into use.
World commercial production figures for natural rubber in
those early days vary from source to source, but during the 1850s
it was probably no more than one to two thousand tons per
annum. By 1875 it was close to 10 000 and at the turn of the
century it passed 50 000, reaching 100 000 tons just before the
Great War of 1914–1918. Today the world’s total production of
rubber is about 15 000 000 tons, 6 000 000 tons of which is
natural whilst 9 000 000 tons is synthetic.
Obviously, the growth in demand for natural rubber closely
paralleled the development of the motor car in the early years of
the twentieth century (the reasons for the development of the
synthetic rubber industry will be considered later), so the ques-
tion is, where did all this rubber originate? The answer lies
initially in the rubber-producing plants of the basins of the two
great tropical rivers, the Amazon and the Congo, with lesser
contributions from many other parts of the world. Later expan-
sion was fuelled from plantations established in Ceylon (Sri Lanka)
and The Federated States of Malaya (Malaysia), followed by India,
Indonesia, and Thailand.
The purpose of this book is to draw all these threads together
and to examine the story of natural rubber in its social context.
We shall begin by examining the ways in which it affected the lives
of the Mesoamerican Indians, consider how tales of its uses and
the material itself were brought to Europe, and then address the
periods of native African and South American exploitation prior
to the start of the Great War (1914–1918) which resulted in a
native death toll considerably greater than that of the war itself.
Introduction xxix
We will look at the famous characters of the last 500 years
who featured in the story, as well as the development of the
rubber industry through the nineteenth century. This will include
a chapter devoted to the way in which the seeds for the plantation
industry (literally) were planted. We shall address the synthetic
rubber industry, its genesis and development through the first
half of the twentieth century, and the direction in which the
whole rubber industry might be moving in the twenty-first
century.
In the last four chapters we shall consider the use of fillers to
extend the bulk and improve the properties of vulcanisates, and
take a brief look at our current understanding of the vulcanisation
process—a process which was hardly comprehended, although
used empirically, until the latter half of the twentieth century.
We shall review the problems that arise during the life cycle of
rubber articles and how chemicals to prevent their degradation
were developed. Finally, we shall look past old age to the death
of the product and how that great ‘buzz word’, recycling, could
apply to rubber vulcanisates.
The question is often raised, ‘If rubber had not existed would
man have invented it?’ This raises another interesting question.
If we had no concept of an elastic material would we think of
trying to create one and, if so, when? The whole synthetic rubber
industry developed from research in the late nineteenth century
when chemists ‘broke down’ natural rubber, recombined it to
an elastic material, and discovered polymerisation. It is also true
that many of the important plastics of today were discovered by
accident as chemists attempted to make rubbers. Even then, it
took the demands of the Second World War and blank cheques
from the US Government to produce viable substitutes for the
natural material. One could reasonably argue that, even if a
xxx Introduction
passionate desire had existed to invent a ‘bouncy’ or ‘stretchy’
substance, with no natural material to provide a starting-point it
would have been unlikely to have been discovered before well
into the second half of the twentieth century. That really would
have changed the world!
1
The Mesoamericans and the
‘All-American Ball Game’
The oldest known sample of rubber was reputed to have been

found in 1924, in Germany, fossilised in lignite deposits, and
some sixty million years old. It is described by Schidrowitz and
Dawson in History of the rubber industry (1952). This could be the
same material described by Auleytner in 1953, which was again
found in Germany and dated to the Eocene period, some thirty
million years ago. The last-known location of this was the
Jagiellonian University, Cracow in 1994, from whence it appears
to have vanished. Apart from this, and one reference to very
bouncy balls by Herodotus, who attributed their origins to the
Lydians, the early history of rubber is solely a story of the ‘New
World’, centred around the equatorial regions of South America
and Mexico.
The Mesoamerican civilisations of Central America are divided
into three periods, although there is some disagreement about the
exact dates involved. The Pre-classic or Formative Period is taken
as being from around 2000 bc to ad 300, whilst the Classic
Period, representing the golden age of the Maya, covered the
years ad 300 to ad 900. The Post-classic Period covers the decline
of the Maya from 900 to the early years of the sixteenth century
and the arrival of the Spanish.
2 Tears of the Tree
During these three periods there were numerous social units
which developed, thrived for varying times, and then collapsed.
The Mesoamerican era started with the ‘corn people’ or Mokaya
who, as their name implies, are believed to be the first settled
communities, as opposed to hunter–gatherer tribes.
The Mokaya were followed by the Olmecs (c. 1500–300 bc),
whose name means ‘rubber people’. The reasons for this are not
fully understood, but may have been due to the significance to
them of the famous Mesoamerican ball game which we know was
played in formal ball courts from as early as 1600 bc and which
represents the earliest certain use of natural rubber. Today the
Olmecs are best known for their massive sculptures of individual
heads, weighing up to forty tons each. These are now believed to
be individual ‘portraits’ of their leaders which were disfigured on
their deaths. The Olmec region was south of the Gulf of Mexico
around La Venta in Tabasco and San Lorenzo, Tenochtitlan and
Laguna de los Cerros in Veracruz.
To talk of the Mesoamerican ball game is, perhaps, being a little
simplistic since the game has a history extending over many
centuries. It was played in Mexico (tlachtli), where it was seen and
described by the conquistadors, by the Maya (pok-ta-pok), and by
the islanders of the Greater Antilles (Batey). In all, the ball game is
known to have extended as far south as Paraguay and north into
what is now Arizona. Over a considerable timescale involving so
many different and developing cultures it is inevitable that local
variations would appear. The ‘game’ which the conquistadors saw
and wrote of in the sixteenth century certainly seems to have
differed in several ways from those played much earlier in the
area’s cultural development.
Our knowledge of the older versions of the game is obtained
from classic art and archaeology. The ball courts were built in the
shape of a capital ‘I’, with the length varying from that of a tennis
The Mesoamericans and the ‘All-American Ball Game’ 3
Fig. 1.1 Classical design of a ball court at Yagul.
court to a football field or longer, see Fig. 1.1. The central flat
strip was narrow when compared with the length and both sides
were flanked by sloping banks which were used to keep the ball in
play, rather like the sloping rooves of a real tennis court. At each
end were markers, possibly indicating the ‘goal line’, and a later
refinement was the incorporation of eyes or rings, one on each side,
set in the top of the sloping banks, see Fig. 1.3. Most courts were
aligned north–south and some locations had a number of different
sized courts. The record seems to be held by El Tajin in Veracruz
which had eleven courts, whilst one of the most famous Mayan
ruined towns known today, Chichen Itza, had at least five. Here a
great ‘wishing well’ has been excavated which was found to contain
many sacrificial items (including human remains), rubber figur-
ines, and torches with rubber cores which were burnt to generate
thick black smoke, possibly to suggest rain clouds—homeopathic
4 Tears of the Tree
witchcraft! The earliest ‘written’ records which refer to natural
rubber in the Americas are Aztec picture writings dating from the
sixth century ad which show that rubber was used as a material
for paying tributes and was also associated with devil-worship.
Whilst most ball courts are in prominent positions near the
cultural/religious centres of towns, some have been found at the
boundaries between adjacent kingdoms, and it has been postu-
lated that these could have been used for battles between rulers’
champions to settle ‘inter-kingdom’ rivalries and disputes.
Teams varied in size from two to six and the general idea
seemed, initially, to be to get the solid rubber ball, which varied
in size from four to twelve inches in diameter, past the opponents’
‘goal line’. The ball had to be kept in the air and all parts of the
body could be used except the hands and feet. Each player wore
protective clothing, knee and elbow pads, as well as a carved
wooden or leather ‘yoke’ around his waist with which, by
swivelling his hips, he could hit the ball with considerable force.
Fig. 1.2 Mayan ball players.

Although all experts agree that hands and feet could not be used,
two eighth-century Mayan sculptures show players holding the
ball—half time?
Points were scored for ‘goals’ and also if the opponents allowed
the ball to touch the central flat playing area. With the advent of
the rings, additional points were scored if the ball could be
projected through the ring, see Fig. 1.3. By the time that the
Spanish saw the game being played, they were treated to an ‘all
fun and games’ version, with one writer describing how it was the
custom for any player who succeeded in putting the ball through a
ring to be awarded the clothes and jewellery of any spectator(s)
whom he could catch.
Fig. 1.3 Ball court at Uxmal. Close-up of the ring.

6 Tears of the Tree
Cortez was so amused by the game that he took two teams (and
some balls) back to Spain with him, where they were painted by
the German artist, Weiditz.
Although the Spanish were presented with a purely sporting
activity, a study of Mayan carvings and pottery shows that the
history of the ball game had considerable religious significance and
was also bound up with ritual sacrifice. For instance, a relief in
Izapa shows a decapitated (presumably defeated) ball-game player
at the feet of the victor who holds his decapitated head, whilst a
relief at El Tajin shows the classic Mayan scene of the loser having
his heart cut out as an offering to the underworld to release the
Sun for another cycle. There are many references to defeated
warriors being forced to play against their captors prior to execu-
tion. We do not know if they were freed if they won, but in one
illustration the losers were rolled up into balls and then rolled
down an adjacent pyramid to their death.
The use of the decapitated head, encased in rubber, as a ball
is described in the Mayan ‘Council Book’—the Popol Vuh—and
is illustrated in the fraction shown in Fig. 1.4 from a more
descriptive illustration. The head is seen in profile within the ball.
The religious significance of the ball game is most completely
described in the Popol Vuh and the actual game, as played in
the ball court, is a re-enactment of Mayan mythology, with the
movement of the ball representing the cyclic journeys of
the Sun and Moon through the sky, sinking to Earth only to rise
again.
The Mayan civilisation, which extended from around 1000 bc
to ad 1500, had its origins in those Mokaya who moved further
south and west, occupying the lowlands of the Yucatan Peninsular,
with its most famous town of Chichen Itza, and the highlands of
Southern Chiapas and Guatemala. The Maya created extensive
cities built with carved and shaped stone, even though they were
Fig. 1.4 Severed head inside a Mayan ball.

without metal tools or wheels to assist in the transportation of
building materials. Their architecture is at least comparable with
that of the ancient Egyptians. The cities contained many ball
courts, some dating back to the earliest days of their emergence.
In the highlands of Guatemala is the ancient town of Quiché,
the home of the Quiché Maya. The Popol Vuh is superficially their
history, starting from before the dawn of life with the ‘divine
matchmaker’, Xpiyacoc, and his wife, the ‘divine midwife’,
Xmucane, who are the oldest of the gods. The saga continues
from myth through history to conclude in the mid-1550s, at the
time of its writing. It is, however, much more than just folklore
and the Quiché Maya believed that within it lay the answers to all
of life. It was consulted at the meetings of their council and this
gave it its name—the ‘Council Book’. The ages of the stories
are unknown but must date from the beginnings of the Mayan
empire.
8 Tears of the Tree
The book was written anonymously in alphabetical Mayan,
rather than in hieroglyphics, by high-ranking Maya who, ironically,
had been taught the alphabet by missionaries so that they could
read the scriptures! At the very beginning of the eighteenth
century Francisco Xinénez, a priest, saw the manuscript and
copied it, dividing each page in two, down the centre, so that
he could add a Spanish translation opposite the Mayan text. After
many travels this manuscript eventually came to rest in Chicago in
the year 1911.
The significance of the book to the history of natural rubber is
the prominence given within it to the ancient Mesoamerican ball
game. Xpiyacoc and Xmucane had twin sons, One Hunahpu and
Seven Hunahpu, and, bearing in mind that the characters are all
gods, they jointly fathered with Blood Moon another set of twins,
Hunahpu and Xbalanque. These five characters are the heroes and
their adventures take place before the gods had managed to create
humans.
Both sets of twins play the ball game and the book follows an
interwoven pattern of stories centred around the game and the
battles they have with other gods. The individual episodes do not
follow in chronological order, but are broadly divided into their
adventures above ground and in the underworld. There are more
complications in that, whilst the characters are generally treated
as being on a terrestrial plane, the tales can also be interpreted at
the celestial/astronomical/astrological levels, with various char-
acters being (or becoming) stars. Places have both terrestrial and
celestial significance. The episodes therefore tell of the creation of
the Sun, the Moon, and the stars in human terms, whilst the tales
provide an astrological ‘clock’ or calendar on which the Quiché
Maya based their life.
The battle of Hunahpu and Xbalanque with the gods ends in their
death, which is interpreted as their victory since they are reborn
as the Moon and Sun. The tests to which Blood Moon are put have
celestial significance as they define the phases of the Moon.
The Popol Vuh clearly shows that the ball game was a central
part of the Mayan culture and provides firm documentary evid-
ence of its religious significance. In referring to rubber as the
‘blood of sacrifice’ it provides evidence that at least some ball
games were played as re-enactments of the sagas told in the book
and that the vanquished players were sacrificed, whilst the word
the Quiché use today for a graveyard is ‘jom’, the word used in the
book for the ball court.
Continuing the history of the Mesoamerican peoples, we find
that to the north-west of the Olmecs was the cultural region of
Teotihuacan, which began around 200 bc and which lasted for
some 900 years. It was located in the central section of the Valley
of Teotihuacan, which is on a 2000-metre plateau in the eastern
part of the basin of Mexico. Teotihuacan was a trading state and
data indicate that there were well-developed trading routes
throughout Mesoamerica, with the Teotihuacans spreading their
economic and ideological influence across the whole area. In
ad 700 Teotihuacan was destroyed by tribes from the north, and
this gave rise to a cultural wilderness which lasted until the rise of
the Toltecs some 250 years later.
The Toltecs were a warrior people who were important in that
they maintained and extended the Teotihuacan culture. Their
name is not a tribal name but simply means ‘craftsman’ in the
Nahua language of Mexico, and it was used to distinguish those
Mexican peoples who retained the culture and characteristics of
the Teotihuacan peoples from others. By now the Mayan civil-
isation was in decline and the Toltecs expanded into large areas of
their territory. The resulting culture is called ‘Toltec–Mayan’ and
its greatest centre was at Chichen Itza on the Yucatan Peninsula.
Around ad 1200, their dominance over the region faded.
10 Tears of the Tree
The last great period of cultural unification came under the
Aztecs who, by the end of the Mesoamerican era in the fifteenth
century, had built the most complex urban culture in Native
American history. According to their own legends, the Aztecs
(also known as the Mexica or Tenochca) came from north or
north-west Mexico and were originally a group of tribal peoples
living on the margins of ‘civilised’ Mesoamerica. In the thirteenth
century they settled in the central basin of Mexico where they
eventually found refuge on the small islands in Lake Texcoco.
Here, in 1325, they founded the town of Tenochtitlan, some
60 km south-west of the site of Teotihuacan. They then set about
creating an empire which, during the fifteenth century, was only
surpassed in size (in the Americas) by that of the Incas in Peru.
The Aztecs are the most extensively documented of all the
Mesoamerican civilisations as Spanish soldiers, priests, and his-
torians left numerous reports of all aspects of their life and cul-
ture. These showed them to have a highly sophisticated
intellectual and religious outlook on life which placed their society
as an integral part of the cosmos. The urban structure was based on
individual specialisation, which included administrators, traders,
and agronomists. The administrative structure was financed by
tributes and it is recorded that their last king, Montezuma,
received, inter alia, 16 000 balls of rubber each year as part of this.
Although the ball game appears to have covered a vast area, the
same is not true for the artefacts manufactured by the natives of
the Amazon or Peruvian regions, which did not spread in the same
way, possibly because they had much more practical and/or
religious values. One example was the use of rubber for the
manufacture of shoes. The Amazonian native was concerned with
protecting his feet and did this by a straight over-dipping process,
with his feet as the mould, to produce a perfectly fitting pair of
galoshes. In the more civilised (questionably) courts of Mexico
joke shoes were made in such a way that it was impossible to walk
on them without tottering and falling over. They were used to
shoe the dwarfs and hunchbacks who provided light relief for their
lords and masters. Perhaps the most unusual recorded use was by
the women of the Huitoto tribe of the upper Putumayo who
coated their newborn children with latex to keep them warm
immediately after their birth.
On 21 April 1519 Montezuma was musing on Aztec folklore,
which predicted that on that day the fearsome god Quetzalcoatl
would return to claim his kingdom. He would arrive by ship
from the east, would have a light skin, a black beard, and be robed
in black. Later in the day, Fernando Cortez arrived at the court
of Montezuma in Tenochtitlan and the Mesoamerican era was
essentially over.
However, by this time the natives over a vast region of
equatorial America had developed processes for manufacturing
articles from rubber which were at the forefront of technological
innovation and which would take the ‘developed world’ a further
300 years or more to improve upon. The basis of many of these
processes involved a controlled combination of drying and ster-
ilising the latex products by smoking them over fires fuelled with
certain nuts.
2
Europe goes West
The prehistory of rubber took many years to deduce and resulted

from archaeological excavations carried out right through to
modern times and which are, indeed, ongoing today. The earliest
‘Western’ references to natural rubber inevitably involve
Christopher Columbus, but the honour for the first certain ref-
erence to rubber in print belongs to Pietro, Martire d’Anghiera,
who talked of ‘gummi optima’, and described how it was obtained
from certain trees as a white juice which dried to a transparent
material, the properties of which were improved by fumigation.
For a few years the literature flowed. In 1535 Captain Gonzalo
Fernandez de Oviedo gave a detailed description of the ball
games played in the Greater Antilles, whilst Antonio de Herrera
Tordesillas described how Cortez had watched such a game at the
court of Montezuma.
Probably the first and certainly one of the most prescient ref-
erences to appear in popular print can be found in The alchemist,
written by Ben Jonson in 1610. The character Sir Epicure
Mammon, in describing the luxuries he would get when he had the
secrets of the philosopher’s stone, said, ‘I will have all my beds
blown up as down is too hard’; a remarkable flight of fancy because
no suitable material existed at that time to contain the air. It was
only in 1615 that Torquemada wrote of how his men discovered,
or were shown by the South American natives, how to waterproof
Europe goes West 13
their capes by dipping them in the juice from certain trees—what
we today call latex. We might not yet have a material for Sir
Epicure Mammon but it is on the way. Torquemada also described
the making of footwear, bottles, and a variety of hollow goods by
the process of dipping over clay formers and then breaking out the
latter. The medicinal properties of oil distilled from rubber were
documented, including its efficacy in stopping haemorrhages when
taken internally. His description of the relationship between
rubber and devil-worship and other barbaric rites tied in closely
with the Aztec picture writings mentioned earlier. He also
included the first observations relating to the collection of the
milky fluid. The (correct type of ) tree had its trunk incised with an
axe and, from this, the fluid flowed. It was usually collected in
special vessels but, if none was available, the natives would cover
their skin with it and, when it had dried, peel it off in sheets.
Perhaps this is why the natives had relatively hairless bodies!
In 1653 Cobo wrote about coating long stockings with latex
to protect his legs when walking in the tropical jungle, and the
extension of this practice to hats and boots developed into an
established industry in Mexico by the late eighteenth century. In
the 1790s latex-coated fabric bags were manufactured to trans-
port mercury. These replaced the chamois leather bags that had
previously been used; a development much approved of by the
chamois. However, for now, neither the reports nor the rubber
products which came out of the Americas stimulated more than a
passing interest in Spain or Portugal. The latter were simply
regarded as curiosities, whilst there was no appreciation of the
commercial landslide which was shortly to come.
From 1615 to 1736 there appears a literary void, but from
the latter date the start of the Western rubber industry can be
set. This was due to the activities of two Frenchmen, Charles
Marie de la Condamine (1701–1774) (see Fig. 2.1) and François
Fig. 2.1 Charles Marie de la Condamine.
Fresneau (unfortunately, the biographer of François Fresneau,

his great-grandson, The Compte de Chaseloup Loubat, states that
there is no known portrait or other illustration of Frensneau).
La Condamine was an exceptional gentleman of the eight-
eenth century. Born at the turn of the eighteenth century,
he was a soldier, social climber, dilettante, and poet, but he
was also a friend of Voltaire’s and had interests in chemistry,
astronomy, and botany. He studied mathematics at the Jesuit
Europe goes West 15
College of Louis-le-Grand in Paris. On leaving the College, he
joined the French army when war broke out. Although he was
recognised for his bravery, he soon decided that army life did
not suit him.
In 1730 he joined the Académie Royale des Sciences and
sailed to Algiers followed by Alexandria, Palestine, Cyprus, and
Constantinople, where he remained for five months. On his
return to Paris, he published mathematical and physical obser-
vations of his voyage. In 1735 he joined an expedition to Peru to
measure the length of a degree of meridian at the equator. The
expedition was led by Louis Godin and the third scientist was
Bouguer. The three arrived by different routes, la Condamine
going overland from Manta, and the other two sailing to Quito
where they joined up. Soon after his arrival in Quito, in 1736,
la Condamine sent a package of rubber to the Académie with
a long memoir describing many aspects of its origins and pro-
duction. These included the words ‘Hévé’ as the name of the
tree from which the milk or ‘latex’ flowed, and the name given
to the material by the Maninas Indians, namely ‘cahuchu’ or
‘caoutchouc’.
La Condamine’s word ‘caoutchouc’ is generally taken to be
based on the Indian ‘caa ochu’—‘the tree that weeps’—but, in
view of the early religious significance of rubber, it is interesting
to note that in a dictionary of the Kechuan language of the ancient
Incas, written by Holguin in 1608, he translated ‘cauchu’ as ‘he
who casts the evil eye’, whilst other writers have also noted the
connection between the word and things magical. It has also been
related to a native word for blood, and this could complete the
circle to the weeping (bleeding) tree romanticised by Vicki Baum.
Regardless of which is correct (and both could be), these are the
likely origins of the current German and French words ‘kautschuk’
and ‘caoutchouc’.
La Condamine later described the smoking process by which
the natives made the rubber stable and the wide range of goods
which were produced, including the following:
They [the natives on the banks of the Amazon] make bottles of it in

the shape of a pear, to the neck of which they attach a fluted piece
of wood. By pressing them, the liquid they contain is made to flow
out through the flutes and, by this means, they become real
syringes.
From this the Portuguese called the tree ‘pao de Xiringa’ (syringe
wood) and the rubber tappers or harvesters ‘Seringueiros’. The
tree which la Condamine called ‘Hévé’ we now know as ‘Castilloa
elastica’, but he did not realise that the one he described a decade
later, the ‘pao de Xiringa’ or Seringa tree, was different.
The use by the Portuguese of words derived from the native
syringe was extensive. Not only are the labourers called
‘seringueiros’, but the village which is the centre of their daily toil is
called a ‘seringal’. The emphasis on one particular instrument
which the Indians manufactured is possibly due to the uses to
which the syringes were put. La Condamine said that at any
banquet or meal with the Omaguan natives it would be impolite
not to offer each guest a syringe filled with hot water to be used
before sitting at table. He does not go into details, but the
sentence is part of a section on medical practices. Fordyce Jones
swallows his scruples and mentions enema syringes as being
produced by the Amazonian Indians, and at least one author has
queried as to whether coming into contact with these practices
might have been the origin of ‘The great American sense of
humour’.
‘Latex’, the word used by la Condamine to describe the juice of
the tree, was derived from the Spanish word for milk and remains
in use to this day.
Europe goes West 17
Godin, Bouguer, and la Condamine were soon involved in
arguments which resulted in them all making (different) inde-
pendent measurements. The work was completed in 1743 and the
three began their returns by different routes. La Condamine
decided to travel east, following the Amazon to the coast. He did
not find the female warriors he had heard tell of, the Amazons
from which the river’s name comes. The Amazons were first
described by Francisco de Orellana who had followed the same
route two hundred years earlier, fleeing from Pizarro, when he
was attacked by long-haired natives dressed in simple shifts whom
he assumed (erroneously) to be female. However, la Condamine
did write the first scientific account of the Amazon which was later
published as the Journal du voyage fait par ordre du roi a l’e´quateur in
1751. In Guiana he met François Fresneau, who was an engineer
by profession and a botanist by inclination. Fresneau became
fascinated with la Condamine’s rubber and was the first person to
realise that this was a potentially useful industrial material.
François Fresneau (1703–1770) was an unlikely soulmate for
la Condamine. He was born in the house which his mother had
brought with her as her dowry when she married François’ father,
also called François, in 1700. It, and the town of Cayenne in
French Guiana, were to be his physical and spiritual homes for
much of his life.
In 1726 he moved to Paris to study mathematics and drawing
under M. Duplessis, and after two years became a certified
engineer. A very severe attack of smallpox interrupted his studies
and left him permanently disfigured (perhaps the reason for the
lack of paintings or sketches of him), but he recovered and went
on to become a certified astronomer in 1730. Soon afterwards he
went to stay at the house of the Marquise d’Ambres, whose husband
was the Lieutenant Général de la Haute-Guyenne, where he was
to draw up plans to restore his family home, ‘La Gataudière’. The
Marquise was to be his protector until her death some thirty years
later. One of her first actions was to introduce him to the
‘Minister of the Marine’—Maurepas—who obtained for him in
August 1732 the post of engineer at Cayenne in Guiana with a
specified brief both to design and construct new fortifications for
the town and to investigate the local flora in the hope of finding
some new plants for the ‘Jardin du Roy’.
He set off for the New World in late 1732, and by 1733 had
written to the Minister describing the poor state of repair of the
fortifications and given his ideas as to how they should be
reconstructed. Three years of frustration followed as political
in-fighting took place in France, but in 1736 the plans were
approved by the King. He was still unable to begin work in
Guiana so, in the winter of 1737/38 he returned to his home,
‘La Gataudière’, where he met Cécile Solain-Baron whom
he married on 10 June 1738. The two of them returned to
Guiana, again to be involved in political manoeuvrings, until on
9 November 1740 it was made clear to everyone by Maurepas
that the plans had the King’s approval and must go ahead
immediately. Money was made available and he was at last able
to start work. He was now content in this area of his brief and
felt able to pursue the second part of it, namely to examine the
flora of Guiana.
It was during this period that he and la Condamine met and
carried out their first scientific research together. However, by
now la Condamine was keen to return to France and pick up his
social life after a ten year absence. He returned with many notes,
200 natural history specimens and works of art, and found time
to write six books on his experiences. It is worth noting that
la Condamine also found and reported on the cinchona tree,
another ‘white man’s miracle tree’ which was later ‘transplanted’ to
the east by Sir Clements Markham to provide a source of quinine.
Europe goes West 19
Meanwhile, Fresneau continued his work, and in a letter to
Maurepas dated 19 February 1746 he made his first reference to
the milk of a tree which the Portuguese used to make a variety of
objects (including syringes). However, in France it was regarded
as just a curiosity within a long report on the various flora which
could be transplanted to the ‘Jardin du Roy’.
In 1748 Fresneau returned to France in ill health to find his wife
dead, worn out by seven pregnancies and life in Guiana. It was
whilst recovering at Marennes that he wrote his first ‘memoire’
describing the physical properties of rubber and how he saw its
potential for uses in the west. He particularly emphasised the
benefits for France and Guiana in its promotion. The memoire went
to the new Minister for the Colonies, Rouillé, in the summer of
1749. He was not interested, but it eventually fell into the hands
of The Academy of Science in Paris and thence to la Condamine
who, having known and worked briefly with Fresneau, gave it his
support and presented it to the Academy on 21 February 1751.
In the same year Fresneau married Anne-Marie Horric
de Laugerie and the two of them, together with Fresneau’s
only surviving child, Charles, settled in Marennes to rebuild
‘La Gataudière’. The re-build included a laboratory on the ground
floor, where he could continue his research into rubber, and
particularly his search for a solvent which would enable him to
prepare solutions which could be used for dipping, coating, etc. in
the same way that fresh latex was used in Amazonia.
This research continued for a number of years and gradually
some interest was shown by the Government. In 1762 Vaucanson
asked M. Bertin, the Controller-General of Finances, to write to
Fresneau asking him to set down the results of his labours, and this
he duly produced in February 1763, a document of some note,
being the first scientific research paper on natural rubber. With
the documents was a letter explaining that he had prepared
waterproof fabrics by dipping the materials in solutions of rubber
with turpentine as a solvent. Having received a ‘thank you’
from Bertin and nothing more, Fresneau asked his old friend,
la Condamine, if his research could be presented to the Academy
of Science. La Condamine said there would be no problem, but
suggested that it should be rewritten as a scientific paper rather
than retaining its existing form as a report to the minister. This
Fresneau did and it was submitted in March 1765.
However, at some time in 1763, two scientist friends of
M. Bertin, Hérrisant and Macquer, claimed independently to have
discovered turpentine as the best solvent for rubber, and they
went down in history for that discovery. Unfortunately, there is
no documentation in the Academy’s records for the year 1763 of
their submissions, so we are left to wonder whether they had a
private briefing from Bertin or whether it was just a coincidence!
Fresneau certainly believed the former, as an exchange of letters
between himself and Macquer clearly shows. Perhaps Britain had
Fig. 2.2 La Gataudière.

Europe goes West 21
a hand in Macquer’s good fortune; in 1766 Macquer had pub-
lished his famous Dictionnaire de chymie which, incidentally, con-
tained no mention of rubber, and this was translated into English
by a ‘lunatic’—or more correctly, James Kier, a knowledgeable
chemist and member of the Lunar Society of Birmingham. The
translated dictionary was extremely well received and brought
Macquer to the attention of the British scientific community
which subsequently published his work, again in English translation.
Fresneau, on the other hand, received little appreciation outside
his native country.
That was how things stood when François Fresneau died on
25 June 1770. However, his work had raised natural rubber from
a passing curiosity to a useful industrial raw material, and he
should be given his long overdue recognition for realising and
developing its potential.
It is gratifying to note that at the end of the twentieth century
his greatgrandson, the Compte de Chassloup Loubat, restored
‘La Gataudière’, including Fresneau’s laboratory, to its former
glory and it is now open to the public. It can be found at
Marennes, near La Rochelle in south-west France (see Fig. 2.2).
3
What’s in a Name?
At this point it is appropriate to consider what plants provide us

with latex (hence rubber), the varieties which exist, and their
relative merits to the rubber collectors of two centuries ago.
Natural rubber, India rubber, or caoutchouc are all names for the
solid elastic material isolated, one way or another, from the ‘milk’
or latex of various plants. Whilst these plants tend to occur in the
tropics, there are many which grow in the temperate zones and
also produce this material, although not in any commercial sense.
Perhaps the most common sources in the UK are the dandelion
and the goldenrod—snap their stalks and the white fluid is latex,
which will dry to give rubber. Latex is therefore the white milk-
like fluid which is obtained by wounding the plant. In the case
of the most common commercial source today, the tree Hevea
braziliensis, a sloping incision is cut in the outer bark from which
the latex will ‘bleed’ and the wound is refreshed by removing
slivers from the surface of the cut on subsequent tapping days.
The word ‘rubber’ itself did not come into use until the 1770s
when Joseph Priestly observed that Nairne’s of London (an artists’
materials shop) was selling a half-inch cube of material for erasing
pencil marks for three shillings. He called it ‘India rubber’, having
found from whence it came, but it was another hundred or more
years before this was adopted by scientists who preferred the
‘classical’ caoutchouc. The 1868 edition of Chambers encyclopaedia
What’s in a Name? 23
enters the material under ‘caoutchouc’, whilst the Encyclopaedia
Britannica of 1876 enters it under ‘rubber’, and in the same year a
chapter in Bevan’s volumes on British manufacturing industries is
headed ‘Guttapercha and India-rubber’. From then on the word
‘rubber’ is used in the UK.
Popular usage of the word became commonplace much earlier.
Charles Dickens, writing in the Pickwick papers in 1837, describes
how the lines on Mr Pickwick’s brow melted away: ‘like the
marks of a blacklead pencil beneath the softening influence of
India rubber’, and that Mr Dowler, ‘bounced off the bed as
abruptly as an India-rubber ball’.
In the twentieth century the application of this one word
(rubber) expanded in common usage to include an ever-growing
range of synthetic elastomers, something we shall return to later.
It is interesting to look at the origins of the word ‘caoutchouc’ a
little closer, but first let us consider the names of the trees from
which this material comes as this also provides an interesting
story.
Fernando Hernandez produced a great survey of the natural
resources of Mexico in the 1570s (Rerum medicarum bovae Hispaniae
thesaures) which was only published in 1649. Here he wrote
extensively about the rubber-producing tree which is today
identified as Castilla elastica. He wrote:
When the bark is tapped a gum flows out which is called ‘holli’ by
the Indians . . . the gum is so resilient that, properly prepared and
shaped into round balls, these balls can be used for the same
purpose as our Spanish inflated leather balls.
In 1723, Father A. J. de la Neuville wrote of the peculiar gum

(rubber) which the Indians of French Guiana used to make various
artefacts and ornaments. He made no comments about the origins
of the gum and had probably therefore not seen its collection, but,
from his description, it seems likely that it was obtained from a
vine of the order of Apocynaceae—probably landolphia.
The Castilla elastica was also the tree described by la
Condamine, and from this came the rubber samples which he sent
to France in the 1730s. However, a decade later he saw the
‘syringe tree’ and did not realise it was different. Almost cer-
tainly, he had not seen the original Castilla but had only heard
reports of it. It was this ‘syringe tree’ which François Fresneau
found in French Guiana and wrote about to la Condamine and the
Paris Academy of Science. By a pure fluke he appears to have
found the one and only Hevea braziliensis in that country, and it is
not surprising that his drawings caused confusion some time later.
He did not give it its current name but just referred to the ‘enema
tree’, after the stories of the uses to which the syringes prepared
from the ‘syringe tree’ were put.
Pierre Barrère can lay claim to having been the second Western
person to have actually seen rubber being produced. In 1743 he
belatedly published his survey of the natural resources of French
Guiana, in which he described how natives made the same rubber
articles as those described by la Neuville from the milk obtained
from a vine which he identified as belonging to the order of
Apocynaceae. Since he was in French Guiana between 1721 and
1724, this must have predated the observations of la Condamine.
In 1775 J. C. F. Aublet published a book on the plants of
French Guiana, and in it he recorded a ‘rubber tree’ which we
now know could not have been the same as Fresneau’s. However,
at that time, Aublet believed that his tree, la Condamine’s, and
Fresneau’s were the same. He came up with the name ‘Hevea
peruviana’, thus giving la Condamine credit for his early discov-
eries. With a second thought, he then reasoned that, since he had
not seen la Condamine’s tree but only the ones in French Guiana,
he had better play safe, so he renamed his tree ‘Hevea guyanensis’
(its present name). This upset many people who objected to a
‘localised’ name being given to a tree found all over the north
of South America. At the same time, Aublet was castigating
Fresneau for the poor quality of his sketches which looked nothing
like his (Aublet’s) tree. One of Aublet’s other claims to fame
was that he was the first Westerner to eat rubber seeds and,
whilst finding them quite oily, was not averse to them.
In 1794 Vincente Cervantes presented a paper at the Royal
Botanical Gardens on the various rubber-producing trees of
Mesoamerica and suggested that the trees of the Brazilian and
Mexico rubber industries were different. It seemed to get little in
the way of publicity and it was left to the Dutchman, Arnoud
Juliaans, to study all the literature and shout the obvious for the
world to see—THERE WERE AT LEAST TWO DIFFERENT
TREES!
The name Castilla elastica has been used earlier but its origins
should be given here. Juan Diego del Castillo was a botanist who
joined Cervantes in Mexico. He died there in 1793 aged forty-
nine, and left a considerable sum of money towards the printing of
their projected book Flora Mexicana. Cervantes chose the name
Castilla elastica in honour of his friend.
In 1807 Persoon called the ‘syringe’ or ‘enema’ tree ‘Siphonia
elastica’, whilst in 1811 Willdenhow, Director of the Berlin
Botanical Gardens, came up with the name ‘Hevea braziliensis’.
The dispute was only resolved in 1865/66 by Müller, who sup-
pressed ‘Siphonia’ in favour of Willdenhow’s name which illus-
trated the Aztec origins of rubber technology and the geographical
location of the tree. It is now appreciated that Hevea braziliensis
is almost completely located south of the river Amazon in north-
west Brazil, north Bolivia, and east Peru, whilst other rubber-
producing trees of the genus Hevea are located north of the river
to a latitude of about 6 N.
Having dealt with the trees, we can now consider the material
which we get from them. There are four New World native
words for rubber and these are written as ‘Cauchuc’ (or caoutchouc),
‘Hevea’, ‘Olli’, and ‘Kik’. It has been said that there is a relationship
between ‘caoutchouc’ and devil-worship and sacrifice but, before
considering this, let us deal with the three other words.
‘Kik’ is a word from the Mayan language of the Yucatan
Peninsula and means ‘blood’. It has never been used in the west
to refer to rubber.
‘Olli’ comes from the Nahuatl language of ancient Mexico and,
because of the locations of the various rubber-bearing trees,
always refers to the Castilloa elastica. This is obviously the root of
the current Mexican word for rubber—Ule.
‘Hevea’ was la Condamine’s word taken from the Ecuadorian
Indians for the rubber-bearing tree itself, and has never been used
in modern times to mean rubber. The modern word for rubber in
Peru and Ecuador is jebe.
This brings us to ‘Cauchuc/caoutchouc’, which is important in
that it is the basis for the current French, German, Spanish,
Italian, and Russian words for the material—and is complicated as
it seems to have origins in at least four different languages.
The Maı̈nas Indians of Peru have the word meaning ‘juice of a
tree’, whilst other authorities have identified the word with the
Tupi Indians of the Brazilian Amazon and also the word ‘Caucciú’
from the Caribbean. Each could, of course, be relevant depending
on which explorer met which native! The interpretation pub-
licised by Vicki Baums’s eponymous novel Weeping wood is that
of W. H. Johnson, who claims that ‘caoutchouc’ is a corruption
of ‘caaocho’, itself derived from ‘Caa’, meaning ‘wood’, and
‘o-cho’, meaning ‘to run’ or ‘weep’.
Perhaps the final word should lie with the Kechuan language
of the Peruvian Incas as this was the most developed of four
Indian languages. Here the 1608 dictionary of Diego Gonzalez
Holguin translates ‘cauchu’ as ‘he who casts an evil eye’, whilst
in 1653 Bernabé Cobo noted that the Mexican ‘olli’ and the
Peruvian ‘cauchuc’ refer to the same material obtained from
Castilloa elastica. It should be remembered that applications of
rubber to witchcraft, sorcery, and ritual sacrifice (as well as the
ball game) predate its more utilitarian uses.
(a) (b)
(c) (d)
Fig. 3.1 (a) Hevea braziliensis, (b) Castilloa elastica, (c) Ficus elastica, and
(d) Landolphia owariensis.
Other rubber-producing trees of historical interest are listed
below. For various reasons, none challenged the Hevea braziliensis
(see Fig. 3.1(a)) which today produces virtually all of the natural
rubber used worldwide.
Castilloa (elastica and ulei): The former is found in Central
America and Mexico (see Fig. 3.1(b)), the latter in Peru and
Brazil.
Manihot glaziovii: From the Ceara region of Brazil.
Ficus elastica: Found in Java and Malaysia (see Fig. 3.1(c)).
Landolphia: Creepers found mainly in the Congo basin (see
Fig. 3.1(d)).
Funtumia elastica: Found in West Africa.
The following are also of related note:
Parthenium argentatum: A shrub producing guayule, which is
regularly re-examined as a possible source of ‘local’ natural
rubber by the US. It is found naturally in the arid regions of
Mexico and the rubber has to be solvent-extracted.
Dyera costulata: Found in Malaysia and Sumatra—gives
jelutong, used in chewing gum.
Genus dichopsis: Produces gutta-percha.
Mimusops globosa: Yields balata. First harvested commer-
cially in Guiana in 1863 and used for golf balls, insulation, etc.
Today the Macushi Indians of Guiana carve animals from it
which are sold to sustain their rural communities and lifestyle.
4
The Battles of the
Giants—Charles Goodyear
The first of our giants is Charles Goodyear who was born at

Oyster Point, close to New Haven, Connecticut, in December
1800. Five years later the family moved to Union City, which
would eventually become Naugatuck, and here his father,
Amasa, opened a mill which manufactured a range of agricultural
implements.
Charles had two brothers and a sister Harriet. When he was
sixteen an event occurred which was to be significant throughout
much of his life; his father hired a tutor, William DeForest, who
later successfully moved into wool (then rubber) manufacturing
and also married Harriet. He was to be Goodyear’s ‘angel’ and
supporter for the rest of Goodyear’s life.
Goodyear initially entered the hardware business with his
father but, after marrying Clarissa Beecher, moved to Philadelphia
to set up his own hardware business. It was now 1826. By 1830 he
had prospered and had three daughters, but it was a false dawn.
His naive business sense, coupled with a downturn in the eco-
nomy, left him hopelessly in debt and he enjoyed the first of many
visits to a debtors’ prison. In 1831 he was declared bankrupt, lost
the store, his rights in his father’s business, and a daughter born
that year died shortly after. In 1833 his first son, Charles Junior,
was born, but soon after his third-born daughter (Sarah) died, a
pattern of good followed by bad news which was to follow him
throughout his life.
During this time he had tried to make ends meet by various
inventions, but here his second fatal character flaw showed
itself—he could have an idea but was unable to progress it to an
end product. It should, perhaps, also be noted that he had a third
flaw, although this was physical rather than temperamental. He
had been a sickly child whose health never improved throughout
his life.
In the summer of 1834 he walked past the New York retail
store of the Roxbury India Rubber Company, America’s first
rubber-manufacturing company, and noticed a rubber life pre-
server or life jacket on display. It was not the rubber which
attracted him but the valve used to inflate it. He thought he could
invent a better one, so he took a life preserver home with him,
developed an improved valve, and returned to the store to show
the manager the valve he had devised. The manager was not
interested. The company was not in the market for valves now and
it would be lucky to stay in business at all. He showed Goodyear
racks of rubber goods which had melted to a stinking gum in the
heat. Goodyear disappointedly pocketed the valve and took his
first good look at rubber. He experienced a sudden curiosity and
wonder about this mysterious material. ‘There is probably no
other inert substance’, he said later, ‘which so excites the mind.’
Returning to Philadelphia, Goodyear was clapped into jail
for debt. Whilst there he asked his wife to bring him a batch of
raw rubber and her rolling pin. In his cell Goodyear worked his
first rubber experiments. If rubber was naturally adhesive, he
reasoned, why couldn’t a dry powder be mixed with it to absorb
its stickiness—perhaps talc or magnesia? Once out of jail, he, his
wife, and small daughters made up several hundred pairs of
The Battles of the Giants—Charles Goodyear 31
magnesia-filled rubber overshoes in their kitchen; but, before he
could market them, summer came and he watched them sag into
shapeless lumps.
Life got no better for Goodyear and his family. Borrowed
money ran out and they moved to successively poorer rented
properties until in 1836 he moved his experiments to New York,
where a friend gave him a spare bedroom for his ‘laboratory’. Just
before the move a sixth child, William, had been born, but he
only lived a few months.
Goodyear still persevered with what can only be described as
his obsession. He was now adding two drying agents to his rubber,
magnesia and quicklime, and improving the product all the time.
He had turned to decorating and painting his shoes to hide the
sticky surface, and one day he decided to repaint an old decorated
sample, so he applied nitric acid to remove its bronze paint. The
piece turned black and Goodyear discarded it. A few days later he
found it again and realised that the nitric acid had done something
to the rubber, making it smooth and no longer sticky. He man-
aged to convince the Roxbury India Rubber Company (which had
just managed to stay in business) that he was on to something, and
the company gave him access to its factory and raw materials so
that he could continue his experiments. Here again his inability to
see projects through to completion led to friction and he was
eventually told to leave.
Soon after came a pivotal event in his life. He met Nathaniel
Hayward, who had worked for the Eagle Rubber Company in
Easton, Pennsylvania throughout the 1830s. The firm had not
been successful and in 1838 Hayward took it over, moving to
Woburn, Massachusetts. At that time the reputation of rubber
was at rock bottom and Hayward was unable to make a success of
his company, so he agreed to turn over the factory to Goodyear in
exchange for an agreed contract as foreman. He also agreed to
hand over all of his research information. One item was his
discovery that dusting rubber sheets with sulphur, or painting the
surfaces of the sheets with solutions of sulphur in turpentine and
exposing them to sunlight (a process he called ‘solarisation’)
‘causes the gum to dry more perfectly and to improve the whole
substance thereof rendering it much superior to that prepared by
any other combination therewith.’
This process he patented, at Goodyear’s suggestion, late in
1838 (US Patent 1090 granted 1839), and immediately sold it
to Goodyear. Goodyear, rubber, and sulphur had now come
together, but he already had in hand a government contract for
150 mailbags which were to be manufactured by the process
which involved treating the rubber with nitric acid. After making
the bags at Hayward’s old factory in East Woburn, Massachusetts,
he relaxed and took his family on vacation. When he returned, the
mailbags had melted to a sticky gum!
This was another disaster and one which not only forced him
back to poverty and made him give up the Eagle mill, but also
disillusioned many of his friends and supporters. It could well
have been the final debacle which prevented what was to come
being his lifeline to fame and fortune.
It was now 1839 and Goodyear continued to use sulphur in his
experiments as a ‘drying agent’. He made numerous visits to the
factory at Woburn for the purpose of closing it down and dis-
posing of its assets and, quoting his own words (Goodyear wrote
all of his autobiography in the third party):
While on one of the visits above alluded to, at the factory at
Woburn, and at the dwelling place where he stopped whenever
he visited the manufactory at Woburn, the inventor made some
experiments to ascertain the effect of heat upon the same com-
pound that had decomposed in the mail bags and other articles.
He was surprised to find that a specimen being carelessly brought
in contact with a hot stove charred like leather . . . He however
directly inferred that if the process of charring could be stopped
at the right point, it might divest the gum of its adhesiveness
throughout which would make it better than the native
gum . . . India rubber could not be melted in boiling sulphur at any
heat ever so great but always charred.
He had made what today we call vulcanised rubber. But now he

was very ill and had only taken the first step along the long road of
his great invention. He knew that heat and sulphur miraculously
changed rubber, but how much heat was needed and for how
long? He experimented with hot sand, flat irons, boiling water,
and everything he could think of until, at last, he decided that
steam under pressure, applied for four to six hours at around
130 C, gave him the best results.
Whilst the above quotation from Goodyear’s autobiography
actually gives us minimal information about his discovery, other,
different, stories abound, although a similar story is told in The
Readers Digest of 1958, and shown on the Goodyear Corporation
website. (Incidentally, the Goodyear Corporation has nothing to
do with Charles Goodyear but used his name when it was founded
thirty-eight years after his death.) Others claim that the discovery
took place in the laboratory at his house, and certainly the classic
picture is more suggestive of a home laboratory than a shop.
One ‘domestic’ story tells how, one day, while holding aloft a
ladle of his latest failure, Goodyear gave the mixture an angry
shake. A glob flew from the ladle and landed on a hot stove. He
peeled the rubber concoction off the stove and was amazed at
what he had. The heat had changed it. Kneading the small piece in
his fingers he found that it was now strong and elastic. Another
reads that Goodyear had invited some friends over to show them
his ball of gummy rubber. He had managed to harden it by mixing
the rubber with sulphur and treating it with an acid gas. As people
began to toss the rubber ball around, it accidentally landed on a
hot wood stove. The rubber began to melt and Goodyear was
terribly upset. However, as he attempted to scrape the rubber off
the stove, he discovered it had hardened to the consistency he had
been trying to achieve. Yet another ‘domestic’ story involves
rubberised fabric, which has some primitive basis in truth as
Goodyear himself talks of a subsequent experiment in which he
heated some of the treated mailbag fabric—although he claimed
to use an open fire—in one attempt to make a better rubber.
Goodyear mixed rubber with sulphur and white lead, and painted
the mix onto a piece of fabric. Then somebody, no one knows just
who, left this piece of rubberised fabric on a hot stove top.
Goodyear realised from the smell that the fabric was burning, but
before he could throw out the charred remains, he noticed that
the material had charred but the rubber had not melted under all
that heat, as he would have expected.
The problem with the various ‘stove and compounded rubber’
stories which are attached to Charles Goodyear is that he does not
seem to be the only claimant for it!. The following letter was
written by Morriss Mattson MD to an American friend. It is
undated but can be found in The India rubber and gutta-percha and
electrical trades journal of 1887.
I have been familiar with everything relating to rubber since its
first inception as an industrial interest and yet I am free to confess
that I do not know what are the current statements as to the
true origin of its vulcanisation. It is universally conceded that
Mr Goodyear was the discoverer and I have no disposition to
pluck a single laurel from his brow, Yet history is uncom-
promising in her demand, always requiring the exact truth in
reference to every great discovery . . . Be it known that the first
great movement made in reference to its manufacture was by a
Mr Hayward of Boston who discovered that sulphur was a
peculiar drier of rubber, if I may so express myself, and that by
mixing the two together the resulting compound could be forced
into thin and delicate sheets and fabricated into various useful and
beautiful articles. Very soon a store was opened in Boston for the
sale of these articles, and I remember that they elicited a great
deal of public admiration. Indeed they were ornamented in a
very high degree. A Mr Eli was the proprietor of said store and
many were the conversations we had in reference to the probable
future of this new movement in rubber . . . Mr Goodyear was in
the habit of passing in and out of this store, according to my dim
recollections, but whether he had an interest in the business I
cannot say. He was not then the observer of all observers but
simply a very plain, unpretending, citizen, known as the patentee
of a few but, perhaps, not very profitable inventions. Mr Eli’s
store was heated by an anthracite stove which had a flattened top,
and that memorable stove I can see in ‘my mind’s eye’ as though
I had visited that little store in Walther Street but yesterday.
Nothing was dreamed of in that store but the sulpho-rubber
compound, and, of course, they were to be seen scattered in
every direction, just as bread and dough are seen in a baker’s
kitchen. A small mass of the aforesaid rubber compound had
forced its way, by some accident, upon the top of the aforesaid
stove. Perhaps it had been used to protect the fingers against the
heat in moving the lid of the stove. But this is only a surmise.
How long the rubber mass had remained upon the top of the
stove I have not the tongue of tradition to give an answer. Let
this pass then, as an inscrutable mystery, unless someone can
throw more light on the subject than myself. In the meantime
Mr Eli was standing beside the stove seeking the genial warmth
radiating from the glowing anthracite within. He espied the mass
of rubber of which I have spoken and carelessly took it up for
examination. To his surprise he found that it was entirely dif-
ferent from the ordinary sulpho-rubber with which he was so
familiar. It was entirely changed in texture. It was tough, hard,
strong yet elastic. What had produced this change? Surely the heat
of the stove. Here was a grand secret, a grand revelation, a grand
discovery; but a discovery by accident, and many of our greatest
discoveries come to us by accident. Mr Eli, as I well remember,
had a sharp and intuitive mind, and probably was not slow in
perceiving that the anthracite stove had flashed forth to the world
an unexpected revelation of inconceivable value to the human
family. He must have thought about it, dreamed about it, and
talked about it and yet I do not remember of his saying anything
to me upon the subject beyond the mere recital which I have just
given to the reader.
What one makes of these stories, and in particular the last one, is
something for the reader to decide. Goodyear certainly knew
William Ely of New York as someone who had backed him fin-
ancially in the late 1830s, but there is no mention of him in this
context in his autobiography. It is an inescapable fact that, if only
Goodyear had expanded a little on the details of his great dis-
covery, then there would have been much less speculation as to
what really happened on that day in 1839.
Now let us return to Goodyear’s story. Due to his earlier cries
of ‘Wolf ’ he was unable to convince anyone that he had actually
achieved something worthwhile and, indeed, in practical com-
mercial terms he had not. All his efforts to produce a consistently
vulcanised sheet of rubber ended in failure. In 1842 Goodyear
showed Horace Cutler, a shoemaker who had a factory near
where Goodyear was working, some of his vulcanised rubber and,
when Cutler expressed interest (and offered financial backing) to
manufacture rubber overshoes, Goodyear had to point out that he
was not actually at a reliable production stage yet—and then went
on to prove it. Cutler and Goodyear had split up by late 1842 but,
from the ruins of their production, Cutler managed to find a few
decent pairs of overshoes which he sold to another rubber
manufacturer—Horace Day—in order to get some return on his
failed investment.
As far as Goodyear was concerned this was a disaster waiting to
happen as Day, a hard-nosed businessman, was determined to find
out what Goodyear had done to his rubber and to copy him.
Unlike Goodyear, who had no interest in money, and certainly no
ability to make any, this was Day’s driving ambition, and the two
would fight their way through the US courts for many years
to come.
Day’s first action was to persuade the disillusioned Cutler to
come and work for him, on the understanding that he would
reveal all that he knew of Goodyear’s process. Cutler soon real-
ised that Day was not a man he wished to work for and left; but,
before going, he did agree (for a price) to pass on every bit of
information he had about the Goodyear process. Day set out to
emulate Goodyear but, like the latter, he was unable to make any
products which were of a consistent quality. By now it was mid-
1843 and we have clear evidence that, whilst Goodyear’s vulcan-
isation process may on occasion have produced saleable articles, it
was hardly a patentable process! Goodyear was probably aware of
this and it could well have been one of his reasons for failing to
take that route. Like Thomas Hancock, whom we shall come to
later with his masticator or ‘pickle’, secrecy during development
could have been the best option—if only he could have got the
process to work quickly and reliably.
By now Goodyear found himself penurious again and back in
jail. On his release he realised that he had exhausted his possible
partners in America, so he decided to turn to Great Britain which,
he knew, had a considerable (unvulcanised) rubber industry but
no knowledge of his process of vulcanisation. He employed an
Englishman who was living in the US at that time, Mr Stephen
Moulton, to act as his agent and to negotiate a deal to sell his
secrets there. If he had felt able, on a technical basis, and had
had the funds to patent his process before trying to enter the
UK market, the story might have been very different. However,
he did not, British industry was not impressed, and the UK glory
went to Thomas Hancock as we shall see later; but, before fol-
lowing that story up, we shall continue with Goodyear’s.
Having learnt a lesson for his UK experiences, Goodyear at last
patented his process in the US in early 1844. Ironically, one of the
first people to take out a licence to manufacture rubber goods
under Goodyear’s vulcanisation patent was the man who had
introduced him to rubber and sulphur, Nathaniel Hayward, but he
soon transferred this to Gandee and Steele of New Haven, whose
company went on to become part of the United States Rubber
Company in 1892.
In 1844 Hayward and Burr established the Hayward Rubber
Company at Lisbon, Connecticut. From here, rubber products,
boots, and shoes were shipped all over the country and, although
Hayward retired in 1864 because of ill health, the company
thrived until 1893 when it was closed. Later the building burned
to the ground.
Hayward died in 1865 and is buried in the small rural town of
Colchester, about sixty miles north-east of New York. This town,
today with a population of around 10 000, has a unique place in
the history of rubber since in its churchyard is a tombstone
and memorial to Nathaniel Hayward, the latter in the shape of a
10 ft high concrete rubber tree trunk, whilst the former identifies
him as the inventor of hard rubber (ebonite or vulcanite)—an
arguably contentious statement which we shall consider later (see
Fig. 4.1).
Returning to Goodyear, it was time for his brother-in-law,
William DeForest, to come to his rescue again by setting up the
Naugatuck Rubber Company (which would go on to become
Uniroyal). For a cash sum the company bought the rights to all of
Goodyear’s patents, past and future, although he retained the
(a) (b)
Fig. 4.1 (a) Nathaniel Hayward, and (b) his concrete ‘rubber tree’
memorial.
right to sell elsewhere licences to any patent which the company

declined to use. The company immediately began to make money
and Goodyear was allowed space in the factory to experiment.
This, however, soon turned into a disaster as his investigations and
demands interfered with the smooth running of the production
unit, and he was shown the door.
It was time for Horace Day to surface again, and he now
dropped any subtlety by applying for a patent which was essen-
tially based on that of Goodyear. It was rejected outright, but Day
would not go away and he began to manufacture shirred cloth,
although Goodyear had already assigned that licence exclusively
to a third party. It was now time for Goodyear to take action
against Day in the courts, but they never got there. The two
settled and Day received the shirred cloth licence which the third
party had sold back to Goodyear. Although this would have made
Day a rich man, it was not enough and he began manufacturing a
wide range of rubber goods. This was a serious mistake. He was
now not just infringing Goodyear’s patent, but manufacturing and
marketing goods which were covered by licences issued to a
number of rubber companies who did not wish to see their
prosperity threatened and had both the money and will to fight.
It was now 1851 and Goodyear was in the UK for Queen
Victoria’s Great Exhibition. He had borrowed extensively from
his brother-in-law to create a propaganda masterpiece, and this he
succeeded in doing with the creation of his ebonite rooms—the
‘Goodyear Vulcanite Court’. Ebonite was, after all, a reliable
material in his hands. He just kept on heating his mixes until they
were rock-hard. However, contrasting with Hancock’s stand,
there was relatively little ‘soft’ vulcanised rubber on display.
Hancock’s display, on the other hand, concentrated on a vast
range of practical vulcanised articles, clearly illustrating the dif-
ference in character between the two men; Hancock the indus-
trialist and Goodyear the showman.
Both men must have studied each other’s displays with interest,
but there is no record of their meeting nor of what they thought of
the other’s achievements. Hancock probably admired the quality
of Goodyear’s ebonite mouldings but wondered about their
commercial practicality, whilst Goodyear no doubt still failed to
understand that a creative artist must also make money to live—
unless he has enough friends to borrow from—but he was soon
back in the States for the battle against Horace Day.
This was going to be one of the greatest trials in American
history, with Daniel Webster appearing for the rubber companies
and Rufus Choate for Day. Both were brilliant orators, with
Choate, the younger upstart, fighting Webster, the old lion. The
truth would not really matter in this trial of oration; indeed, it
featured but rarely. Choate’s defence was that numerous people,
all produced in court, had carried out Goodyear’s experiments
before he had—one of those being Day himself who claimed to
have carried out Goodyear’s exact work as a fourteen-year-old in
1827! These matters were quickly put aside and the manufac-
turers’ unanswerable question was: if Day knew Goodyear’s
patent to be invalid, why did he give it credence by taking out a
licence to manufacture shirred cloth in the first place? When
summing up, Webster spoke for two days, weaving Goodyear’s
sad story of deprivation and suffering into the battle for the
American constitution, the authority of Congress, and the rights
of man. The verdict was a foregone conclusion. Goodyear’s
patent rights were cast in stone and Day was hit hard in both
reputation and pocket as the court ordered his factory records to
be checked and all monies due to the injured parties to be cal-
culated and paid. Although too long to reproduce here, the full
text of Webster’s oration was published in the New York Daily
Tribune at the end of 1851. Unfortunately, no record of Choate’s
summing up has ever been found.
Goodyear’s rubber had now taken off with a vengeance in
America and he found himself with time for two new projects.
The first (in 1853) was the publication of the first part of his
history of rubber: Gum elastic & its varieties with a detailed account of
its applications and uses and of the discovery of vulcanization (a catchy
title), of which only a very few copies were ever printed, one
having rubber pages. The second volume: The applications and uses
of vulcanized gum elastic followed later in the same year. A few
further copies appear to have been printed in 1855, but, again,
these exist only in very specialised collections and the commonly
available version today is a facsimile reproduction published in
London by The India-rubber journal in 1937. The original appears to
have been rushed to print whilst Goodyear was in France pre-
paring for the Paris Exhibition of 1854/55 and contains a number
of blanks or dashes to be filled in later. Again, Goodyear’s mer-
curial flitting from project ‘A’ to ‘B’ had got the better of him!
It was in London in 1853, whilst preparing for the Paris
Exhibition, that disaster again struck. Goodyear’s ever-supportive
wife, Clarissa, took ill and died aged just forty-eight. He poured
himself into his preparations, determined to make his display at
this exhibition even greater than it was in 1851, and just over a
year later he arrived in Paris having found a new wife, a twenty-
year-old Englishwoman, Fanny Wardell. It was during this time
that Goodyear persuaded George Healy to paint on a sheet of
ebonite that which is probably the most recognised painting of
him—romanticised and worry-free—a long way from the true
picture of the sick man, aged beyond his years, who staggered into
Healy’s studio (see Fig. 4.2).
Once again, his exhibits were often of ebonite, many carried
over from the 1851 Great Exhibition, but with a number of new
ones made by French manufacturers to his specification. More
Fig. 4.2 Charles Goodyear.

adulation followed and so did the bills. Before the exhibition was
over he was experiencing a French debtors’ prison, where he was
pleased to receive the ‘Grand Medal of Honour’ and the ‘Cross of
the Legion of Honour’, awarded by the Emperor Napoléon III for
his contribution to the exhibition.
Freed from the French prison, he returned to England where,
after another spell in an English debtors’ prison, he was released
in time for his court battle with Thomas Hancock. The court
found in Hancock’s favour (we shall return to this in more detail
later) but Goodyear remained in London, and later Bath, carrying
out research using compounded rubber supplied by Stephen
Moulton, originally his agent who had brought samples of his
vulcanised rubber to England in 1843 and who now had a thriving
rubber business at Bradford-on-Avon, near Bath. It was here that
family misfortune continued to take its toll with the death of
Fanny’s first-born son, but this was compensated for by the birth
of a second son, Arthur.
As ever, Goodyear was unable to pay Moulton for the rubber
with which he was supplied, and by mid-1858 it was obvious that
he had exhausted Moulton’s goodwill. He returned to the States,
albeit claiming that his return was demanded by his licensees
as his patent was soon to expire and they wished him to seek
an extension. Needless to say, Horace Day would be there to
object, whilst Hancock was also there to oppose Goodyear since
expansion into the American market now held many attractions
for him and the company he was now associated with—Chas.
Macintosh and Co. This time it was Goodyear’s turn to win
against Hancock, or, more accurately, for Goodyear to continue
his string of victories against Horace Day, and he was awarded a
seven-year extension.
It has already been said that almost every piece of good news
which Goodyear received had to be paid for, and this time it was
Fig. 4.3 Charles Goodyear’s tombstone.
with the death of Arthur. A year later Fanny gave birth to a

girl, but at virtually the same time Goodyear received news that
his second daughter by Clarissa, Cynthia, was seriously ill in
New Haven. Goodyear was in Washington and ill himself, but he
set out by sea to avoid the rough cross-country journey. When the
ship docked in New York he found that he was too late. Cynthia
was dead.
Charles Goodyear collapsed in grief and died in New York on
1 July 1860 with Fanny at his bedside. He is buried in Grove
Street Cemetery, New Haven, beneath a massive sepulchre which
shouts the single name ‘GOODYEAR’ (see Fig. 4.3).
5
The Battles of the
Giants—Thomas Hancock
The second giant in the story of rubber vulcanisation is Thomas

Hancock, who was as unlike Goodyear as one could imagine. He
lived in the same house most of his adult life, he never married but
looked after his extended family of nine adopted nieces and
nephews, he concentrated on one project at a time, made that
work, hopefully made money from it, and researched new ideas in
his very limited spare time. He also believed in patents, as we shall
see (with one notable exception), and took out a total of fourteen
relating to rubber and gutta-percha between 1820 and 1847. One
thing he did share with Goodyear was the same fascination,
although not obsession, with that sometimes sticky, sometimes
brittle, and sometimes even useful material, rubber.
Thomas Hancock was born in 1786 in Marlborough, Wiltshire,
the third of twelve children born to James and Betty Hancock
between 1780 and 1800. This was a remarkable family, although
we know little of the children’s formative years except that, as
was all too common at that time, several, including four girls,
died either in infancy or when relatively young. Their father was a
cabinetmaker, and it is probable that Thomas learnt the skills of
that trade because sometime after 1815 he appeared in London
with his brother John to set up business as a coachbuilder. Only
one of his brothers, William, continued the family tradition of
cabinet-making, but at least four more of the brothers, including
John, deserve mention as having contributed significantly to
Britain’s culture and industry in the nineteenth century.
Walter, born in 1799, was an engineer who designed and built
some of the earliest and most successful of the steam carriages
which were appearing on the English roads in the early nineteenth
century. Around 1840 he became disillusioned with the prospects
for these vehicles and threw in his lot with Thomas, where his
engineering abilities enabled him to work on the construction of
various pieces of rubber processing and product manufacturing
equipment.
John, born in 1788, had his own rubber goods and hose
factory, where he used equipment designed by Walter to make
catheters and other products with medical applications. Unfor-
tunately, he died of consumption in 1835, aged just forty-seven.
He and his wife, Fanny, had continued the family tradition by
having nine children between 1812 and 1828, but, when John
died, Thomas took the children to live with him at his house,
Marlborough Cottage (see Fig. 5.1), in Green Lanes, Stoke
Newington, where three of them, remaining spinsters, lived after
Thomas’s death until their own in 1895 (Fanny), 1902 (Maria),
and 1909 (Harriet). A fourth child, John Junior, was a noted
sculptor who exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851. He was a
friend of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the pre-Raphaelites, and
helped finance their magazine, The Germ.
Another of Thomas’s brothers, Charles (1800–1877), was a
not inconsiderable artist whose works could be seen at the Royal
Academy and to whom, incidentally, we must be grateful for his
sketches of his siblings and mother. Although this book is con-
cerned with natural rubber, it is worth mentioning that in 1843
Charles was to be introduced to gutta-percha, a material with the
The Battles of the Giants—Thomas Hancock 47
Fig. 5.1 Marlborough Cottage.
same chemical composition as rubber but with a different spatial

configuration, by its discoverers, Drs Almeida and Montgomerie.
Within a year he had taken out the first of a number of patents
concerning its processing and use, including one for coating wire
with it to form an electrically-insulated conductor. He founded
The West Ham Gutta Percha Company with Henry Bewley and
was soon selling a wide range of products, as well as sheet for
others to fabricate articles from. By 1855 his catalogue listed over
one hundred different products. The two separated and in 1860
Charles Hancock joined S. W. Silver & Company, bringing with
him his patents and knowledge of gutta-percha, and entered the
business of manufacturing and laying submarine cables through a
new company—The India Rubber, Gutta Percha and Telegraph
Works Company, Ltd. Their first cable was in 1865 and ran from
Dover to Cap Gris Nez. This was followed in 1867 by a cable
for the International Ocean Telegraph Company which linked
Havana, Cuba to Key West and Key West to Punta Rassa. For
almost fifty years they continued to lay cables across most of the
oceans and seas of the world. With the loss of their last ship in
1915, the company withdrew from cable-laying and in the mid-
1920s became the Silvertown Rubber Company and, eventually,
part of BTR Industries Ltd. By 1998 this company had become
part of Dunlop Standard Aerospace Group.
James, the eldest of the brothers, (1783–1859) married
Elizabeth Lyne in 1811 and she gave birth to James Lyne Hancock
in 1815. It was he to whom Thomas handed over his thriving
company in 1842 and who ran it until his death in 1884 when it
passed to Thomas’s grand-nephew, the son of Sarah (one of John
and Fanny Hancock’s children) and John Nunn, John Hancock
Nunn, who was then aged only twenty-nine.
Thomas’s interest in rubber seems to have sprung from a desire
to make waterproof fabrics to protect the passengers on his
coaches, and he recalled that by 1819 he was beginning to
experiment by making solutions of rubber in oil of turpentine, but
was dissatisfied with the thin solutions which were all he could
obtain and the poor quality of the films cast from them. It later
appeared that the oil of turpentine was often impure and this led
to the variability in solution properties.
At about the same time he hit upon his first reasonably practical
use of rubber. He was aware of its unfortunate habit of becoming
sticky when hot and brittle when cold, but reasoned that the
English climate was not too variable and if the rubber was to be
worn close to the skin this should have a compensatory effect. His
idea was to attach rubber strips (caoutchouc springs) to articles such
as gloves or ‘any article of dress where elasticity is desirable at any
particular part’, and this was the subject of his first patent dated
29 April 1820. In the patent he lets his imagination run riot as to
the possible applications, clearly foreshadowing the vast range of
applications he was to come up with in later life for this new
material—rubber.
Hancock does not say what source of rubber he initially used to
make his elastic springs, but does say that they were sliced and
sewn in place on the article to be elasticated. This taught him a
new lesson which was that, although a piece of rubber could be
stretched, if it was punctured with, say, a needle then it would
quickly tear from that point and be useless. His initial answer to
this problem was to cut the rubber thicker at the points of
attachment and so spread the load around the holes, but he soon
came up with a better solution when he realised that a good
quantity of rubber was coming into the country in the form of
thin-skinned rubber bottles. Here was the ideal material for him.
Rings could be cut directly from the bottles, with different-sized
bottles, or even different regions of the same bottles, providing
the variety of sizes he needed for his multitude of applications.
These could be enclosed within a rolled-over piece of the fabric
without the need for actually sewing through the rubber itself, a
practice which remains in use to this day.
His second lesson in rubber engineering followed quickly and
shows his abilities as an experimentalist. Many articles were being
returned with the elastic springs broken, so he subjected a range
of them to a cycle of stretching and relaxation under close
observation. He saw ragged edges where the cutting had ‘nicked’
the rubber and that tearing propagated from these defective
regions. He further noted that some of the bands did not tear
under these conditions and realised that these were the ones
which had been immersed in hot water after cutting, the heat
allowing any fresh cuts to self-seal. This practice became the norm
during his subsequent manufacture of the rings.
His ability to observe and experiment would serve him well in
the months to come as his new concern was that he was now
generating a great deal of waste rubber from this process. The
observation that freshly-cut faces of rubber blocks could be fused
by simple pressure and a little heat led him to design a mould into
which he could place freshly-cut blocks of rubber and compress
them to provide a ‘standard block’ of rubber. This was a much
more useful starting material for his ideas than the randomly
shaped lumps or bottles then being imported. Although this
observation had originally been made by François Fresneau and
was common practice in the making of catheters in the eighteenth
century, it seems probable that Hancock had come across it
independently as the timescale between his becoming interested
in rubber and observing this phenomenon was extremely short.
However, he agreed with the earlier workers that this was a
time-consuming process and not always successful, so he set his
mind to designing a machine which would tear up any rubber
placed in it into fine shreds which would then reunite to give him
one homogeneous piece.
Still in 1820, he built his first machine out of wood. It simply
consisted of a hollow circular cylinder lined with iron spikes
inside which was rotated (by hand) a smaller cylinder, again
studded with iron spikes (see Fig. 5.2). The rubber shards were
dropped into the gap between the cylinders through a ‘door’ in
the top of the machine and the handle was turned. On opening the
machine Hancock found that he had managed to fuse the shards
into one lump of warm rubber, although this still showed graining
from the separate pieces.
He replaced it in the machine and continued mixing until he
had determined how long it took to obtain a uniform ball or ‘slug’
of rubber. He was familiar with fibre-carding machines at that
time from his interest in artificial leather, and it seems likely that
his design of the pickle was influenced by these.
This ‘one-man-powered’ machine would only take a charge of
about two ounces of rubber, which was not particularly practical,
Fig. 5.2 Hancock’s pickle.
so he immediately designed a larger one, this time made of cast

iron, with suitable gearing so that one man could treat about
one pound of rubber at a time (see Fig. 5.3). The patent claimed
that:
. . . in the course of half-an-hour, more or less, according to the

speed of the shaft and the quantity of India rubber employed, the
combined action of heat and friction, occasioned by the motion
and pressure on the India rubber had the effect of uniting it into
one compact mass or roll (F).
This is the masticator which he began using in 1821 but which was
only described and illustrated in his 1837 patent entitled ‘Dough
waterproofing’, to which we shall return later.
Fig. 5.3 Hancock’s first metal pickle.
Rubber technology had arrived in the shape of the highly secret

‘pickling machine’, or masticator as we know it today. He soon
advanced this to a horse-powered machine (fifteen pounds), and
by 1840 his masticator could handle charges up to two hundred
pounds.
It should be noted that he chose not to patent his ‘pickle’,
this being the one time that he preferred to rely on secrecy—
an important point which will be returned to later. Both
his earliest wooden prototype and his first cast-iron machine
remain in existence today, the former in the Science Museum
of London and the latter in the care of the Plastics Historical
Society.
As soon as Hancock had prepared his ‘pickled’ rubber he began
experimenting further with rubber solutions, and in 1824 and
1825 he took out three more patents, processes for making
artificial leather and for waterproofing ropes and cordage.
Interestingly, the first and third of these three patents required
the use of latex, which was extremely rare in Europe, as the
waterproofing adhesive, although he does not use the word ‘latex’
but talks of this ‘juice’ being identical, when dried, to caoutchouc
or India rubber. His choice of solvent for the middle patent, a
mixture of highly rectified coal-tar oil and oil of turpentine, was
probably influenced by Charles Macintosh’s patent of 1823. In the
same year he began collaborating with Macintosh on the manu-
facture of his ‘double-textured’ material. (It has to be observed
somewhere that, whilst Macintosh’s name has no ‘k’ in it, his
eponymous article of clothing has!)
Macintosh (see Fig. 5.4) was a Glaswegian chemist who had a
dyestuffs and mordant business. In 1819 he entered into a con-
tract with the Glasgow Gas Works to relieve it of its waste coal
tar, which resulted from the company’s gas manufacturing pro-
cess. Macintosh wanted the coal tar for its ammonia, but was
probably familiar with Syme’s work and realised that he could
obtain coal tar naphtha from his waste material. He dissolved
rubber in this and came up with the brilliant idea of making a
three-ply material, comprising two layers of fabric bonded
together with a middle layer of rubber. This was the process he
patented in 1823, not the use of naphtha as a solvent, although the
patent was the first to refer to this particular chemical. His new
industry for producing double-texture waterproof fabrics was
founded in Glasgow in 1824.
In 1825 Hancock obtained a licence from Macintosh to use his
patent, but realised that his own rubber solution, prepared from
masticated rubber and a solvent mixture of rectified coal-tar
Fig. 5.4 Charles Macintosh.
naphtha and oil of turpentine, was much superior to that of

Macintosh—it was thicker and therefore required less solvent, it
penetrated into the fabric less, and it dried to give a less mal-
odorous material. At this stage Macintosh did not trust Hancock
sufficiently to use his rubber solutions. However, by 1830 it was
obvious to all that Hancock’s solution was significantly superior to
that of Macintosh, and so full cooperation between the two began,
one feature of which was the construction of an automated
spreading machine, probably designed by Walter Hancock, to
replace Macintosh’s paintbrushes.
At this time Hancock was working with Macintosh, but with a
contractual relationship limited to Hancock supplying the rubber
solution whilst he carried on his own independent business in
Goswell Road, London (see Fig. 5.5).
One aspect of his independence was that he was invited to set
up a complete manufacturing facility in Paris for Messrs Rattier
and Guibal, what today we would call a ‘turn-key’ operation. He
supplied the equipment and workers, including a manager,
Mr Edward Woodcock, who must have found the life there most
convivial because he remained there until at least 1857, when he
received a copy of Hancock’s Narrative and wrote a very appre-
ciative reply. It is of interest to note how many of Hancock’s
employees stayed with him for many years. Edward had a brother,
Fig. 5.5 The Hancock factory, Goswell Road, 1850.

Alonso, who was also working with Hancock at the time that
Edward went to Paris and he could be found in 1858 as works
manager of Chas. Macintosh and Co. in Manchester. Initially,
Hancock kept his mastication process confidential but contracted
to supply his solution. Production started in late 1828 and the goods
were sold through a shop specially opened by Rattier and Guibal.
Hancock also had a share in his brother John’s medical goods
and hose manufacturing company, but John sold his share in the
company to Chas. Macintosh and Co. in 1833 when he was forced
to move to Cornwall because of ill health. In 1834 Hancock’s
London factory burnt down, so it was agreed that he would do
likewise with his share in John’s company in return for a formal
partnership in Chas. Macintosh and Co. Ltd. Almost as soon as
Macintosh had started in business in 1824 he had received some
large government contracts, so he needed both more space and a
reliable source of fabrics. He therefore entered into an agreement
with Hugh Hornby Birley and his brother, Joseph, who were
cotton spinners based in Manchester, whereby they would build a
new factory to make the waterproof material. This gave him the
base on which he could now build by closing the Glasgow factory
and moving all of his rubber business to Manchester.
The factory he actually moved into had been substantially
designed and equipped by Hancock in around 1830, and it is
interesting to note that Macintosh investigated the possibil-
ities of solvent recovery from the drying cylinders but decided
that it was neither commercially viable nor a particularly useful
exercise. The new company had as its directors Macintosh,
Hancock, the Birley brothers, and William Brockedon. We shall
meet Mr Brockedon again but can note here that he had started
life as a watchmaker, turned to art, and then became an inventor
who, as well as being involved with natural rubber, also invented
a process for compressing graphite for ‘lead’ pencils.
Hancock, however, remained in London, rebuilt his London
base, and continued to manufacture airproof and waterproof
cloths and products there, whilst the mastication and preparation
of the rubber solutions was carried out in Manchester.
The Manchester factory was equipped with steam power to
drive the ever larger and more numerous machines, but the first
steam engine ever to be used in the rubber industry was installed
in Hancock’s Goswell Road, London, factory in 1836. Here it
remained in use until 1922. It was known as the ‘Grasshopper’
(see Fig. 5.6).
Just as things were settling down it was Hancock’s and
Macintosh’s turn to go to law. The first of their major UK cases
took place in 1836, with Chas. Macintosh & Co. as plaintiffs and
Fig. 5.6 The ‘Grasshopper’, built by Easton & Amos, 1822.

Wynne Ellis as defendant. The plaintiffs’ case was that Everington
and Ellis had infringed Charles Macintosh’s patent of 1823 for the
manufacture of ‘double-textured’ cloth.
In 1824 Macintosh had approached Wynne Ellis, perhaps the
richest silk merchant in the UK and an art collector of interna-
tional renown whose collection later was to form part of the UK
National Gallery, for financial backing for his new material. Some
of Wynne Ellis’s silks had been treated at Macintosh’s factory in
Glasgow, but he was not sufficiently impressed to help finance
Macintosh’s expansion plans. However, in 1835, Everington and
Ellis began to market ‘Fanshawe’s improved India rubber cloth’,
which appeared in all respects identical to that manufactured by
Hancock and Macintosh. The latter were just starting to make
money and were not prepared to share it with interlopers! The
situation was further complicated in that, whilst they were pre-
paring their court case, they applied for an extension of the 1823
patent. The application was heard in December 1835 and it was
ruled that a decision should be held over until 1837—after the
pending court case.
The case for Wynne Ellis was threefold in that evidence was
produced that ‘double-textured’ garments had been produced in
Demerara since the end of the eighteenth century using latex as
the adhesive, that Charles Green had used rubber solution and the
double-texture procedure to manufacture balloons, and that it
was obvious by inspection of the current output from the
Macintosh factory that it bore little resemblance to that produced
in 1823, and therefore the process must be different and the
patent could not apply.
The first point was quickly dealt with (surprisingly) when it
was agreed that what happened when using latex was not the same
as when using a rubber solution. It was surprising because the
plaintiffs had emphasised that the solution was not important but
that the patent referred uniquely to the ‘double texture’ in
combination with a solution. The second witness was quickly
disposed of when it was shown that his ‘double texture’ was an
overlapping of seams and that the rubber solution was just a
mastic. This left the final point, which put Hancock and Macintosh
in a difficult position since the whole manufacturing operation had
been the subject of ongoing development and had been carried
out in secrecy without the benefit of patent protection. Their first
witness was an operative who had left the business in 1825 before
Macintosh had moved from Glasgow to Manchester, and he knew
only the original procedure so could give away no secrets; but
they then had to produce the man who was currently in charge
of the manufacturing operations and who knew the develop-
ment of the spreading machinery. Because of Hancock’s passion
for secrecy, however, he knew nothing of the composition of the
solution, nor did he have any knowledge of the masticator.
They got away with it and were victorious, but opposition to an
extension of the patent was so great that they decided to withdraw
it and, at last, opted for the only protection left—to patent both
the masticator and the spreading machinery.
Reading the patent today and knowing of the introduction of
the masticator, and Macintosh’s initial (patented) preference for
purified coal-tar naptha but subsequent change to Hancock’s thick
viscous solutions prepared with naptha and turpentine mixed
solvent, etc., one must doubt whether the same verdict would
have been reached today. Macintosh was lucky to allow for the
spreader by saying in the patent ‘ . . . with a brush or other suitable
instrument lay upon the surface of each (fabric) a uniform
layer . . . ’.
But when it comes to the adhesive the patent appears to be very
specific:
. . . cemented together by means of a flexible cement . . . prepare
the caoutchouc by cutting into thin shreds or parings and then steep
it in the substance used in making coal gas, commonly called coal
oil . . . 10–12 oz to 1 gallon of oil . . . to give a thin pulpy
mass . . . pass through a fine wire or silk sieve . . . resembles thin
transparent honey . . .
It was only in 1837 that Hancock finally patented both his
masticator and spreader in the same UK patent, which was his
eighth in seventeen years. The title of the patent:‘ ‘‘Dough
Waterproofing’’ and the ‘‘Specification of the Patent’’. . . for an
improvement or improvements in the process of rendering cloth
and other fabrics partially or entirely impervious to air and water
by means of caoutchouc or India rubber’, would suggest that he
hoped that its contents would pass unnoticed, although this
subterfuge was highlighted by Moulton in a later patent case, as
we shall see. The masticator included in this patent shows his
earliest iron version, with the functional part as illustrated earlier
in this chapter (Fig. 5.3).
In 1838 another fire destroyed the Manchester factory, but a
new one was quickly built and business continued as before
although Macintosh’s 1823 patent had expired in 1837.
A few years of profitable manufacture brings us to 1842, and it
was in that year that Macintosh and Co. decided to withdraw their
operations from London and agreed to sell what had been John
Hancock’s hose and tube business to Thomas’s nephew, James
Lyne Hancock. Thomas included his interest in the Goswell Road
business in the deal and James ran it until his death in 1884.
The complicated relationships between various Hancock
and Macintosh businesses—part independent and part
interdependent—inevitably gave rise to friction. No better
example of this exists than the argument between James and
Macintosh and Co. as to whether hose pipes and tubes were both
covered in the sale agreement of 1842. Macintosh and Co. carried
out the vulcanisation of all James’s products (which must have
been an extremely inefficient process, the one being in London
Fig. 5.7 The Chas. Macintosh & Co. shop in Charing Cross, 1840.
and the other in Manchester), and so knew exactly what he was

making. An argument blew up late in 1849 with Macintosh and
Co. refusing to vulcanise ‘solid rubber tube’ on the grounds that
this was not hose pipe and thus not included in James’s manu-
facturing rights. Thomas was caught in the middle and came down
firmly on his nephew’s side, eventually, on 22 April 1850, writing
a two thousand word letter to Macintosh and Co. setting out with
wit and irony the history and usage of the words ‘hose’, ‘pipe’,
and ‘tube’ during more than three hundred years of English lit-
erature. Unfortunately, this is the last letter in the set of a dozen
on this topic so, regretfully, the company’s reply is not available.
Nevertheless, we must assume the Hancocks won as James’
company went from strength to strength, and on his death it was
willed to Thomas’s grand-nephew, John Hancock Nunn.
This brings us to what was to be the start of the most con-
tentious period of Hancock’s life—the discovery and subsequent
story of vulcanisation in the UK. The story begins in 1842.
It is an established fact that Stephen Moulton brought samples
of Goodyear’s vulcanised rubber to the UK as Goodyear’s agent,
attempting to sell the unpatented process for a considerable sum
of money. He had with him a few scraps of vulcanised material,
but Hancock comments that when he saw them they were charred
at the edges, so it seems obvious that Goodyear was not able to
send (or even possibly make) top-quality samples to promote his
process. Moulton took them to Chas. Macintosh and Co. in
Manchester where there was little interest in investing serious
money without a thorough knowledge of the process involved in
making it. This was not just for chemical reasons, but also because
they needed to understand the technology involved so that they
could calculate any capital expenditure which might be necessary
to implement the process.
William Brockedon (see Fig. 5.8), a director of the company,
then showed some of the material to Hancock who was in
London. Hancock willingly admitted that he realised that the
material contained sulphur and claimed that he had been
experimenting with sulphur for many years himself but with no
success. The fact that it was somehow possible to obtain the result
he was after with this substance spurred him on to concentrate on
it further. In his 1857 Narrative he describes how he carried out
numerous experiments in his private laboratory at his home,
Marlborough Cottage, through the winter of 1842/43 and into
the summer of 1843 when he had to purchase ice to see if he had
changed the properties of his strips when cold. He realised that
Fig. 5.8 William Brockedon.
sometimes he had managed to effect what he called ‘the change’

he was looking for, but he was not yet sure of the ‘hows and
whys’—very like Goodyear. However, he took advantage of the
English patent laws which allowed an inventor to apply for a
preliminary patent to protect his interests after his first discov-
eries, and then six months to clarify points of detail before the
patent became final, or enrolled. It was during this time that his
friend and colleague, Charles Macintosh, died.
During those six months Hancock carried out what were
possibly the first systematic design experiments in the field of
chemistry. He began by immersing rubber strips in molten
sulphur and removing them after varying periods of time. Here he
observed the previously unknown dissolution and steady migra-
tion of the yellow sulphur through the rubber section until the
colour was uniform throughout. Nothing had happened to the
physical properties, however, so he than began raising the tem-
perature, again studying the samples periodically, and eventually
removed one sliver to find that it had undergone the change he
was looking for. He further noted that slivers which remained
even longer in the sulphur had turned ‘black and horny, thus at
once and indubitably opening to me the true source and process of
producing the ‘‘change’’ in all its states and conditions, and in its
pure and pristine simplicity’.
He immediately appreciated that his existing equipment
would enable him to process sulphur-treated rubber either dry
or in solution before vulcanisation. With the information he
had gathered, such as ways of adding sulphur and the time–
temperature relationship of curing or vulcanising, he was able
to get his final patent enrolled on 21 May 1844. It is a remark-
able and all-embracing document describing various ways of
adding sulphur—in the dry using his masticator or a mill in the
same way that he was adding inorganic powders, or by immersing
the masticated rubber in molten sulphur—together with sub-
sequent spreading and moulding options as well as time:
temperature:thickness correlation data for optimum curing or
vulcanising. Ways of removing excess sulphur after vulcanisation
are also discussed.
Whilst Goodyear may well have been the first person to
vulcanise rubber, he certainly had no control of his process at
the time of Hancock’s patent, when the latter was able to illus-
trate his complete understanding and control of the chemistry.
It was at this time, when his small-scale experiments moved
from his private laboratory to the factory at Manchester, that
William Brockedon came up with the name for the process—
‘vulcanisation’.
The truth about Hancock and his ‘discovery’ of vulcanisation
is unlikely ever to become clearer, although, given his Christian
upbringing and reputation for honesty and fairness amongst his
workers, there is no reason to doubt his version of events. Let
his employees have their say. When he retired in 1858 he was
presented with an illuminated address, written by a committee
of employees, the grammar of which an unknown director
would later apologise for to Hancock. The first two paragraphs
read:
WE, the operatives in the employ of Chas Macintosh and Co.,
cannot permit the opportunity to pass of your retirement as
partner in the above firm, without expressing our heartfelt
gratitude for the kindness, generosity and benevolence which you
have so liberally bestowed upon us while in your employ.
THERE are many of us who have for a long series of years wit-
nessed your Christian forbearance, mildness of council and
impartiality which have assumed more the character of an
indulgent parent than an employer.
Some, who had been unable to append their signatures to the
original address for various reasons, later wrote asking that their
names should be associated with the sentiments expressed
therein.
It should also be noted that a number of chemists swore that,
even if he had analysed Goodyear’s vulcanised material, this
would not have given him enough information to manufacture
it. Moulton, however, claimed that some of Hancock’s
employees did carry out the analyses and one Mr Cooper had
sworn that he was one who did. Alexander Parkes, the inventor
of the ‘cold-cure’ process, went one step further and claimed
that both Hancock and Brockedon had admitted to him that their
experiments on the Goodyear vulcanisates had enabled them to
understand what he had done, although how this statement differs
from Hancock’s—that he realised sulphur was present and pur-
sued the matter until he had obtained his ‘cure’—would appear
to be one for the pedants. Whatever the truth, the fact remains
that Hancock beat Goodyear to the Patent Office by some eight
weeks and did nothing illegal or underhand. His understanding of
the ‘cure’ or vulcanisation process and his ability to control it was
certainly much more advanced than Goodyear’s.
There also exists one report that Goodyear visited Hancock at
Marlborough Cottage in 1843 and was entertained there on later
visits. It claims that they were said to be firm friends, a rela-
tionship which would be difficult to understand if Goodyear had
believed that Hancock had acted unethically.
In November 1845 there was a rearrangement of partners at
Chas. Macintosh and Co. George Macintosh, Charles’s son, and
Henry Birley retired, and the remaining directors were identi-
fied in the ‘Notice of Dissolution of Partnership’ as Thomas
Hancock, Richard, Thomas H., and Herbert Birley, and William
Brockedon. Soon after, in 1846, the company purchased from
Alexander Parkes his patent for the vulcanising of single-texture
fabrics by a ‘cold’ process using sulphur chloride in carbon
disulphide solution for £5000, and this added the final string to
the company’s vulcanising empire.
The company flourished and it is hard to find an article
today which is made of vulcanised rubber and which does
not feature in Hancock’s Narrative. The one notable exception is
the pneumatic tyre which, although normally associated with
John Boyd Dunlop’s invention of 1888, was first invented by
R. W. Thompson in 1845. As well as describing hard rubber
(vulcanite or ebonite), Hancock also mentioned blown sponge,
although the latter never achieved significance during his lifetime.
Fig. 5.9 The Chas. Macintosh & Co. trademark—HAN (d) COCK.
There were, however, still legal battles to be fought. In 1847

the first major shipment of vulcanised rubber products, mainly
rubber overshoes, arrived in the UK from the States. This had the
potential to undermine the position of Chas. Macintosh & Co. and
had to be contested on the strength of Hancock’s prior patent.
This was found to be valid and Macintosh & Co. granted The
Hayward Rubber Company of Connecticut sole rights to import
and sell vulcanised rubber footwear in the UK (for a considera-
tion). In 1849 Chas. Macintosh & Co. began to prepare a case
against a UK importer who was bypassing Hayward and, yet
again, Hancock’s patent was found to stand. With these decisions
in his favour, Hancock felt able to challenge the biggest thorn in
his side—Stephen Moulton—who was manufacturing vulcanised
rubber goods from his factory in Bradford-on-Avon.
Stephen Moulton (1794–1880, see Fig. 5.10) is ‘the forgot-
ten man’ of the UK rubber industry who seems only to be
remembered as the man who brought samples of Goodyear’s
vulcanised rubber to England and who passed some of them, via
Brockedon, to Hancock. In fact, he became a major UK com-
petitor to Hancock and was also responsible for opening up the
south-west of England to the infant rubber industry.
Moulton was born in County Durham in 1794 but his
family was not North Country; indeed, his parents were both
Londoners, where his father ran a law stationary business.
Fig. 5.10 Stephen Moulton.

Mrs Moulton was visiting her sister when Stephen arrived! Like
Hancock, his early life is undocumented, but in December 1826
the records of St George’s Church, Hanover Square, show that he
married Elizabeth Hales of Somerset. The union produced nine
children. Unusually, all of these survived to adulthood.
We next hear of him in 1839, in America, living in New York
and described as ‘a broker’. It was here that he met Goodyear,
Hayward, and the Rider brothers, who were rubber manufac-
turers. It was through these relationships that Goodyear asked
him to return to England and attempt to persuade some members
of the British rubber industry to put up capital to develop his
improved rubber products. Having failed in this project, Moulton
returned to the US but remained bitten by the rubber bug, so
much so that in 1847 he returned to England, determined to set
up his own rubber goods factory. He had no desire to pay either
Hancock or Goodyear royalties for the use of their patents, so he
entered into an agreement with the Rider brothers and a chemist
called James Thomas. This agreement allowed him to use the
US rubber factory of the Rider brothers for development
work, whilst James Thomas would allow him to patent in the UK
his vulcanisation process using lead hyposulphite instead of ele-
mental sulphur. They would have a share in Moulton’s profits
from the patent. Unfortunately, the patent seemed to be based
more on hope than proven results and it took two years of
experimentation before Moulton succeeded in developing it to a
practical conclusion.
Although it had originally been agreed that the patent would
be funded by the Rider brothers and that this would be repaid
from future profits from the products manufactured in England,
the Riders suffered from a downturn in the US economy and
refused to financially back Moulton further, causing him, in late
1848, to go into the manufacturing business on his own.
The location he chose was unusual in that it was in the west of
England, far removed from the more usual centres of industrial
activity, and was a disused woollen mill, the Kingston Mill, in
Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire. Nevertheless, it had a wealth of
advantages: coal from Somerset, the river Avon alongside the mill
to supply power and washing water, the closely adjacent Kennet
and Avon Canal, and the Great West Road to provide access to
London. It was cheap and contained within the eight acre site
‘Kingston House’, which would provide the family home.
Now that he had committed himself, the Riders were willing
to offer him non-financial help, and so provided both advice and
lent him the engineer who had built their machinery so that he
could oversee the fitting out of Moulton’s factory. It thus became
one of the first factories in the UK to be conceived and equipped
as one complete unit. At that time it was not possible to buy
much of the equipment needed, so some was built on site and
some was manufactured by iron foundries to Moulton’s design.
By 1850 Moulton and the Riders had a joint manufacturing
agreement in place, but Hancock was not prepared to stand by
and see his monopoly disappear without a fight, so it was back to
the courts. He was, however, busy with the company’s large
display stands at the Great Exhibition of 1851, where, as has
already been said, he was in competition with Goodyear. An
indication of the display presented by Chas. Macintosh and Co.
can be obtained from Hancock’s Narrative:
The year 1851 brought with it the memorable Crystal Palace and
the ‘Great Exhibition of the Works of the Industry of all Nations’,
and we were not slow in availing ourselves of this opportunity of
exhibiting such a general collection of rubber manufactures as the
world had never before seen; comprising specimens of almost
every article to which the substance had been applied. Whether
adhesive or unadhesive, vulcanised or unvulcanised, possessing
elongating elasticity, or rendered rigid by hard vulcanising. Plain,
coloured, printed, embossed, moulded portraits [see Fig. 5.11].
Medallions [see Fig. 5.13a], tablets, stick and umbrella handles,
mechanical applications, toys and various other things made
entirely of rubber, and ordinary and coloured solutions were also
there, to which must be added some beautiful specimens of
rubber produced by the converting process of Mr. Alexander
Parkes. Of course we had also all the well-known Macintosh
articles, Such as cloaks, capes, of double and single textures, air-
beds, pillows, cushions, life-preservers, model pontoons, diving
dresses, gas-bags, &c., &c.
This activity meant that Hancock could not take Moulton to
court until after the exhibition. Here Moulton claimed that his
patent of 1847 in which he used ‘lead hydrosulphite and arti-
ficial sulphured of lead’ did not infringe Hancock’s patent which
just used sulphur, or Goodyear’s which used lead oxide and
Fig. 5.11 Rubber moulding of a pastoral scene which may have been
shown on the Hancock stand at the Great Exhibition of 1851.
sulphur. He also mixed ‘in the dry’, whereas Hancock’s patent
was solely concerned with applications of solutions of rubber
(not true), and there were other differences of varying
importance which had allowed the patent to be granted. He
further raised the point that Hancock’s patent was, in any
event, invalid because its deposit paper of 1843 was not fol-
lowed through in the final specification. As we have already
seen, the title was:
. . . For improvements in the preparation or manufacture of
caoutchouc in combination with other substances, which prepara-
tion or manufacture is suitable for rendering leather cloth and
other fabrics waterproof, and to various other purposes for which
caoutchouc is employed.
The text begins with:
. . . Preparation or manufacture of caoutchouc in combination with
other substances, consists in diminishing or obviating their
clammy adhesiveness and also in diminishing or entirely pre-
venting their tendency to stiffen and harden by cold and become
soften or decomposed by heat, grease and oil.
The eventual decision of the Vice-Chancellor’s court was unusual.
The judge found for Hancock on all counts but pointed out that,
because he had taken so long to bring Moulton to court (1847–
1852), he felt unable to make an injunction against Moulton, but
ordered the motion to ‘stand over’ so that the plaintiffs could take
further action if they so wished. Whether by coincidence or
planning, it was shortly after this that Hancock had published by
James Barclay of London a book which contained reprints of all
the fourteen patents which he had taken out between 1820 and
1847. The book was comprehensively indexed and would suggest
that he was setting out his position: This is where I stand.
Certainly you can use my process to manufacture any of
these (or related) products. Just remember to ask first
and pay for a licence.
Moulton was extremely unhappy with this outcome, not least
because he continued to harbour a dislike of Hancock, believing
him to have stolen Goodyear’s ideas and failing conspicuously to
give him credit for the original discovery of sulphur vulcanisation.
However, he now was able to manufacture a wide range of goods
and he specialised in industrial and engineering applications,
although his records show that he continued to produce rub-
berised fabrics, beds, and cushions through to 1880. The major
products of the company were railway and carriage springs which,
together with other railway-related products, grew from 30% of
output by value in 1860 to 85% by 1890. The growth was due, in
considerable measure, to Moulton’s patented (1861) suspension
unit, which consisted of a coiled spring embedded in a block of
rubber. Other areas of importance were hoses, sealing washers,
and valves. Perhaps surprisingly, the company never showed
much interest in rubber tyres, although the pneumatic tyre was
not patented by Dunlop until eight years after Stephen Moulton’s
death, whilst the other potential growth area, footwear, was
bedevilled by patent restrictions. The company flirted with rub-
berised conveyer belting in its early days, but dropped out of this
market due to the intense competition and low profitability by the
time of Moulton’s death.
In 1891 the company amalgamated with George Spencer of
London to become Spencer Moulton. This company continued
until 1956 when it became part of the Avon Rubber Company.
Production ceased on the site in 1993. There is a footnote to
the story of Stephen Moulton; his great-grandson is Dr Alex
Moulton (born 1926), who is also famous for his involve-
ment with rubber in engineering. Not only did he develop
the Moulton bicycle with its rubber suspension, but also
the rubber suspension used in the Mini, which further developed
into the hydroelastic system used initially in the 1100/1300
Austin/Morris series, then in the Rover 100 series, and currently
in the MGF sports car.
Let us now return to the trials of Thomas Hancock and Chas.
Macintosh and Co. The American shoe trade was not at all happy
with Hancock’s victories and the indecisive verdict in the case of
Hancock versus Moulton so a Mr Ross, who was importing
American shoes into the UK but not via Hayward, challenged
Macintosh & Co. to sue—which Hancock duly did. After all the
old ground had been gone over again the jury failed to reach a
verdict, but the fighting spirit of the anti-Hancock group was high
and they issued a writ of scire facias against Hancock, essentially
putting the onus on him to provide evidence that he had actually
carried out all the work described in his patent.
The trial returned to court in mid-1855 and even Goodyear
attended to stake his claim to royalties from Hancock should
the latter lose. In the end it came down to one question. When
Hancock had taken out his patent in 1843 had he understood
and achieved vulcanisation? If he had only done this between
1843 and the final specification in 1844 then his patent would
fall. In January 1856 the saga came to an end with the jury
finding for Hancock, and Moulton was granted a licence to
manufacture rubber products, excluding clothing and medical
goods, for the sum of £600 per annum. Hancock was able to get
on with his stand at the International Exhibition of 1855 in
Paris.
Somewhere in all this activity, Hancock found the time to write
his magnum opus, The origin and progress of the CAOUTCHOUC or
India-rubber manufacture in England, which was published in 1857
and sets out in great detail his business-related life from 1820. It
includes many illustrations of his products as well as page upon
Fig. 5.12 The Chas. Macintosh and Co. factory in Manchester as it was
in 1857.
page of listed products with their descriptions and uses for the
benefit of the uninitiated. The patent specifications are also
appended. A particularly interesting section tabulates the exports
of rubber from Pará to cities throughout the world from 1837 to
1856, as well as total rubber imports to, and exports from, the
UK during the period 1842–1855. To quote just one statistic, the
total imports of rubber into the UK in 1842 were around
140 tons, but had risen to 2235 tons by 1855. These figures
accounted for about half the output of Amazonia. Some of that
was traded on. In 1842 about 10% left the country as the raw
material and this had risen to over 18% by 1855. Nevertheless,
the growth of rubber product manufacturing in the UK over this
period was phenomenal—and we still did not have the motor car
with its demand for tyres!
James Lyne Hancock authorised a reprint of the Narrative,
without the patent appendix, in 1920 to celebrate one hundred
years of the company’s existence.
Hancock sent copies of his book to many of his friends and
business colleagues but there is no record of one going to Charles
Goodyear. However, one was sent to Nathaniel Hayward with an
attached letter which is reproduced in full below.
Stoke Newington. N.
27th. Jan Y. 1857.
Nathaniel Hayward. Esq.,
Dear Sir.
Considering the position you are entitled to take amongst the
foremost in the manufacture of India Rubber in the United States
I have thought that having written a simple narrative of the part
which I have taken in its manipulations in this country a copy
would not prove unacceptable to you. I have therefore forwarded
one to your address of which 1 beg your acceptance.
If you have not already done the same thing in America no man
I should think is more able or more entitled to fulfil such a task.
I indulge the hope that although fast declining into the vale of
years I may yet live to see such a production emanating from the
press under your hand.
With the expression of every good wish to you as a Fellow
labourer in the same pursuit, I am, Dear Sir,
One wonders why Hancock chose to write to Hayward in this

way. He could not have read Goodyear’s book, only a very few
were published, but he might well have heard comments from
America that Goodyear felt, at best, put out by Hancock’s patent
and subsequent victories in court. Did he think that Hayward
could add some revealing background to the very incomplete
story of Goodyear’s discovery of vulcanisation?
Of equal interest is that he chose to send a copy of the book to
Horace Day, writing inter alia:
. . . I have written a Narrative of the part I have taken in the
Rubber manufacture in England . . . If a similar narrative of an
authentic character has been published in the United States I should
feel very much obliged if you would be so good as to send a copy
to me.
(The underlining is Hancock’s.) Did he know of Goodyear’s book
and was making some derogatory implication or was he unaware
of its existence?
He also found time, with considerable prescience, to send a
copy of his book to the first Keeper of the Royal Botanic Gardens at
Kew, Sir W. J. Hooker. Having previously, and to no avail, sent an
employee to Pará to try and persuade the tappers and collectors to
improve the quality of their material, he suggested that consid-
eration should be given to creating plantations in either the East or
West Indies. Hooker replied, mentioning that he knew Macintosh
as they had been in Glasgow at the same time and adding that he
had already asked his agent in Brazil to acquire seeds from the best
rubber trees for germination at Kew. Unfortunately, he was not
successful and a generation was to pass before this was to be finally
achieved. This is a generation gap which, if it had not occurred,
could have substantially altered history, as we shall see.
This is not quite the end of Hancock’s story because someone
discovered that there were two patents by Goodyear and Hancock
covering the UK. In England Hancock’s preceded that of Good-
year by some two months, but in Scotland the position was
reversed with Goodyear’s application dated three months ahead
of that of Hancock and the final specification being just one month
ahead. In 1856 the North British Rubber Company was founded
in Edinburgh, being shipped over, lock, stock, barrel and key
workers, from the US. Legal opinion was that Hancock’s delay in
filing his Scottish patent would probably lead to defeat if he went
to court and, since it had so little time left to run, the battles at last
ceased.
Hancock’s very abridged reports of his trials in his Narrative
paint him very much as the injured party just trying to protect his
interests, whilst the rest of the rubber world is bent on destroy-
ing him and the monopoly he aimed to obtain in the UK. How
(a)
(b)
Fig. 5.13 Thomas Hancock: (a) an ebonite medallion, and (b) a

portrait.
(a) (b)
Fig. 5.14 (a) Hancock’s memorial in Kensal Green Cemetery, and

(b) the inscription on Hancock’s memorial.
justified he was in holding those beliefs the reader must judge, but
what is certain is that without Hancock’s drive and inventions
between 1820 and 1850 the UK rubber industry would never
have achieved the advancements it did, and the UK would be a
worse place for that. Thomas Hancock died at his house in Green
Lanes, Stoke Newington, on 26 March 1865 and was buried in
Kensal Green Cemetery (see Fig. 5.14).
He left just over sixty thousand pounds, a not inconsiderable
sum, but only a fraction of what he might have made if he had
been the hard uncaring money-grabber that some have made him
out to be. On 7 April 1865 The Mechanics’ Magazine published a
thirteen-hundred word obituary.
The house survived in the care of his three spinster nieces
until the last one died in 1909, after which it had a chequered
Fig. 5.15 Plaque erected on the site of Marlborough Cottage, 2003.
history until 8 January 1945 when a German V2 rocket exploded

in the next door meadow. The house was terminally damaged
and soon afterwards demolished. In its place was erected a block
of flats, but Hancock’s contribution to the UK rubber industry
remains for all to see in the form of a plaque erected on the site
by the Plastics Historical Society in 2003 (see Fig. 5.15).
6
Rubber goes East
It is probably useful to note at the beginning of this chapter the

location of the Hevea or Pará rubber tree which was, and still is,
believed to provide the best rubber. With two very small
exceptions, it is confined to the land south of the River Amazon,
dropping from its estuary at Belém to about 15 south, then
swinging west to the border between Peru and Bolivia, before
swinging round in a great loop taking in about one-third of Peru,
before rejoining the Amazon where Brazil, Peru, and Colombia
meet. The two exceptions are a small looped incursion to the
north-west of Manaos (today known as Manaus) and a triangular
excursion north of the estuary delta 1 or so north of the equator.
Between 1851, the year of the ‘Great Exhibition’ in London,
and 1855 a Scottish explorer, Richard Spruce, was searching for
new plants in the Amazon basin. Thousands were brought to
England but he did not bring any Hevea seedlings as he knew that
these would not survive the long journey home. He thought of
bringing some seeds back but found that these quickly turned
rancid after collection, so he abandoned that idea. He did,
however, make detailed studies of the tapping and collecting
procedures adopted by the natives and noted that the price
(demand) was rising rapidly. He also realised that the tappers
were essentially slaves, given advances for tools and food which
were to be paid off against future earnings. The high prices
demanded for the former and low prices paid by the traders to the
tappers for their rubber ensured that this would be a very long
process. Given the high death rate amongst the tappers due to
disease and malnutrition, it was more likely to be ‘never’. It is
worth remembering that Thomas Hancock had sent one of his
employees to the Amazon basin in an attempt to persuade the
dealers to supply cleaner rubber. Obviously, the incentives to the
tappers were few and it was not uncommon for pelles or smoked
balls of rubber to have a stone inserted in the centre to increase
their weight and hence selling price (see Fig. 6.1).
At the same time that Spruce was travelling in the Amazon
basin, a young naval officer called Clements Markham was
devoting two years of his life to journeying around Peru, and here
he noted two unrelated things which were to have a significant
effect on his career and the future of the industrial world. The first
Fig. 6.1 A smoked ball of rubber (pelle) being cut in half in Pará to
check quality.
Rubber goes East 83
was the cinchona tree, from the bark of which is extracted quinine,
and he determined to transplant this to India for the treatment of
the tropical diseases which were rampant there and which posed a
bigger threat to the lives of the British soldiers and families than did
actual warfare. The second was the death of the rubber-producing
trees due to massive over-tapping when numerous cuts were
made simultaneously in the bark of the same tree.
When he returned to England he obtained a position in the
Civil Service and spent the next few years organising the move-
ment of the cinchona tree to India via the Botanic Gardens at
Kew with the help of one of their staff, Robert Cross. For this
work Markham was later to be awarded a knighthood. The
transplantation required further journeys to Peru and in 1865 he
was in India and Ceylon (Sri Lanka) checking on his trees. Here
he found that the lust for rubber was being met by the slaughter
tapping of India’s rubber plant—ficus elastica. It was then that he
became the first person to realise that ‘wild rubber’ would never
be able to meet the ever-increasing demand of the industrialising
nations. He wrote to the India Office suggesting that rubber
plantations be established to meet this growing demand. No
doubt his idea was that this should be a British exploit on British-
controlled land and India would meet the bill nicely.
Markham’s letter remained on file and on his return he was
promoted before going to Abyssinia with the 1867–1869
expedition, after which he returned to spend two years prepar-
ing detailed maps from his notes.
Time was passing, but in 1870 Markham decided that he
must act.
When it is considered that every steam vessel afloat, every train
and every factory on shore employing steam power, must of
necessity use India-rubber, it is hardly possible to overrate the
importance of securing a permanent supply, in connection with
the industry of the world.
He had seen papers published by James Collins, who was then the
curator of the museum of the Pharmaceutical Society, on rubber
and realised that here was a man with a knowledge base which
should be tapped. He therefore commissioned him to write as
detailed and as comprehensive a report on all aspects of rubber
production as possible, and this was completed in 1872. The
report favoured the collection of Hevea seeds and was circulated to
several interested parties, one of whom, Dietrich Brandis, sup-
ported Collins’s idea and suggested southern India or Ceylon as
good locations for possible plantations.
Markham was now moving fast and sent his old and trusted
previous ‘partner’, Robert Cross, to the Amazon to collect seeds.
In 1873, after discussions with Sir Joseph Hooker, Director of the
Botanic Gardens at Kew, he requested the Foreign Office to ask
the British Consul at Belém (also known as Pará, the capital of
Pará State) to send some seeds of the Hevea tree to Kew. He
suggested that a certain Mr Wickham at Santarem might carry out
the collection as he had previously written to Hooker offering to
supply Kew with botanical specimens.
In the meantime, the first rubber seeds had turned up in
London. In Collins’s second publication he had asked readers to
send him any new information which they might have on rubber.
Along with that feedback came an offer from Charles Ferris to sell
him some two thousand freshly collected seeds. The news was
passed to Markham who purchased them on Kew’s behalf, where
they were planted. Unfortunately, only twelve germinated and
these soon died, although six survived long enough to be the first
Hevea ever to arrive in India. They were delivered to the Calcutta
Botanic Gardens and the lesson learnt from this was that any more
should be sent further south, to warmer climes.
Whilst waiting to hear from Wickham, Markham had been
offered seeds by a Bolivian, Ricardo Chávez. These arrived in
Rubber goes East 85
mid-1875 when Markham was away from his office. No one knew
what to do with them, and by the time any decision was reached
they were useless.
This brings us to ‘a certain Mr Wickham’. At about the time
that Thomas Hancock was writing to Sir William Hooker, the
then Director of the Botanic Gardens at Kew (who was followed
in this post by his son, Sir Joseph, in 1865), about the possibility of
the UK starting some form of rubber plantation industry, there
was the young Henry Alexander Wickham who was a ten-year-
old boy with his life before him. He was the eldest child of Henry
and Harriette (née Johnson) Wickham and was to have two sib-
lings, Harriette Jane and John, the latter being born after Henry
senior had died in the London cholera epidemic of 1850. The
death of Henry senior left the family in dire financial straits as
there was no private income, and Mrs Wickham had to work as a
milliner to support them. It is perhaps inevitable that Henry was
somewhat spoilt and had an unexceptional schooling and early
life. He showed some talent for sketching and painting and this
was to provide a pictorial insight into his later travels. He was also
reportedly good at fishing, which may have given him a grounding
in many of the ‘fisherman’s tales’ he would come out with later
in life.
In 1866, aged twenty, he set out for Central America. Possibly
he had been inspired by the stories of Robert Cross concerning his
exploits in bringing the cinchona tree from South America in
1860. Wickham arrived in Nicaragua on 22 October and from
there he travelled up country to spend nine months catching
exotic birds, the feathers of which he sent to London for the
ladies’ hat trade—possibly to his mother. By the end of the
summer of 1867 he was back in England. A year later saw him in
the Orinoco Delta and, again, he travelled up country tapping
wild rubber trees, eventually crossing to the River Negro which
led him to Manaus, strategically positioned at the River’s
confluence with the River Amazon. As the crow flies, Manaus is
about eight hundred miles inland, due west from Belém (Pará)
(see Fig. 8.2). By river it is considerably further! He followed the
Amazon to Pará, where he met the British Consul, James
Drummond Hay, who had written a report on the socio-
economic climate of the region with particular reference to the
profits being made by rubber collecting. Wickham gave a full
transcription of the report in his first book, published in 1872,
entitled Rough notes on a journey through the wilderness from Trinidad
to Pará, Brazil, by way of the great cataracts of the Orinoco, Atababo and
the Rio Negro. From Belém he shipped to England, noting that:
I have come to the conclusion that the valley of the Amazon is the
great and best field for any of my countrymen who have energy
and a spirit of enterprise as well as a desire for independence.
One has to wonder at his enthusiasm when his notes tell of

sandflies, mosquitoes, tropical rainstorms and almost unbearable
heat, semi-starvation, and malaria. Nevertheless, he vowed to
return to Santarem, located at the confluence of the Tapajos and
Amazon rivers, about three hundred and fifty crow miles and five
hundred water miles inland, for his next adventure.
Back in England he married Violet, daughter of W. H. J. Carter,
who was a publisher with a bookshop/library in London and who,
it is generally believed, financed much of Wickham’s later travels
and (mis)adventures. Soon after the wedding, in the summer of
1871, they set sail for Santarem, accompanied by Wickham’s
mother, sister Harriette, and brother John.
A sketch by Wickham of their first house survives in the New
York Public Library and shows a very primitive wood-framed
shack with thatched roof and walls. Harriette and John were both
married in Belém in July 1873, but by 1876 Mrs Wickham senior,
Rubber goes East 87
Harriette, and John’s mother-in-law had all been killed by the
Amazonian climate.
Wickham had taken with him from England some labourers
with the idea of growing sugar, manioc, and tobacco (rubber
was not yet in the picture), but they soon deserted him and he was
forced to move several times in a search for reliable workers.
Eventually, the family returned to Santarem where there was a
group of ex-confederate soldiers who worked as a commune, thus
avoiding the problems with local labour. All this time Wickham’s
lifestyle was progressing smoothly downhill.
In late 1874 he had been offered ten pounds for one thousand
seeds by Markham but saw no point in putting himself out for such
a sum. After much discussion within the India Office, this number
was increased to ten thousand, and in April 1875 Wickham
received a letter from Markham, through Hooker, offering ten
pounds per thousand for as many as he could collect. The contract
was supposed to include the words ‘viable seeds’, but ‘viable’ got
omitted! Wickham pointed out that it was now at the very end of
the seed-drop season so things would have to wait until the next
season, nine months away.
During the first six months of 1876, Wickham’s ‘extraction’ of
some 70 000 rubber seeds from Amazonia and their transporta-
tion to Kew, via Liverpool, took place, but the complexities of
this story are many and remain unresolved to this day.
The story was told many times by Wickham, the first being in
his book of 1908, On the plantation, cultivation, and curing of Pará
Indian rubber, with more and more added refinements until his
death in 1928. Even the first version runs to seven pages but can
be summarised as follows.
The Amazonas, under Captain Murray, the first of a new line of
Inman Line-owned steamships, had arrived at Santarem and he had
received an invitation to dine on board. The ship then continued
its voyage upstream to Manaus. He next heard that the ship had
been stripped of its cargo and abandoned by two of its crew.
Murray was unable to purchase any cargo for the return voyage to
the UK, so he (Wickham) chartered it and arranged to meet it at
Santarem, where he would load the seeds he had managed to
collect. He then immediately set off by canoe up the River Tapajos
and, working with as many natives as he could recruit, ranged the
forests collecting seeds. The girls in the village made baskets or
crates of split cane to receive the seeds, which were lightly dried
and packed between layers of banana leaves to preserve their
vitality. He also noted that he was working against time as,
although the seeds would fall for a further month or so, he had his
appointment to keep with Captain Murray and the Amazonas. He
returned down the Tapajos, loaded the otherwise empty ship, and
returned with his wife to Europe, dropping off at Le Havre to
arrange for a train to meet the steamer when it docked in
Liverpool and transport the seeds without delay to Kew.
Unfortunately, Wickham’s story only states that he arranged to
meet the Amazonas at Santarem ‘on a certain date’. We know the
seeds arrived at Kew on 14 June 1876 and that the Amazonas
docked in Liverpool on 10 June. We also know that he wrote to
Hooker on 6 March claiming:
I am now collecting Indian rubber seeds in the ciringals (areas of
tapped trees) of the River Tapajos being careful to select only
those of the best quality.
Unfortunately, the story just does not gel.

First, there is the question of the origin of the 70 000 seeds
themselves. Given that the Hevea trees were widely scattered
throughout the tropical rainforest and not in tidy plantations, and
that the seeds do not just drop but are ‘catapulted’ up to forty yards
from their parent tree, could Wickham and a few helpers really
Rubber goes East 89
have collected 70 000 seeds in a matter of days or had he been
hoarding them since the dropping season began in January when he
knew that he would get the contract? His wife also noted in her
diary that he put out a call for seeds and was buying all he could get
hold of (sources obviously unknown). He knew they had a very
short ‘shelf life’ but, after all, he was going to make sure he was
paid on the basis of ‘number delivered’, not ‘number germinated’.
Secondly, there is the question of the ship. The Amazonas was
built in 1874 by A. Simey and Co. at Sunderland for the Laing
family, and was first registered in 1875. She was almost imme-
diately sailing under the Inman line flag, where she was captained
by George Murray, a man in his mid-thirties. During the time
of interest to us she had made two voyages to Brazil. She had
sailed from Liverpool on 24 December 1875, arrived in Pará
on 19 January 1876, continued to Manaus, and then returned to
Pará on 15 February. She was home in Liverpool on 14 March.
She set sail again on 25 March 1876 with many of the same crew
and, although there are no records of her times in Brazil, we can
assume she arrived in Pará in mid-April, and was back there close
to 10 May since she was certainly home on 10 June. These dates
do not fit with Wickham’s letter of 6 March; nor does the con-
clusion that the Amazonas must have been at Santarem in early May
fit with Wickham’s comment that there was still one month or so
of seed-drop time left to him, since this period finishes in late
April, not June.
The detailed crew records exist today and provide an inter-
esting insight into seafaring at that time. The voyage was
described in the agreement in considerable detail and, although it
would take only a little over three months, the contract allowed
up to twelve months. The food ration for each of the crew was
listed (but could be varied at the master’s option). No grog was
permitted on board and there would be no advances of pay until
the voyage was complete. The Amazonas should have had a crew of
thirty-two. One, Joseph Ceriney (?), failed to appear at the time
of sailing, whilst another, James Coran (?), deserted when the
ship docked at Havre four days later. Two more crew members
joined at Lisbon: the surgeon, whose name is not legible, and a
replacement able seaman, Alexander Lorrimer. The release docu-
ments show that the surgeon was signed off when the Amazonas
returned to Lisbon on 1 June and all the other members of the
crew were discharged with full pay on 10 June. Contrary to that
part of Wickham’s story, none was missing and there were no
adverse behaviour notes on any crew member.
The Liverpool Customs Office bill of entry (see Fig. 6.2) shows
the ship fully laden with most of her cargo (including 171 cases of
rubber) being loaded at Manaus, well upstream from Santarem,
although she did call at Obedos, some seventy-five miles upstream
from Santarem, to take on board more cargo, including 819 bags
of Pará nuts. As one might expect, the goods were to be delivered
to specified destinations. There was no question of the shipping
line trading on its own behalf.
Our problem now is that there is no record of the ship stopping
at Santarem and there is no mention in the cargo manifest of
rubber seeds. It is tempting to think that the ‘Pará nuts’ could be
rubber tree seeds, but we know that these were what we call
today ‘Brazil nuts’. Also, there is no reason for Wickham to travel
seventy-five miles upstream to Obedos when the ship would be
passing his door less than a day later!
It is worth calculating what we are looking for and, although all
the figures are very much approximations, they do give some idea
of the ‘package’. The weight of 70 000 rubber tree seeds is about
700 000 grams or three-quarters of a ton. Allowing for the banana
leaf layers and the cases, the gross weight must have been nearer
1500 kg or one and a half tons. For the woven baskets to be
Rubber goes East 91
(a)
(b)
Fig. 6.2 Bill of Entry for the SS Amazonas, Liverpool, 12 June 1876:
(a) heading, and (b) details.
portable by the natives they would be unlikely to weigh more than

30 kg, so we are looking for a few tens (fifty?) of them. Con-
verting 30 kg of seeds and leaves to volume gives a value of around
65 litres, which is close to a 40 cm cube or a 50 cm diameter
hemispherical basket—a very convenient size to manhandle for
the relatively small Amazonian natives.
We must accept from Kew’s records that they were on this
ship, but where and how? The problem we have with Wickham’s
story is that we do not know the detailed source of all of the seeds
he supplied or if, as his wife said, he actually bought some from the
natives. If his collecting times were right, then the seeds must have
been stored for a considerable period until the Amazonas was in the
region of Santarem in early May, and how did he get them on
board the ship? No documents have turned up to date which show
that the India Office actually paid anything for the ship’s ‘charter’.
Certainly, the Brazilians described Wickham’s actions as
despicable and branded him a thief for carrying out an ‘exploit
hardly defensible in international law’. In 1884 the state of
Amazonas levied a massive export duty on rubber seeds, and in
1918 it banned the export completely, but in 1876 there were no
restrictions in place. As early as 1861, a Brazilian, Joao Martins da
Silva Coutinho, had suggested the formal cultivation of Hevea in
plantations, and he repeated this in 1867 when he was the
chairman of a jury examining the quality of rubber from sources
throughout the world. This was picked up by Collins and included
in his report to Sir Clements Markham.
Interestingly, and in complete contrast to their attitude to
Wickham, Brazil glorifies to this day the names of Francisco
Inocentcio de Souza Coutinho, who smuggled seeds of many
spices from Cayenne to Pará in 1797, and Francisco de Melo
Palheta, who, in 1727, had been able to charm the wife of the
French Governor into providing him with a number of forbidden
fruits, including coffee seeds from which Brazil has certainly
benefitted considerably.
Regardless of the details, Wickham’s seeds did arrive at Kew
on 14 June 1876 and were planted in seedbeds the day after their
arrival. Within a few weeks 2397 of them had germinated (rather
less than the 10% or seven thousand subsequently claimed by
Rubber goes East 93
Wickham). We know that 1919 of these seedlings were then sent
to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) under the charge of one of the Kew gar-
deners, William Chapman, where there were three days of panic
as no one had arranged for the harbour dues to be paid. However,
the seedlings were eventually released and 1700 survived to be
planted at the Heneratgoda Gardens in Colombo. By 1880 it was
reported that only some 300 were still alive.
At the same time that the seedlings were dispatched to
Sri Lanka, two cases, containing a total of fifty seedlings, were
sent to Singapore for the attention of H. J. Murton, who had been
placed in charge of the Singapore Botanical Gardens in the pre-
vious year. These were offloaded and left in a shed for a month
before being collected—dead. As the Kew Report of 1876 suc-
cinctly says:
In the case of Singapore . . . Owing to the delay on the part of

the India Office in paying the freight the case did not come into
the hands of the Superintendent of the Botanical Gardens to
whom they should have been consigned till the plants were nearly
all dead.
In September 1876 a further 100 seedlings were sent to Sri Lanka.

These were presumably from ‘Wickham seedling’ cuttings as no
new source was known to have come into the UK until the botanist
and explorer Robert Cross, whom Markham had sent to the
Amazon to provide back-up in case of Wickham’s failure, returned
in November of that year with just over 1000 Heveas, as well as
some Cearas and Castilloas. Kew gave away just over half of these but
retained 400, from which about two dozen survived.
We also know that 100 plants went to Sri Lanka in the summer
of 1877 and a further 50 to India. In all, by the end of 1877, Kew
had distributed over 3000 seedlings; this was vastly more
than their primary stock, so there must have been considerable
propagation from cuttings. Sri Lanka then forwarded 22 seed-
lings, probably from that delivery of 100, to Singapore. All of
these survived and Sir Henry Ridley, Director of the Singapore
Botanical Gardens, was later to remark that it was from these 22
seedlings in the Gardens that more than 75% of the cultivated
plants in Malaysia were derived.
Unfortunately, in spite of all the detailed records kept by Kew,
one piece of information is missing, and that is the certain source
of those 100 seedlings. We do not know whether they were
propagated from ‘Wickham’ or ‘Cross’ plants. Whilst many
writers claim, without giving verifiable references, that they were
from ‘Wickham’ plants, we have the firm opinion of Ridley that
they appeared different from the original (Wickham) seedlings
and that they were from ‘Cross’ plants. He made this claim many
times in his career and maintained it to the end. The last paragraph
of a letter written by him to W. B. Turrill at Kew in 1950 (see
Fig. 6.3) reads:
I conclude therefore that the 22 plants which were sent to
Singapore from which almost all the cultivated plantations derived
are from Cross not Wickham.
Fig. 6.3 The last paragraph of Ridley’s letter of 1950.

Rubber goes East 95
This remains yet another great unanswered question in the
‘biography’ of natural rubber. The question was first raised with
Kew in 1910 by P. J. S. Cramer of the Botanic Gardens at
Buitenzorg, in W. Java, Indonesia, possibly resulting from earlier
discussions with Ridley. He was answered by David Prain at Kew,
who said that there was no chance that Cross’s seeds could be
involved. However, if we look at p. 88 of the Selected papers from the
Kew Bulletin. III—Rubber, there is the statement that Robert Cross:
. . . arrived at Kew on 21st November 1876. He brought with him
about 1080 seedlings without soil, of which, with the greatest
care, scarcely 3% could be saved. About 100 plants propagated at
Kew from these were subsequently sent to Ceylon.
Another early report—W. Wicherley (one-time Head of Botany
at the Rubber Research Institute of Malaysia) writing in The whole
art of rubber growing (1911)—repeats the observation, including
the dispatch of 100 of the Cross seedlings to Sri Lanka.
All of the information from a variety of sources can be tabu-
lated as follows.
14 June 1876 Wickham arrives at Kew with around 70 000
seeds.
12 August–October 1876 Kew sends to Ceylon 1919
Wickham seedlings.
August–September 1786 Kew sends to Singapore 50
Wickham seedlings (died in harbour).
September–November 1876 Kew sends to Ceylon 100
Wickham seedlings.
21 November 1876 Cross arrives at Kew with 1080
seedlings.
Early 1877 Kew sends to Ceylon 100 Cross seedlings.
11 June 1877 Ceylon sends to Singapore 22 Cross or
Wickham seedlings?
October 1877 Singapore to Perak: 9 or 10 from these 22
seedlings sent to Malaysia as the basis for most of the plantation
industry.
One small ‘fly in the ointment’ remains and this is a letter from
H. J. Murton to Kew, dated 6 September 1877:
Our climate is evidently suited for the growth of Hevea, judging by

the growth the plants you sent last year have made.
This must refer to the first batch of seedlings, sent in late

1876; but, judging by the considerable evidence that all or vir-
tually all of these had died due to maladministration, this could be
an attempt by Murton to salvage his position now that he had
the second delivery, should anyone come to inspect them. It did
him little good as his career came to an abrupt end two years
later when he was convicted of embezzlement and sent to prison.
In any event, William Anderson (Chairman of the Raffles Library
and Museum, Singapore) wrote to the Colonial Secretary on
30 September 1876 saying that Murton had told him that, by
the time he had been notified of the seedlings’ arrival, they were
all dead.
In summary therefore, and contrary to what some authors
claim, on p. 88 of the Selected papers from the Kew Bulletin. III—
Rubber Dr Trimen clearly states that the 100 seedlings sent from
Kew to Sri Lanka in 1877 were Cross seedlings. His comment that
Cross’s contribution was small reflected the fact that this 100
should be compared with the 1919 (þ100) Wickham seedlings
which had been shipped to Ceylon, but, this comment is not
relevant as we are only concerned with the 22 seedlings which
were subsequently sent to Singapore. What is still undetermined
is whether those 22 seedlings sent from Ceylon to Singapore came
from this last batch of seedlings (apparently from Cross if Trimen
Rubber goes East 97
and Ridley are to be believed) or were from other (Wickham)
stock held there.
Whether the truth can ever be established now is doubtful, but
perhaps we should consider Cross, not Wickham, to be the
‘father of the rubber plantation industry’. It should be added that a
further shipment of Hevea, Castilloa, and Ceara seedlings held
at Kew from Cross’s travels were dispatched to Sri Lanka on
15 September 1877, but these were too late to be the source of
the famous 22 seedlings.
In Sri Lanka experimental plantings were carried out at the
Botanic Gardens at Heneratgoda and Peradeniya, the latter being
in the highlands near Candy. The planters were not convinced that
Hevea was the best option and they also experimented with Ficus
elastica, as well as Castilloa and Ceara. Initially, the last two were
favoured because of their quick maturation, but were eventually
displaced by the slower growing but higher yielding Hevea. By
1882 the young plants were bearing seeds and the further
development of government plantations in India was through this
route. ‘Private’ demand for the seeds, however, was poor as
many planters had been made bankrupt by the coffee blight which
had struck a few years earlier, and those who had survived had
already replanted with tea or moved to Malaysia to start afresh.
Indeed, in 1887 Kew received 2000 seeds from Sri Lanka in the
hope that a home could be found for them as they were not
wanted there. Soon, however, the situation had changed, and by
the 1890s it was reported that some planters were doing so well
from their seed sales that they saw no need to go through the daily
grind of tapping!
In the Botanic Gardens, Dr H. Trimen was active in developing
tapping procedures so that he could get an ongoing supply of latex
from each tree in such a way that it would produce for an
appreciable number of years. His results led him to conclude that
Fig. 6.4 Henry Wickham with one of the original Heveas at

Heneratgoda in 1911.
rubber had a viable future in the country, so he set out to convince

both the Government and the private tappers that this was the
case. In 1896 he was succeeded by J. C. Willis, who had the added
impetus of being able to promote rubber due to the falling prices
for tea, and he was also able to obtain considerable government
assistance towards a replanting programme. From this a thriving
plantation industry developed, although, after an initial very rapid
growth, land restrictions precluded the continuing expansion
which took place in Malaysia. Figures for acreage under rubber in
Rubber goes East 99
Ceylon were: 1900, 1000 acres; 1905, 66 000 acres; 1910,
258 000 acres; and 1920, 433 000 acres. Although many samples
of Sri Lankan Hevea rubber were sent to the UK for evaluation, it
is generally accepted that 1899 marked the first commercial
exportation of plantation rubber from that country.
Returning to the Malaysian peninsular, it should not be thought
that the arrival of 22 seedlings in Singapore in 1877 created the
Malaysian plantation industry overnight. Indeed, officialdom was
not particularly interested in the idea as the country had tin, and
the mining of this was exceedingly profitable. Murton planted
10 seedlings in the Singapore Botanical Gardens and in October
he contacted the Resident—Sir Hugh Low—who expressed an
interest in the plants and their potential. Murton then set out with
10 of the seedlings for the Residency at Kuala Kangsar. Nine
seedlings were planted in the Residency gardens, where they
were nurtured by Hugh Low, whilst the tenth was believed to
have been planted in Taiping, although no trace of it was found
when Hugh Low looked for it the following year. One of the
9 seedlings still exists as the photograph in Fig. 6.5 shows.
Investigations of both Hevea and indigenous rubber-producing
plants were carried out by Murton, at the Singapore Botanical
Gardens, and by his successor, N. Cantly. In 1885 Cantly claimed
that the latter offered better commercial potential. Meanwhile, in
1884 Frank Swettenham, later to be the High Commissioner of
the Federated Malay States, planted 400 Hevea seeds from the
Kuala Kangsar trees in Perak. More were planted in Selangor
between 1883 and 1885 by T. H. Hill, although these were
possibly ornamental rather than commercial plantings.
In 1888 Henry Ridley, a former gardener at Kew, then aged
just thirty-five, was appointed Director of the Singapore Botanical
Gardens and suggested that the Government should consider
large-scale plantings since there was little private interest in
(a)
(b)
Fig. 6.5 (a) One of the original Heveas planted at Kuala Kangsar in
1877, and (b) its associated plaque.
Rubber goes East 101
planting crops which would take five years or more to start paying
their way. He was able to use his additional position as Supervisor
of the Straits Forest Department to carry out plantings in both
Singapore and in the vicinity of Malacca, and, like Trimen in
Sri Lanka, he investigated different ways of cultivating and tapping
the trees to optimise the yield.
He published his ideas in 1897 and, following these, Curtis in
Penang and Derry in Kuala Kangsar obtained yields of latex from
which they were able to calculate that rubber production could be
profitable. It was also noted from samples sent to England that
there would be a ready market for plantation rubber as it was
much cleaner and more consistent in quality than the wild rubbers
of either Africa or Amazonia.
It is perhaps ironic that another Brazilian commodity had
pushed Malaysia into rubber, whereas in Sri Lanka it had had the
opposite effect. Various government inducements had encouraged
planters to create and expand plantations and many of these chose
coffee as their main crop. The price of coffee had been high due to
production problems in Brazil, but, by the mid-1890s, these
problems had been overcome and the fungal disease which had
wiped out the Sri Lankan industry was attacking the Malaysian
plants. In 1895 Tan Chay Yan planted forty-three acres of Hevea on
his estate at Bukit Lintang in Malacca and the Kindersleys planted
a further five acres in Selangor. These were the first commercial
rubber estates in Malaysia and, as the coffee market collapsed,
more and more planters turned to rubber. Initially the plantings
were interspersed with cash crops, but by 1898 Stephens, in
Perak, was planting dedicated rubber plantations. At about this
time Ridley (now universally know as ‘Rubber Ridley’) noted that
he had received requests for one million seeds in a single day!
Although there was no mechanism for collecting reliable
statistics on land usage prior to 1905, some idea of the speed at
which the industry developed can be obtained from the following
estimated figures for total rubber acreage in all of what is now
Malaysia: 1898, 2000 acres; 1900, 6000 acres; 1905, 46 000
acres; 1910, 540 000 acres; and 1920, 2 180 000 acres. By 1920
wild rubber had been essentially consigned to history and
plantation rubber had arrived with a vengeance.
However, the story of Brazilian rubber does not quite end
there. Henry Ford wanted a more controllable source of rubber
for his car tyres, so in 1928 he purchased some 25 000 square
kilometres of land sixty miles south of Santarem, on which he set
out to create not only a plantation but also a complete town for his
workers. He named it ‘Fordlandia’. Unfortunately, he encoun-
tered numerous difficulties and after five years only about ten
(a) (b)
Fig. 6.6 (a) H. N. Ridley with a Hevea tree showing herringbone

tapping. (b) A modern tapping panel. Thin slivers are removed each
time the tree is tapped. By tapping progressively the trunk can
regenerate and the process can continue.
square kilometres per year were being planted. It was obvious
that the venture was never going to succeed, so Ford abandoned
the site and in the early 1930s began work at ‘Fordlandia II’ or
‘Belterra’ on a new site much closer to Santarem. Although he
imported high-yielding rubber seeds from Asia, labour problems
and poor soil conditions, resulting in stunted growth, again
doomed the venture, which Ford finally abandoned in the late
1930s, selling out to the Brazilian Government for a pittance in
1945. Then the story ended!
Let us now return to Henry Wickham. He and his wife were back
in England in June 1876, and in July and August Wickham persisted
in trying to persuade the Director of the Botanic Gardens at Kew
(Dr Joseph Hooker) to employ him so that he might accompany some
of the young rubber seedlings to areas of the tropics then under
Britain’s control and complete what he now saw as his mission.
Hooker rejected the idea, having no proof of, or faith in, Wickham’s
arboricultural expertise. So Wickham took the £700 paid to him for
delivering the seeds and set out with his wife for a new life in
Queensland, where he intended to grow tobacco and coffee.
Life in the Amazon basin had been very difficult for him and it
had no intention of getting better! A change in the wind direction
caused the fire he had started to clear scrubland to set fire to
the thatched cottage which he had built, and the building, with all
their possessions, was destroyed. A second dwelling was built—
this time with a corrugated-iron roof which was ripped off in a
storm. Finally, he was left with massive debts when his partner,
for whom he had stood guarantor, walked away from the busi-
ness. He sold up, cleared the debt, and returned to England.
Shortly after his return in November 1886 he was on his way
to British Honduras, where he obtained a government post. His
wife joined him and, for once, her diaries showed a degree of
contentment with their social existence. Wickham, however,
longed for life in the wild and started another plantation some
sixty miles from ‘civilisation’. On this occasion there were
problems with his lease and during his long legal argument over
the land rights he petitioned Queen Victoria directly. Having
apparently taken advice from King Solomon, she wrote on his
solicitor’s statement ‘Let justice be done. Victoria R and I.’ The
‘justice’ finished with Wickham again having to sell up and return
to England in poverty in 1893.
Next he turned to the sea and took a concession to develop a
small group of coral islands to the south-east of Papua New
Guinea, the Conflict Group. These islands turned out to be aptly
named because, after two years without seeing another white
woman, his wife had finally had enough and returned to England,
never to see her husband again, although she lived a month longer
than he, dying in late 1928.
As always, he was hampered by a lack of investment capital and
negligible business acumen. Although he had one more try at
developing a rubber plantation on New Guinea, he eventually
gave up these enterprises and returned to England; his final return
being in 1911. Even in England he continued to speak his mind on
how rubber trees should be planted, cultivated, and tapped, and
he invented various devices such as tapping knives and rubber-
smoking machines. As the reader might expect by now, his ideas
on rubber cultivation were contrary to the pragmatic ‘best
practice’ developed in the Far East, whilst his inventions were
commercial failures.
In 1911 he at last gained some financial reward from the rubber
industry with the gift of a silver salver, a £1000 cheque, and an
annuity purchased with a further £1000.
In 1920 he was knighted for ‘services in connection with the
rubber plantation industry in the Far East’ and in 1926 the
American oil magnate Edgar B. Davis presented him with
Fig. 6.7 Sir Henry Wickham, 12 october 1926.
a cheque for £6000 as an 80th birthday present. Soon afterwards

the British Government of Malaysia gave him £8000. Two years
later he was dead.
What then can one make of Sir Henry Wickham? One view was
expressed by Henry Ridley, the person who, more than any
other, persuaded the country we now know as Malaysia to
develop rubber plantations:
I looked on him as a failed planter who was lucky in that for merely
traveling home with a lot of seeds had received a knighthood and
enough money to live comfortably in his old age . . . He ordered
natives to bring him in the seeds and to pack them in crates and
put them on board ship. One cannot help feeling he was jolly well
paid for a little job. He was no agriculturalist, he knew nothing
about rubber and cared not for it . . . As for his abilities in planting
I should say he had none.
Edward Lane, one of the very few people to have studied

Wickham’s life in detail, wrote of him in 1953 as an ardent
imperialist with little business acumen and with an autocratic
manner which made him difficult to get on with, yet he was a
staunch and loyal friend to those he really liked. Fordyce Jones, a
close friend in Wickham’s later years, called him:
a great man . . . whom to know was to love and whom all those in
the rubber industry who have its interests at heart have affec-
tionately called its ‘father’.
Although these remarks consider different aspects of the one man
and his life, there seems little conflict between them. He was
Fig. 6.8 Tapping Hevea trees on a modern Malaysian plantation.

domineering, egocentric, but a true friend. His business acumen
was undoubtedly hopeless, but, at one point in his life, he was
‘in the right place at the right time’. In order to boost his ego and
standing, he had to make an adventure out of a simple voyage, and
in so doing his exaggerations and deceptions hid beyond recovery
the truth of his one successful activity which certainly did change
the world for ever (if the 22 seedlings really were from his seeds
and not from those of Robert Cross!).
7
The King and the Congo
In the early 1880s the article shown in Fig. 7.1 appeared in a

British magazine. But the truth was somewhat different.
In the previous chapters we have seen that wild natural rubber
could be obtained from many plants and that these are widely
distributed across the tropics, sub-tropics, and even the tem-
perate regions of the Earth. However, only one region other than
Amazonia made a significant contribution to the world’s supply of
this material during the late nineteenth and early twentieth cen-
turies, and this was the Congo.
The timescale over which the development of this trade
occurred closely mirrored that of the Amazon basin but its
gestation was very different. The Amazon region had long been
noted as the source of natural rubber and production naturally
rose in an attempt to meet a growing demand. The methods by
which this was brought about will be discussed in the next chapter
and, depending on one’s viewpoint, could be ascribed to enthu-
siastic entrepreneurs or to ‘robber barons’ operating within their
own very private fiefdoms. The exploitation of the Congo grew
out of one man’s lust for money with which to establish a family
dynasty, together with his remarkable ability to convince a broad
spectrum of European politicians and businessmen that he was a
great humanitarian and that he was acting with pure altruism.
That man was Leopold II, King of the Belgians.
The King and the Congo 109
Fig. 7.1 How to get rich in the Congo.

Leopold’s story begins with the foundation of the free and
independent state of Belgium on 20 January 1831. Prince Leopold
of Saxe-Coberg was eventually chosen as its king and came to the
throne later that year. On his death in 1865, his son, the Duke of
Brabant, who was just three months younger than the country,
became King Leopold II. In accepting the kingship his father had
also agreed to be bound by the Constitution which, it was
thought, would keep him in his place, but, it contained a fatal
flaw. The king was Commander-in-Chief of the army and was
therefore in charge of the nation’s defence. This obviously
required considerable interaction with his European neighbours
and so enabled him to take control of foreign affairs, a useful
portfolio to pass to his son.
Leopold II seemed not to have had a particularly happy
upbringing. He was tall, thin, and, according to many reports, he
had an enormous nose. He was also idle (or suffered from late
development) but he did develop a passion for the accumulation
of data of all description, which he filed, classified, and cross-
referenced. His father does not seem to have been particularly
fond of him, but in later years acknowledged that he was his own
man and that, whilst abrasive and over-sure of himself, he was also
showing signs of subtleness and a manipulative ability which
would manifest themselves with a vengeance in the not too distant
future.
Belgium’s problem was that neither the country nor the
monarchy was built on ‘old money’. The new country had passed
through many crises in its first thirty-four years and was now
reasonably rich as well as politically neutral. Leopold II was
certainly not rich and this led him to argue that Belgium could not
stand still but should strengthen her position by becoming even
richer, in the anticipation that some of the wealth might rub off on
him. Given his inherited position as director of foreign affairs, it
seemed an obvious move to consider which accessible parts of the
world remained unclaimed by existing colonial powers and what
riches he could seize therefrom for his country and himself.
The first question was where to start. He had already travelled
extensively, visiting Egypt in 1855 and again in 1864 en route to
China via India and the Malay States. As a result of these travels he
had identified three types of colony: the slave, the white émigré,
and that containing large numbers of indigenous workers under
white control. He identified the last as being the most appropriate
for his purpose and he noted of Java, where forced labour was
used, that it was ‘the only way to civilise and moralise these idle
and corrupt populations’. Nevertheless, he appreciated that he
would have to be rather more circumspect in presenting his inten-
tions to those whose help he wished to solicit in his endeavours. It
was soon brought home to him that neither the prospect of an
external source of income nor an appeal to patriotism would
galvanise his fellow countrymen into activity. His plans became
one stage clearer when he wrote, in 1863, ‘Belgium does not
exploit the world, it is a taste we have got to make her learn.’
Over the next ten years Leopold investigated a number of pos-
sible countries in which he might have been able to take, or
purchase, influence, but none proved acceptable. However, in
August 1875 a letter to a confidante contained the sentence,
‘I intend to find out discreetly whether there may not be anything
to be done in Africa.’
It took little effort on his behalf to focus down from ‘Africa’ to
‘the Congo’, a virtually blank area on the map which had recently
become the subject of renewed interest following the discoveries
and writings of Livingstone, Speke, Baker, and Burton into the
interrelationship between the Nile, the Lualaba, and the Congo
river itself. At first glance it may have seemed an obvious choice to
settle some of the arguments by following the Congo inland from
the western seaboard and to see where one finished up, but the
complex of rapids and cataracts 100 or so miles inland made
further navigation impossible. Indeed, it had been tried in 1875 by
a German team but their efforts failed after a few days.
At the end of that same year Lovatt Cameron turned up on the
west coast, near Luanda, after a two and a half year journey
through the heart of Africa from the east coast. Some of his
comments struck crucial chords with Leopold. Tales of rich
mineral deposits, grain, and rubber triggered his financial lust,
whilst the stories of the Arab slavers with their heavily laden
caravans provided an opportunity for him to appeal to Belgian
missionary zeal and, hopefully, gain access to the country through
apparently altruistic and honourable means.
Two problems remained; the first was how to bring about this
move into the Congo without upsetting or alarming the other
European nations, and the second was how to extract any valuable
‘assets’ without, at best, having to share them with another
country or, at worst, precipitating open hostilities. This was to be
resolved at the Brussels Conference of 1876 in a manner which
proved how well Leopold had learned to manipulate, lie, and
distort facts during his formative years. His father was to be
proved right but he would not have approved.
The Brussels Conference was a gathering of scientists,
explorers, and geographers. They came from Austria, Britain,
France, Germany, Italy, and Russia, and they were all famous
names. It was completely non-political and Leopold’s proposition
was that Central Africa should not be a place of national squabbles
and bickerings, but that an international body should be set up
which would suppress slavery and develop the country and its
infrastructure through normal and fair commercial practices.
Exploration would be controlled by the geographers, whilst
national sub-committees would be set up through existing learned
bodies which would be financed by national governments but not
subject to political control or influence.
In his opening speech, on 12 September, Leopold laid out his
‘public’ position:
The subject which brings us together today is one of those which
must be the supreme preoccupation to all friends of humanity. To
open to civilisation the only area of our globe to which it has not
yet penetrated . . . a crusade worthy of this century of pro-
gress. . . . Many of those who have made the closest study of
Africa have come to the conclusion that their common purpose
would be well served by a conference to get their work in step, to
concert efforts, to share all resources and to avoid covering the
same ground twice . . . Need I say that in bringing you to Brussels
I was guided by no motives of egoism? Belgium may be a small
country but she is happy and contented with her lot. I have no
other ambition than to serve her well.
He then set out the following three points to be addressed.
1. Location of bases and whether they are to be acquired by treaty
or purchase from the natives.
2. Location of routes to the interior, with the setting up of posts
for scientific research, the abolition of slavery, and the
education of the natives.
3. Establishment of the central and national committees, and
deciding the best way to appeal to each nation’s charitable
instincts for finance.
The meeting then established the international authority itself,
formally known as the ‘Association Internationale pour Reprimer la
Traite et Ouvrir l’Afrique Centrale’ but more commonly known as
the ‘Association Internationale Africaine’ (or AIA). This was to be
managed by an ‘International Committee’ chaired by Leopold on
the understanding that the chair would progress annually through
different national representatives. There was then established an
‘Executive Committee’ and the various ‘National Committees’.
It was a remarkable conference and altruism, coupled with the
spirit of pure research, triumphed—for a short time. The
International Committee met again in 1877 and, forgetting its
own rules, re-elected Leopold to the chair. It never met again.
The Executive Committee reported on the AIA’s operations until
1880, whilst, with the exception of that of Belgium, the National
Committees never even saw the light of day.
Leopold’s intention at that time was somehow to find a way for
Belgium to take control of the AIA, but over the next two years it
became a political brickbat, with all political parties as well as the
Catholic Press putting their selective interpretations on what the
AIA was really up to. Fortunately for Leopold, none deduced his
real intent of using its ostensible purpose as a front to pacify and
confuse the other nations whilst he got his colony up, running,
and secure, but it rapidly became obvious to him that Belgium was
unfit to receive the polished jewel which he was creating. He
would just have to establish his own private colony in the Congo
basin.
The new question was whom could Leopold trust to set up
such a structure? He would have to know something of the African
native, believe in himself, be prepared to use force where
necessary, and yet, at the same time, at least initially whilst the
scheme gathered momentum, be gullible and unappreciative of
Leopold’s true intent.
Out of the jungle, having taken almost three years to cross
Africa from Lake Tanganyika down the Lualaba and the Congo
to the West African Coast, came Henry Morton Stanley (see
Fig. 7.2).
H. M. Stanley is known to the world as the American journalist
who issued the immortal greeting ‘Dr Livingstone I presume’ in
Fig. 7.2 ‘Henry Morton Stanley’.
November 1871 when he located the missing explorer at Ujiji. In

fact, he was neither ‘Henry’, nor ‘Morton’, nor ‘Stanley’, nor
American, and it is arguable whether his journalism was based
more on fact than on fiction. He was born in Wales in 1841, one
of several illegitimate children of Betsy Parry, and his birth cer-
tificate identifies him, with little subtlety, as ‘John Rowlands—
Bastard’, the first of many indignities which contributed to the
character which Leopold found so useful. The first six years of his
life were spent with his grandfather who did not believe in sparing
the rod and, when he died, John was deposited in the St Asaph
Union Workhouse. Here he seems to have been the recipient of
the worst kinds of Victorian sexual and physical abuse, but gained
a passion for geography, an elegant script, and a bible as a prize
from a local bishop.
At fifteen he left St Asaph’s and for two years lived as
the ‘poorhouse boy’ with various relatives before shipping to
New Orleans on a split-second impulse. In a series of moves
which would be recognised by any psychiatrist today, he then
began a process of reinvention, taking on the name of the mer-
chant who befriended him when he landed and inventing a whole
new autobiography. There is no doubt that his early childhood left
him with what would today be called ‘sexual hang-ups’ and it can
be no coincidence that, in years to come, he departed on two of
his African journeys soon after becoming engaged. Neither lady
waited for him.
After a stint in the American Civil War—fighting for the
Confederates at the battle of Shiloh and then for the Union Navy
bombarding Confederate ports in North Carolina—he started his
journalistic career writing freelance articles and then turned
to covering the Indian wars for a variety of Eastern papers. The
conflict between the papers’ desire for stories of blood and
thunder and the fact that the wars were virtually over and that
Stanley’s time was spent covering peace missions was easily
resolved, as his fictional reports of the Indians on the warpath
showed. His reports and style were appreciated by the publisher
of the New York Herald, James Gordon Bennett Junior who hired
him to cover the British–Abyssinian war. Here, foresight and luck
played equal parts in the advancement of Stanley. He had already
bribed the telegraph operator in Suez to send his dispatches before
all others and, just after his report of a British victory, the tele-
graph cable out of Suez broke, so no more dispatches could be
sent. This scoop, in June of 1868, resulted in his being given a
permanent position as a roving reporter on the Herald, but it took
until the end of 1871 for him to become a household name, as
famous as the explorer whom he had found. This mattered to
Stanley, who never regarded exploration as anything more than
the establishment of a factual framework within which he might
weave his arguably fictional tales of daring-do and thus obtain the
riches he never had as a child. His books were so popular that it
would be fair to identify him as the first of a long sequence of
professional travel writers, but, once again, he was fortunate.
Livingstone died in Africa and did not return to Britain, where his
story might well have conflicted with that of Stanley’s as told in
How I found Livingstone. Stanley was now thirty years old.
Yet again, his past returned to haunt him as the ‘upper crust’
Royal Geographic Society refused to acknowledge his exploring
abilities, and rumours about his birth began to spread. This could
be professionally damaging to an ‘American’ writing for an anti-
British paper in the US. His insecurity was further increased when
he discovered that his fiancée had married whilst he was away. His
answer—to return to Africa—could be considered escapism or a
need for more background for his next book. Finance was
available from Gordon Bennett, Levy-Lawson of the UK Daily
Telegraph, and others for an Anglo-American expedition to solve a
number of geographical problems relating to the land west of
Lake Tanganyika and, particularly, to establish the relationship
between the Rivers Lualaba, Nile, Niger, and Congo. Livingstone
had thought that the Lualaba formed the headwaters of the Nile,
but Lovatt Cameron believed it fed the Congo. Stanley initially
favoured the Niger but slowly came to prefer the Congo. The
world wanted to know and he could see money in a book.
The expedition set off in 1874 with Stanley, three other whites
whose lack of experience suggested that they had been chosen so
that they would not detract from Stanley’s glory, and their main
means of transport, the Lady Alice, a forty-foot steam launch which
divided into five sections for portage. The boat was named after
Stanley’s second fiancée, the seventeen-year-old Alice Pike. The
expedition also contained over 300 Africans.
Stanley’s attitude to the natives was exactly what Leopold
required and can best be illustrated by two examples. Stanley was,
of course, equipped with the most up-to-date armaments and was
perfectly happy to fight his way past any tribal opposition, par-
ticularly when it consisted of bows, arrows, and spears, with the
occasional antique muzzle loader. He noted that: ‘we have
attacked and destroyed twenty-eight large towns and three or
four score villages’. However, when necessary, he was capable of
a more subtle approach, illustrated in his conversion of the
Emperor of Uganda to Christianity. This was brought about by
making him aware of the church’s eleven commandments, the
one we would not recognise being that man must ‘honour and
respect kings as they are envoys of God’.
Starting down the Lualaba, Stanley travelled several hundred
miles before the first portage round ‘Stanley Falls’ and then he had
a clear run of almost 1000 miles to ‘Stanley Pool’. Lest it be
thought that his egotism was running a little high, he named Mount
Gordon Bennett, the Gordon Bennett River, the Levy Hills, and
Mount Lawson after his main sponsors. The naming of ‘Stanley
Pool’ was at the insistence of one of the other whites, Frank
Pocock, or so Stanley claimed; but as Mr Pocock, like Stanley’s
other two white companions, died on the expedition we can only
take his word for that. The final 200 or so miles west of Stanley
Pool to the coast were a continuous string of rapids and waterfalls,
which made Stanley realise that he was on the River Congo. The
boats were abandoned and a desperate four and a half months of
marching through the jungle were needed to arrive at Bomba.
The epic Through the dark continent, published by Stanley in
1878, tells all from his point of view in his established and popular
style, although one fact which is missing is the number of native
survivors. We know that Stanley was the lone survivor of the four
whites who set out, and that the death toll amongst the natives
was massively high. Perhaps Stanley’s failure to record this detail
just reflected his lack of interest in the trivial details of his suc-
cessful expedition.
The only sour note to be sounded was when he discovered that
his second fiancée had preferred the ‘bird in the hand’ and had
married an American railway heir a few months after they had
separated. He would have been more distressed to know that in
later years, after his death, she claimed remorse that she had not
waited for him and professed that it was her spirit, together with
the physical presence of the Lady Alice, which had motivated and
carried him across Africa.
Leopold had found his man. In fact, Stanley had first come to
Leopold’s attention when his plans to follow the Lualaba down-
stream had been announced three years earlier. Leopold believed
in Lovatt Cameron’s supposition that the Rivers Lualaba and
Congo were linked, and he was also aware that in 1874 Lovatt
Cameron had annexed the Congo in the name of Queen
Victoria—only to have the British Government reject the
annexation as soon as it heard of it. Leopold’s immediate problem
now was how to recruit Stanley without alerting the British. He
therefore resolved to employ Stanley to explore the Congo basin
and establish some posts under the auspices of the AIA. A little
early discussion with Stanley seemed a good idea, so he sent two
emissaries to meet him at Marseilles, where his train had stopped
en route to Britain from Italy. Stanley was not interested; he
wanted plaudits from his countrymen (the British) and time to
write his book.
Inevitably, Leopold had to use a small coterie of trusted
employees in his machinations, but some consciences were
pricking and questions were being asked as to how Stanley could
be offered this position without the approval of the Executive
Committee of the AIA, and what exactly was the purpose of the
posts which he was to establish. The situation would soon become
clear to those in the know and more complex to everybody else.
By June 1878 Stanley had become tired of the negative attitude
of the British Government, which was too tied up in Egypt and the
Nile to consider further African undertakings, so he travelled to
Brussels for a meeting with Leopold. The two got on well, but
Stanley emphasised that the first stage of any useful opening-up of
the Congo required a railway round the lower falls and rapids.
Funding was a problem, but a proposal from the Dutch traders at
the mouth of the Congo for a ‘study syndicate’ fitted nicely into
the ostensible purposes of the AIA, and a group of European
financiers agreed to support this. The syndicate came into being as
the ‘Comité d’Etudes du Haut-Congo’. Its terms of reference were
never published, but came to light in 1918 and included a clause
excluding the Comité from taking any political action. Like so
many of Leopold’s clauses and contracts, this seems to have
faded into oblivion very quickly if one considers the evidence of
a document found in the Belgian Foreign Ministry archives.
Leopold writing to Stanley:
. . . It is a question of creating a new State as big as possible and
running it . . . there is no question of granting political power to
Negroes . . . the white man will head the stations which will be
populated by free and freed Negroes. Every station would regard
itself as a little republic . . . The work will be directed by the King
[Leopold] who attaches particular importance to the setting up of
the stations . . . the best course of action would be to secure
concessions of land from the natives for the purposes of roads and
cultivation and to found as many stations as possible . . . should we
not try to extend the influence of the stations over the neigh-
bouring chiefs and form a Republican Confederation of native
freedmen. The President [of the Confederation] will hold his
powers from the King.
The emphasis on ‘freed men’ fitted in with the aims of the AIA
and gave Leopold the time he needed to implement his real
schemes, more honestly set out in a private letter to Stanley in
August 1878. Stanley was to acquire as much land as possible by
purchase or concession on behalf of the Comité, which would set
out the laws of this ‘free state’ with Leopold, as a private citizen,
at its head. Although Stanley obtained close to 1 000 000 square
miles of the Congo for Leopold, the latter was not happy as the
French, through Count Savorgnan de Brazza, established a camp
at Stanley Pool, the site of the future Brazzaville.
What Stanley did not know was that the Comité d’Etudes du
Haut-Congo no longer existed! In November 1878 Leopold
announced to his shareholders that most of the money used to
found it had been spent and the rest was committed to contracts
already underway. He felt very sorry about this, but was prepared
to return their original investments in full and offer them pref-
erence should any commercial undertakings grow from the
enterprise. All he asked was that the Comité be dissolved. This was
agreed and the Comité d’Etudes du Haut-Congo was immediately
replaced by the Association Internationale du Congo (AIC) with 100%
funding from Leopold. This fund provided the treasury of the
Congo Free State, which was thus also owned by Leopold.
The similarity of the names of the AIA and AIC were hardly
coincidental. As Leopold wrote to a supporter, ‘care must be
taken not to let it be obvious that the AIA and AIC are different,
the public doesn’t grasp this.’
Leopold remained dissatisfied with Stanley’s qualities of lead-
ership and in 1882, when Stanley was in Brussels, they discussed
his possible successor. Leopold was interested in recruiting
General Gordon, who was avidly anti-slavery and whom he had
met earlier; he would be an ideal ‘front’ for the AIC. In 1883
Leopold offered him a position, suggesting that a field marshal’s
position in the Congo would be a considerable advance on a
generalship in England. Gordon accepted, but changed his mind
when the British Government asked him to oversee the paci-
fication of the Sudan and, specifically, to relieve the isolated
garrison in Khartoum. He became trapped there and was killed in
1884. History now regards him as a hero and, whilst it may have
been a bad career move in the very short term, it is doubtful
whether he would have fared so well if he had chosen the Congo
route.
Although his financial position had now been strengthened,
Leopold was still looking for international recognition and started
with the United States of America as being the country least likely
to understand the complexities of the pyramid of power which he
was creating or, indeed, Africa itself. It proved relatively simple
to confuse the Americans. In the President’s message to Congress
in December 1883 the AIC was referred to as the AIA and the
Comité d’Etudes du Haut-Congo was taken as a branch of the AIA. By
February 1884 both Congress and the Senate recognised the flag
of the AIC as that of the Congo Free States (not yet one state).
Leopold then staged a magnificent coup by, in one statement,
binding France, Germany, and Britain to his scheme. The state-
ment, issued jointly by the AIC and the French Prime Minister,
said in essence that the AIC would not cede any of its territory to
any power, but that if it ever had to realise its assets then France
would have first refusal. The contradiction went unnoticed or, at
least, it was not commented on. Now France could relax,
knowing it would have no problems with the AIC and could,
potentially, have some rich pickings, whilst Germany and Britain
now had no option but to support the AIC and so prevent it falling
to the French.
Two items remained to be dealt with before Leopold had the
kingdom he craved. The first was the Berlin Conference of 1884–
1885, arranged by a number of European powers in an attempt to
sort out a range of conflicting land claims in Africa. Interestingly,
it was not felt necessary to invite any Africans. Leopold busied
himself negotiating numerous bilateral agreements, but had sur-
prisingly little trouble in acquiring the million or so square miles
of Central Africa which he sought, as well as the port of Matadi
and the land on which to build his railway past the rapids. There
were probably two reasons for the ease with which he was granted
his claims. The first was that most delegates had never even seen
Africa and believed that, for them, any wealth came from trading
at the water’s edge. The second was that it was still believed that
Leopold’s organisation, be it the AIA or AIC, was generating
some sort of international colony which would be one giant free-
trade area. It took Leopold just three months to clarify the
nomenclature when, by royal decree, his privately purchased
country became the ‘État Indépendant du Congo’—the Congo Free
State. Note that the ‘States’ approved by the US had become one
state a one-letter difference which went unnoticed. His second
problem was cash flow. His efforts to date had cost him a fortune
and he still did not have his railway, which was essential for the
transportation of the riches of the Congo from the interior to the
coast in reasonable quantity. At this time he was still thinking of
ivory, and rubber hardly featured in his calculations. In 1887, for
instance, only thirty tons of rubber came out of the Congo. He
needed money and turned to his own (first) country, Belgium,
which was beginning to realise that there might, after all, be some
financial benefits to be had from the Congo. Using a combination
of his philanthropic record, the ‘French possession’ threat, and a
will in which he left ‘all his sovereign rights’ in the Congo Free
State to Belgium upon his death, he received an interest-free loan
of £1 000 000 (1890 value). He promised to borrow no more
without the prior approval of the Belgian Parliament and to repay
the loan (or have the Congo annexed by Belgium) by the end of
1900. The French do not seem to have been consulted and, in a
typical gesture of altruism, the king backdated his will by a year to
August 1889, thus making it appear that his generosity had
nothing to do with the ‘subsequent’ loan.
Although the political wheeler-dealing, corruption, and lies
continued to the end of Leopold’s reign, he now had his State, but
to take full financial advantage of it he needed four fundamental
things. He had to put in place posts throughout his new land in
which to pace his administrators and their ‘enforcers’, ‘recruit’ a
labour force, develop the river transport on the 1000 or so miles
between Stanley Falls and the rapids, and build Stanley’s railway
from east of the rapids to Matadi.
In addition he needed stability. He was aware of the growing
demand for rubber and of the competition he was facing from
South America and the plantations in the Far East. He was now
close to sixty years old and needed to make money fast. His idea
for short-to-medium-term stability was simple: he would involve
directly, and for their own financial benefit, influential political
and commercial friends throughout Europe who would, in the
preservation of their own interests, support him against his
detractors. He also appreciated the particular advantage to himself
that he would then be able to offload any approbation onto their
shoulders and off his own! This was achieved by a decree of
October 1892 which split the Congo into three zones. The first,
the ‘Domaine Privée’, was to be solely for his financial benefit and
consisted of an area around Lake Leopold II and Lake Tumba. In
1901 it was supposed that it had been set up by a decree of 1896,
reserving the land as ‘Crown property’, but this was subsequently
shown to have been forged. The Domaine Privée was about
ten times the area of Belgium. A second region was to be
either sold on to new owners or distributed between concession
companies. The largest of these companies, known as the
‘Anversoise’, was to be in the hands of his close friends, but, by
1898, a 50% interest had been acquired by the Congo State
(Leopold). The next largest, the Anglo-Belgian India-Rubber
Company (ABIR), was notionally under the chairmanship of an
Englishman, Colonel North, although it later emerged that his
financial stake was purchased with Leopold’s money. As with the
Anversoise, Leopold soon owned at least 50% of the shares and the
British interest reverted to the Belgian.
Perhaps the most interesting area, from the point of view of
Leopold’s machinations, was that situated around the River Kasai.
This was designated a free-trade area, although Leopold’s organ-
isation already controlled a major part of it and was particularly
obstructive when independent traders tried to work within its
‘free’ economy. Within the 1892 decree was the comment, once
again overlooked by all, that the free-trade rights would cease
when Belgium ‘was in a position to take over the sovereignty of
the Congo’. By the terms of the Belgian Government’s loan this
was 1901 and, although Belgium did not take up its offer, it was in
a position to do so. Leopold took over again, for once with the law
on his side, and that was the end of free trade.
With his land and position reasonably secure he could con-
centrate on transport and infrastructure. In 1890 Stanley’s rail-
way was started at Matadi. Three years later it had advanced
fourteen miles at a cost in African life which is, even now,
unknown. The official figures claimed 1800 non-whites and
132 whites, but less official (and more reliable?) sources suggest
that the 1800 figure only relates to the first two years of its
construction. Nevertheless, the line was extended to Stanley
Pool over the next five years and was then open for business.
Three weeks of portage were reduced to two days of steam-
powered transportation.
Leopold needed steamboats above the rapids well before
the completion of the railway so that he could use the clear
1000 miles of river, and its tributaries, to put in place his admin-
istrative infrastructure. These boats had to be dismantled and
carried past the rapids and, as an indication of what this involved,
just one of the steamboats required over 3000 ‘porter loads’.
With transport now under control Leopold could get his ivory
and rubber out—when it had been collected. It has already been
observed that his preferred modus operandi would be trading posts
with a white man in charge of the native work force. The posts,
with their white agents in charge, were put in place, but, since the
native workers had to be coerced to do anything for the agents, a
middle tier of management was required. This was supplied by
soldiers of Leopold’s private army, the ‘Force Publique’, which
supplied both garrisons for general area protection and local
‘sentries’. The officers of this army were generally whites, often
from Belgium but sometimes from other countries, lent to
Leopold to learn the techniques of native control. Other ranks
were often enslaved as much as the rubber tappers proved to be.
They were generally stationed far from home and were left to be
self-supporting. However, possessing guns, they were one off
the bottom of the pyramid of power and not actually on the
bottom. That position was reserved for the tappers and their
families. There were inevitably some mutinies, but, if these could
be suppressed and the tappers forced to produce their full
allocation of rubber, the soldiers had some chance of survival.
Looking to the future, Leopold organised children’s camps,
ostensibly under the auspices of the Catholic Church, which were
intended to educate the native orphan children, but, in actuality,
his purpose was to turn them into trustworthy soldiers.
The orphans tended to be collected from villages destroyed by the
Force Publique and, if they were not orphans when they were
found, they became so very soon afterwards.
The control of gangs of labourers by armed supervisors is
nothing new, but, because of the individual work of the natives
in collecting the latex, a new protocol had to be developed by
the agents and put into operation by the sentries and the Force
Publique. The vine which produced most of the Congo rubber was
of the landolphia genus, which climbed a convenient tree and then
spread out through the upper branches of its neighbours. When
one was first located the latex could be extracted by tapping or
incising close to the ground, but the tappers then had to move
higher and higher up the vine for subsequent tappings. More latex
could be obtained by cutting completely though the vine, but this
was terminal to the vine and forbidden. If caught doing this, it was
also terminal for the tapper! As the vines close to a settlement ran
dry the tappers had to move further out, often making journeys of
a day or more. The usual trading goods of trinkets and the like
were not of sufficient interest to the natives for them to put up
with the rigours of a tapper’s life and Leopold had made certain
that the Congo was, at least to the natives, a ‘no money’ eco-
nomy. Money could give you power in that you might purchase
guns or other undesirable products.
Force was the obvious means of persuasion and this was
better used against women and children than against the tapper,
who might then be unable to work efficiently. A procedure was
soon established and documented in the official manual given
to all agents. The soldiers would arrive at a settlement, loot it
of animals and any other items of value, destroy the buildings,
capture the women and children, and imprison them in stockades
built close to each trading post for just this purpose. They would
then be ransomed against an arbitrarily decided weight of rubber.
On returning with the rubber, the tappers often found that their
women had been raped by the ‘sentries’ and/or had died from
starvation or some disease.
If the natives objected to the forced labour the settlement was
wiped out. Since Leopold did not want to waste money, his agents
knew exactly how many bullets were issued to each soldier
and these were not to be used shooting game for food! The
bullet usage was supposed to relate closely to the number of
natives killed, and the soldiers supplied evidence of their kills by
cutting the right hand from each corpse and smoking it so that it
might be preserved for subsequent checking. When one agent
suggested that the hands could have come from women, easier to
catch and kill, penises were brought in to prove the honesty of the
soldiers.
Severed heads had been considered trophies of inter-tribal wars
long before Leopold took an interest in the Congo, but he cer-
tainly had no objections to the continuation of the practice. One
agent, Van Kerckhoven, paid his soldiers 1p per head ‘to stiffen
their resolve during battle’, whilst another used twenty-one
heads to decorate his flowerbeds. This is probably the origin of
Marlow’s observation of Kurtz’s collection of heads in Joseph
Conrad’s book The heart of darkness. In the ultimate statement of
self-justification one agent reported how, when local villagers
failed to meet their fish and manioc quota, he decapitated 100 of
them: ‘There have been plenty of supplies ever since. My goal was
ultimately humanitarian. I killed 100 people but this allowed 500
to live.’
Tales of horror and destruction could continue, but the
point has been made and it is time to turn to the fall of Leopold. It
has already been noted that he fought a running battle with his
critics throughout his ‘Congo mission’, but for many years his
outward altruism and humanity, as well as influential friends who
were also gaining from his efforts, protected him. One of the
earliest attempts to bring him to some accountability was initiated
by a black American soldier, lawyer, and preacher, James
Washington Williams. Williams was already known in America as
a proponent of black civil rights. In 1889 he wrote to Leopold
suggesting that he could recruit black Americans to work in the
Congo, where they could advance themselves in a way impossible
in the US. He came to Europe, met and was impressed by
Leopold, and in 1890 set out for Africa, where he spent six
months touring the Congo. He was a civil rights activist and what
he saw sickened him. His response was to write an Open letter to
His Serene Majesty Leopold II, which was also published as a
pamphlet and widely distributed throughout Europe. He wrote a
similar letter to the President of the United States of America,
President Harrison. In the ‘open letter’ he accused Leopold on
eight major points:
Stanley used a range of crude conjuring tricks to persuade the
natives that he had supernatural powers and to induce them to
sign over their tribal lands for trivial recompense.
Stanley was not a hero but a cruel foul-mouthed tyrant.
Leopold’s African soldiers had to be self-sufficient and the
results—death of the unhelpful natives and the destruction of
their villages—followed from that.
Leopold’s soldiers were excessively cruel to their prisoners.
There was no wise government, no schools and no hospitals for
the natives.
The judicial system was corrupt and unjust. Whites could get
away (literally) with murder whilst blacks could receive terrible
punishments, including death, for trivial, or even invented,
offences.
Kidnapping natives to be used as concubines by state officials
was commonplace.
Leopold’s government was systematically slave trading
throughout the Congo.
In a letter to America he coined a phrase which, still today, is
the ultimate condemnation. He described Leopold’s operations in
the Congo as ‘a crime against humanity’.
Leopold immediately set out to discredit Williams, a now
standard procedure when one cannot contest a person’s argu-
ment, and found a number of grounds on which to do so. His most
fortunate break occurred when in August 1891 Williams died of
tuberculosis aged just forty-one. The rumblings continued, but,
without his passion to fan the flames, they slowly subsided. Even
that august newspaper, The Times, saw fit to write a leader in
1895 which included:
. . . a system of compulsion closely akin to slavery would be
necessary before natives of the Congo Free State could be trained
to regular voluntary labour.
Another black American missionary, William Henry Sheppard,

was in the Congo at the same time as Williams and for partly the
same reason—to find a country where black Americans could
develop without segregation. Unlike Williams, however, he was
based at one place, the Presbyterian mission which he and a
colleague had established far up the River Kasai, the home of the
Kuba people. This was so remote that it took eight years for
Leopold’s soldiers to reach it, and during that time Sheppard
established a remarkable rapport with the natives. He appears to
have been one of the very few black men respected by both whites
and blacks in the Congo at that time. With the arrival of the
soldiers the world fell apart, the Kubas resisted with what they
had and were massacred as thousands sought shelter in the mis-
sion. In 1899 Sheppard was told by his superiors to go into the
jungle and find out what was happening. What he found
were smoked right hands and the soldiers smoking them, for
it was he who first publicised the practice in missionary
magazines throughout both Europe and the States. His, and
other missionaries’, articles continued to infuriate Leopold, who
in 1906 made it an offence punishable by a fine or imprisonment
to commit any calumny against a Congo State official. After the
first conviction of a Baptist minister, things quietened down a
little, but in 1908 Sheppard published the story of another Kuba
revolt and the way in which it was put down. The local conces-
sionaires, the ‘Compagnie du Kasai’, demanded a retraction and,
when Sheppard’s colleague pointed out to the company that
they had a lot more charges to make, the Compagnie became
more enraged. Whilst the arguments were continuing, the British
Vice Consul visited the region with Sheppard as guide to prepare
his own report. When this was published supporting Sheppard’s
story, the company had had enough and sued Sheppard for libel.
The judge reserved judgment as he worked out what to do. The
Americans had made it clear that their attitude to Belgium’s claim
on the Congo could depend on the result, whilst the judge’s
career was obviously finished if he found for Sheppard. The
verdict was clear. Since Sheppard had not named the Compagnie du
Kasai in his article, it could be assumed that he was only blaming
soldiers of chartered trading companies for the massacres and did
not intend to make an attack on the defendant; Sheppard was
innocent and the Compagnie not guilty.
Although the story of Sheppard has been told in isolation, it
forms only part of the greater story concerning the downfall of
Leopold. If Leopold was the schemer and Stanley the realiser then
E. D. Morel was their nemesis.
Edmund Dene Morel was the son of an English widow who had
been married to a Frenchman. At the age of seventeen he moved
from Paris to Liverpool to become a clerk in the Elder–Dempster
shipping line. He had no history of political activism; neither did
he know, nor care, much about Africa. The shipping line had plied
the routes to Africa for a number of years and held the contract for
all cargo to and from Leopold’s Congo. Being bilingual he soon
became the liaison officer between the line and the Congo officials
in Belgium, and regularly visited Antwerp to compile and check
the records of goods received and dispatched. It did not take him
long to realise that a great fraud was being perpetrated—and that
even worse things were happening. The fraud was obvious to
someone used to dealing with figures. Leopold’s various trading
companies and the Congo Government published certain trade
figures for exports, whilst the amounts of ivory and rubber
unloaded at Antwerp greatly exceeded them. Millions of pounds
were floating loose somewhere. The more disconcerting discov-
ery was that there were regular shipments of guns and ammunition
out of Antwerp into the Congo, assigned to either the State itself
or to various named trading companies. Coupled to this was the
fact that over 80% of the goods being shipped to the Congo were
of no benefit to the natives, but were intended to prop up the
administrative system. How then were the ever-increasing
quantities of ivory and rubber being paid for? He knew that
money was not an option as the natives were not allowed to use it,
and yet Elder–Dempster had a monopoly on all trade. The only
answer must be that they were not being paid. They were, in fact,
slave labour.
At the end of the century, in his mid-twenties, Morel found
his conscience and, blistering with outrage, set out to destroy
Leopold and his operation in the Congo. He first revealed his
suspicions to Sir Alfred Jones, head of the shipping line and also
Honorary Consul in Liverpool to the Congo. Howerver, since
Jones was more concerned with keeping his lucrative contract
than on displaying moral principles, he was reluctant to stir the
muddy waters. He did, however, promptly visit Leopold, who
told him, in essence, that the natives had to be subdued for their
own long-term benefit and it would be better if this young clerk
learned some discretion—quickly. The offer of a pay rise and a
transfer away from the ‘Congo desk’ was rejected, only to be
followed by a more blatant bribe which was again refused. In his
younger days Morel had written some freelance articles for trade
journals and found he had some flair for the written word so, in
1901, aged twenty-eight, he resigned and started his onslaught.
Unfortunately, there were limits to what he could get published,
so, two years later, he started his own paper, The West African
Mail, in which he had total editorial control.
Contrary to the philosophy of most newspapers, a good story
to Morel was one of unimpeachable veracity and, whilst always
writing with all the fury he could muster, he was infallibly
accurate in everything he wrote. Every attempt by Leopold’s
supporters to catch him out was foiled. On complaining that the
story of natives being forced to work through the kidnapping of
their women was false, Morel was ready with a copy of the form
given by the ABIR to all its agents headed ‘Natives under bodily
detention’ and an order on the upkeep and feeding of hostages. As
Morel’s fame spread he received letters, reports, and copies of
documents from a vast number of people, including employees of
Leopold in the Congo and clerks in the Belgian offices of Congo
companies. Missionaries, who had at last found a mainstream
publisher outside the normal run of religious pamphlets and
journals, willingly released their pent-up emotions and produced
more irrefutable evidence—photographs. Of the eyewitness
stories which Morel published, just one sums up Leopold’s Congo.
It came from an American agent working for the ‘Anversoise’,
Edward Canisius:
. . . We had undergone six weeks of painful marching and had
killed over 900 natives, men, women and children. The incent-
ive? Adding fully twenty tons of rubber to the monthly crop.
One of Morel’s supporters was Sir Charles Dilkes MP and in
1903 the Congo question was raised in the Houses of Parliament.
A resolution was passed making clear Parliament’s belief in
Morel’s writings and protesting over the treatment of the natives.
It also expressed concern about Leopold’s failure to live up to his
free-trade promises. Leopold became concerned and so started a
campaign to present his side of the story:
Britain was intent on destabilising his operations because
British gin manufacturers wanted to export their product to inno-
cent natives but his enlightened administration would stop them.
Missionaries were bigots out to force their beliefs on everyone
by any methods.
The very profits he was making from the Congo showed how
well the natives were being treated.
Would this be enough and had he bought enough politicians and
businessmen for things to quieten down yet again? The answer
was soon forthcoming; the Foreign Office sent a telegram to HM
Consul in the Congo and asked him to investigate.
The Consul was the thirty-nine-year-old Roger Casement,
who had been in Africa for much of the last twenty years and had
seen it all. Amongst other activities, he had worked for the sur-
veyors on the ‘rapids railway’ and had spent a week with Stanley
in the Congo. In 1890 he had shared rooms with a Polish ship’s
officer, Józef Konrad Korzeniowski, who was on his way to learn
the secrets of the river so that he might take control of his own
steamer. Six months was all he could take in the Congo and later,
as Joseph Conrad, he wrote of the atrocities he had witnessed in
The heart of darkness, a work of fiction embedded in fact. In 1892
Casement worked in what is today Nigeria and then transferred to
the British Consular Service. In 1900 he was to set up the Con-
sular Service in the Congo. He was fully aware of Leopold’s
activities in the Congo and had already written to the Foreign
Office about them. Now he had permission to investigate officially
and he was not to let either the natives or his government down.
For over three months he travelled throughout the Congo and the
more he learned the more sickened he became. He returned to
Britain to write his report and, although it was written in the
formal restrained way of a government document, the factual and
graphic contents were much more than the Government expected
or, perhaps, wanted. It was Casement, for instance, who dis-
passionately described the severing of penises in confirmation that
the corpses which had provided right hands were males. Pressure
to stop publication came from highly placed sources, including the
British pro-Leopold Minister to Brussels, who wanted to ‘avoid
being put in an awkward position at the (Belgian) court’, and the
head of the Elder–Dempster shipping line, for more obvious
financial reasons. The report had to be published, particularly
since the frustrated Casement had given several interviews about
its contents to the press, but, as a compromise, all names were
purged. Casement seethed when Leopold’s apologists issued
general denials which he was unable to defend with specifics. It
appeared that the ‘sentries’ were to protect the tappers (from
what or whom?) and those unfortunates with missing hands had
had them amputated to prevent the spread of cancer of the hands.
Luckily for Casement’s sanity, he had, by then, met Morel,
whose work he had read whilst in the Congo, and the two men
struck up an immediate strong friendship. Out of this meeting
came, in 1904, the ‘Congo Reform Association’, the intention of
which was to persuade European governments to take action
against the abuses of human rights in the Congo. He knew that
politicians prefer a quiet life whenever possible, so he sought out
support from a wide range of lords, MPs, churchmen, and
businessmen, and kept up a continuous barrage of public (and
private) meetings and writings. Perhaps his most famous book is
Red rubber: The story of the rubber trade flourishing on the Congo in the
year of grace 1906 in which, in a central section of thirty-six pages,
he documented close to 100 reports which he had received, from
a broad spectrum of sources, concerning atrocities committed
on the Congolese natives between 1890 and 1905. Each report
was accompanied by a full provenance. As some indication of
his prolific outpourings, it is estimated that he wrote over
3500 letters in the first half of that year (1906) alone.
Leopold now realised that neither his words alone, nor those of
his apologists, were enough to stop the rising tide of concern and
resentment being orchestrated from Britain. He was presented
with further problems when American missionaries lobbied
President Roosevelt, claiming that, as the US was the first country
to recognise the Congo Free State, it had a special responsibility to
protect its indigenous population. Forced to act, predominantly
in response to the Casement report, Leopold set up an ‘Inter-
national Commission of Enquiry’ consisting of three judges, one
from each of Belgium, Italy, and Switzerland, who were to travel
to the Congo to investigate Casement’s allegations. They
returned to Belgium in March 1905, but Leopold kept their
report suppressed until November of that year. In the meantime a
Belgian Member of Parliament struck gold. He asked a provoc-
ative question: ‘Were bonuses still being paid to agents in inverse
proportion to the value of the goods they exchanged for rubber
and ivory?’ The Foreign Minister explicitly denied any such
policy, only to have read out to him the confidential State
documents confirming that this was official policy. The finally
released report of the Commission of Enquiry was a shattering
blow to the Belgian Government. It listed the following.
1. The land laws: contrary to the Berlin Directive and would

militate against the development of native life.
2. Forced labour: applied with unpardonable ferocity and
reprisals.
3. Bonus system: unacceptable and dishonest.
4. Powers to concession companies: intolerable.
5. Legal system: biased and inadequate.
(Shades of Williams’ ‘open letter’ over a decade earlier.)

Leopold’s choices were becoming very limited and became
more so in March 1906 when a motion to revive the Annexation
Bill of 1901 was passed in the Belgian Parliament. Leopold real-
ised that he was beaten in terms of actual ‘ownership’ of the
Congo, but he still had more than half a pack of cards to play in
concealing the multiplicity of companies in which he had shares,
or owned outright. He was content to hand over the adminis-
trative shell if he could keep the contents. He retreated to his
yacht, the Alberta, and his Villa des Cèdres on Cap Ferat, and
prepared his defences. These would require their own chapter to
detail, but they consisted of a series of defensive ‘walls’, built on
the assumption that, as each defence fell, another would be there
to back it up.
In mid-1907 the Congolese and Belgians agreed to produce a
draft treaty and negotiators were appointed, several of whom
happened to be friends of Leopold. By the end of the year a draft
treaty had been produced and signed which proved that Leopold
had succeeded with his most important defence wall—the Belgian
State pledged itself to recognise the Foundations existing in
the Congo. This would include Leopold’s ‘Fondation de la
Couronne’, formed as a ‘Fondation’ barely a year earlier but
holding Leopold’s ‘Domaine de la Couronne’ (that tract of land ten
times the area of Belgium) as its major asset, together with a
massive portfolio of land holdings throughout Belgium and
southern France, shares, and cash. The Government could not
accept this and was surprised when Leopold gave way in early
1908. It had not appreciated the purpose of his ‘walls’ and by now
he had finished putting most of his fortune out of reach of the
Government. However, he still believed that he had a saleable
asset. There was, and still is, no argument that a large amount of
Leopold’s wealth went into building works throughout Belgium,
and the Government agreed to take these over and complete them
as well as taking responsibility for their many outstanding debts.
Leopold himself kept the ‘goods and movable assets’ of the
‘Fondation’ and received a gift of £2 000 000 in recognition of a
nation’s gratitude. The politicians still argued but the end was
in sight.
A speech from the throne by King Edward VII in 1908 rep-
resented the ultimate approval of the work of Morel and his
colleagues. The King hoped that negotiations between Belgium
and the Congo State would result in a State humanely adminis-
tered in the spirit of the Berlin Act. The Belgian Parliament had to
act if it was to retain any credence and self-respect, so the treaty
became law in 1908. On 8 November 1908 the flag of the Congo
Free State was lowered for the last time, but it took several more
years for the Belgian Government to dismantle the ‘Leopold
legacy’. It was 1913, the year in which the Congo Reform
Association disbanded, that Britain recognised that the transfer of
power was effective. By then Leopold had been dead for three
and a half years, finally succumbing to an intestinal operation on
14 December 1909.
Was it worth it and what was the cost? No one knows the
answer to either question. Some figures have been produced,
most comprehensively in terms of rubber production, by Morel,
who, after his discoveries in the late 1890s which precipitated
Leopold’s fall from grace, set out to establish realistic figures for
Congo rubber exports. The best one can say is that they represent
minimum figures.
From the earliest days of trading through the west coast set-
tlements, small amounts of rubber had become available for
export at the instigation of the traders. Unlike his Mesoamerican
counterpart, the African native had little use for the material
except as an adhesive to fasten spearheads and arrowheads to
their shafts. By 1888 it was still a small amount, representing
about 10% in value of all exports, rising to 25% by 1895, 50% in
1896, 70% in 1898, 85% in 1900, and peaking at 90% in 1901,
but remaining in this area for the rest of Leopold’s ownership of
the Congo. It has been estimated that, between 1898 and 1905,
raw materials to the value of about £14 000 000 were exported
from the Congo for the benefit of Leopold and his collaborators,
whilst imports, mainly to support the ‘administrative’ regime,
were some £6 000 000. In tonnage these figures represent an
output of between 4500 to 6000 tons each year from 1900
to 1908.
It was also estimated that Leopold’s ‘Domaine de la Couronne’
gave him a clear profit of some £3 000 000 between 1896 and
1906, whilst the State’s rubber exports in its peak year of 1901
were estimated to be some £2 000 000. These estimates were
calculated on the ‘most realistic estimates’ of exports from a mass
of data and not just on the ‘official’ documents of the time which
first aroused Morel’s suspicions. They also exclude his profits
from companies in which he had shares, usually over 50%. Morel
estimated his income from dividends alone in the three major
companies to be £360 000 in 1904–1905. In attempting to ridi-
cule the figure of £3 000 000, the Belgian Premier, a known
apologist for Leopold, produced figures to show that it was at least
a factor of four too large. Unfortunately, his mathematical errors
did not escape the Members of the Belgian Parliament, who felt
that even the £3 000 000 was an underestimate.
In calculating Leopold’s financial gains from the Congo, the
various loans he raised between 1888 and 1904 should not be
forgotten. The Belgian Premier suggested £3 000 000, whilst
others, less in Leopold’s pocket, calculated over £5 000 000.
By the time of Leopold’s death the money was rolling in nicely,
and it has already been noted that the Belgian Government did not
act with an excess of zeal to stop the slave trade when it took
control at the end of 1909. The money was, after all, useful to
balance the country’s books and complete Leopold’s lavish pro-
jects. In the four following years, 1909–1912, 14 000 tons of
rubber were exported, but then came the Great War followed by
plantation rubber. The rush for wild rubber was over.
After Leopold’s death it took some years for the true size of his
residual wealth to surface. Indeed, the complexity of his affairs
makes it possible that there could still be a fortune or two,
unclaimed and unidentified, gathering interest in bank accounts
throughout Europe. Although his private will indicated a wealth
of some £750 000, it did not take much sleuthing to discover ‘The
Foundation of Niederfulbach’, established in Germany, which
contained £4 000 000 in property and bonds which should have
been handed over to the Belgian Government with the Congo.
After a prolonged legal battle it was returned to the Belgians
in 1913.
The human cost of the Congo rubber saga is as difficult to
calculate as the financial throughput, but it was certainly high.
There is general agreement that the population of the Congo in
the 1880s was around 25 000 000. In 1911 the official figure was
put at 8 500 000, 7 700 000 in 1923, and 8 000 000–10 000 000
in the mid-1930s. Making due allowance for inaccuracies in
the 1880s figure, there seems to be no reason to doubt that
10 000 000–15 000 000 natives ‘vanished’ in the Congo during
Leopold’s rubber-grabbing years.
Not all of this can be laid at the door of rubber or, indeed, at
the door of Leopold himself, for during this period Africa was
swept by a devastating plague of sleeping sickness. Villages van-
ished, as illustrated in a letter from a missionary to Casement who
claimed that the population of Lukolela fell from 6000 to 352 in
twelve years.
Secret flight was an option, but this was against the concession
company’s ‘law’ and it was not easy, as the death toll incurred by
native porters during many explorations have shown. The birth
rate of native Congolese fell substantially in the first decade of the
nineteenth century, and this is generally ascribed to the falling
numbers of young indigenous males, murdered for failing to meet
their target quotas of rubber. However, the concurrent rape of
the female hostages should have compensated for this, so the
reasons must be more complex. One still has to ask whether this
should be factored into any calculations regarding lives ‘lost’
during this period.
The rubber tappers had to work between twenty and twenty-
five days each month to pay their rubber taxes, and this left them
with little time to clear land, build shacks, and grow food.
Whichever came first, exhaustion or illness, and either would
almost inevitably lead to the other, the result would be a drop in
rubber collection and death. If half the missing millions died due
to rubber-related causes, the figure would be close to the total
population of Belgium and not dissimilar to the total number of
dead in the Great War.
If we take a not-unrealistic weight of rubber to come out of the
Congo as 75 000 tons (75 000 000 kg) and the loss of native life
as 7 500 000 then we have the value of a Congolese native life—
10 kg of rubber!
Leopold did not know what riches were to be found in the
Congo, although he appreciated that ivory was one. His sole
ambition was to take control of some foreign land and strip it of its
wealth by any means. The fact that the land was the Congo basin,
that its major source of that wealth was rubber, and that its
extraction cost millions of lives, was irrelevant.
8
Slaves to Rubber
At the turn of the twentieth century the rubber plantation

industry in Asia was getting off to a slow and shaky start (Ridley
claimed that disruptive actions by Sir Frank Swettenham, the
first Resident-General of the Federated Malay States, had set it
back by at least ten years), whilst the African rubber industry
was extremely small. Nevertheless, the industrialised countries,
particularly America and Great Britain, were crying out for
rubber and had to rely on the Amazonian basin to meet their
demands.
Statistics prior to about 1835 are difficult to find, but at that
time the rubber exports from Pará were as likely to be unvul-
canised rubber overshoes as the raw material. The weight of the
latter was less than one ton per week. A letter from Mr James
Upton to Mr Seth Low of New York in March 1831 details how
there are aboard the schooner Betsy & Eliza, en route to New York,
one cask and five barrels of rubber totalling 537 lbs net weight
which are to be sold ‘for the most you can obtain. I think the
quality is very good’. In 1844–1845 the overshoe export market
was over 400 000 pairs. By 1849–1850 it had fallen to just over
300 000, and by 1854–1855 it was too small to show in the
statistics.
The graph shown in Fig. 8.1 was prepared close to one hundred
years ago and shows rubber (including the shoes) exported
7000
6000
5000
4000
3000
2000
1000
1836 1846 1856 1866

Fig. 8.1 Graph of rubber exports from Pará, 1836–1872.
through Pará between 1836 and 1872; in the years 1872 it can be
seen that there were about 8000 tons per year. By 1890 that
figure had almost trebled to 20 000 tons and the demand was
set to escalate to such an extent that these early years would not
feature on world production plots through the twentieth century.
This is clearly illustrated in the graph showing natural and
synthetic rubber production throughout the twentieth century in
Fig. 9.1.
The obvious event which triggered this demand was the
invention of the internal combustion engine, which took place at
the same time that Wickham was bringing his seeds from South
America and which led, in 1885, to the first motor car proper,
manufactured by Daimler and Benz. In 1888 John Boyd Dunlop
‘reinvented’ the pneumatic tyre. The original pneumatic tyre had
been patented by R. W. Thompson as early as 1845, but there was
no interest in it—probably because the roads were inadequate and
it seemed to offer no particular advantage over the solid ones. The
Dunlop tyres had a particular shortcoming as they were stuck to
Slaves to Rubber 145
the wheel and thus access to the inner rubber tube in the common
event of a puncture was tedious, but by the end of 1890
C. K. Welsh had patented the design of a wheel rim and outer
cover with an inextensible lip. The fundamental design feature
common to virtually all types of wheeled vehicles had arrived and
would only be refined to the present day. The first motor vehicle
specifically designed to use a pneumatic tyre took part in the
Paris–Bordeaux–Paris race of 1895. Seven hundred and twenty
miles (and twenty-two inner tubes) later the Daimler finished
ninth in a field of forty-two.
The ways in which rubber was ripped from the Amazon basin
to meet this demand is the subject of this chapter. Like that of the
Congo, it is not a pretty story!
The development of the South American and Congo rubber
production industries has one common thread—the deaths of
millions of natives to meet the demand for rubber in the devel-
oping world between the first growth in its demand and the
coming ‘on-stream’ of the plantations in the Far East. In other
ways they differ.
In the Congo the discovery of rubber was pure serendipity for
Leopold II, but in South America the story was one of a substance
which had been known about in the West for four hundred years
suddenly being in ever-increasing demand. Rubber had initially
been collected by individual tappers, but towards the end of the
nineteenth century this changed to small cooperatives, often
financed by trading companies. However, as soon as it was
appreciated that vast amounts of money could be made, large
companies run by the great, often murderous, ‘rubber barons’
moved in and took over, expanding their empires up the
numerous tributaries and feeder rivers of the Amazon by (occa-
sionally) buying out those in their way or (more often) by taking
their trees and native workers by force.
COLOMBIA Atlantic
ocean
RI
can
RC R Ne
a
aqu gro
QUITO eta OBIDOS
R Napo * R Japura
R Putumayo MANAUS
PARA
ECUADOR R Amazon BOIM SANTAREM
IQUITOS
a
on s
uru
R Maran uru
s
ajo
avar
i RP a
RJ
ier
ap
ali
RY
RT
ad
cay
YURIMAGUAS M
RU
RIOJA R
o
TARAPOTO 500 miles

ori
reg
BRAZIL
RG
Madiera–Mamore railway
RH
Pacific Marks the disputed border

ua
PERU
lla
ocean between Peru/Ecuador and Colombia

ga
R Beni
LIMA * Marks EI Encanto on the upper

R Mamore reaches of the Putumayo
Fig. 8.2 Sketch map of Brazil, Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador showing
the rubber rivers and towns.
Manoel Carioca controlled much of the rubber coming
down the Gregório River—it would take a steamboat seven days
to sail through his domain—whilst Luis de Silva Gomes had an
estate on the Purús River which was estimated to be ten million
acres in size. J. G. Araújo had half a million acres on the Negro.
His expansion only stopped when he came up against another
baron as powerful as himself, Germino Garrido y Otero, the
‘King of the Içana’ to the north-west of the Negro. Perhaps the
biggest and most powerful of them all was Nicolás Suárez, who
‘owned’ sixteen million acres around the most southerly of the
great rubber rivers, the Beni.
These barons, and dozens more like them, did not spend long
periods of time in their jungle fiefdoms. The rubber gathering was
overseen by their hand-picked enforcers, often criminals fleeing
justice, who were usually paid on a commission-only basis, whilst
their masters lived and worked in the more congenial atmosphere
of the rapidly expanding cities, of which Manaus, located close to
the confluence of the Amazon, Negro, and Purús Rivers, was the
most important (see Fig. 8.3).
Fig. 8.3 Rubber dealing in Manaus in the early twentieth century.
As with any group of people, the rubber barons were vastly

different in character once the lust for money and the lack of
morality in its making were discounted. The biggest spender was
undoubtedly Waldemar Scholz, whose bacchanalian parties
included ‘ladies’ bathing in iced champagne from which the male
guests would replenish their glasses, whilst, at the other extreme,
Araújo was a teetotaller and non-smoker whose preferred home
was his office and who was responsible for the design and con-
struction of much of Manaus.
In many instances the detailed stories of these rubber barons and
the ways in which they ran their great estates can only be guessed
at. One example which was eventually brought to the notice of
the consuming countries through the influence of the British
Parliament was dubbed the ‘Putumayo affair’, and knowledge of
the atrocities committed therein only came under public scrutiny
in the UK because of two miscalculations by its overlord.
The Putumayo is a major river in its own right, over one
thousand miles long, which rises in the mountains on the west
coast of Colombia and joins the Amazon in Brazil. It initially forms
the border between Ecuador and Colombia and then, for much of
its length, between Peru and Colombia. If it had risen a few miles
further to the west it would have emptied quickly into the Pacific
Ocean, these events might never have happened, and the story of
the South American rubber boom might never have been fully
told. It was in this region, in an area about the size of Belgium,
that one Julio César Arana built his rubber empire.
Arana was born around 1864 in the Peruvian town of Rioja,
where his father sold hats. His next-door neighbour was a girl a
little younger than he, called Eleonora Zumaeta, on whom he was
fixated and whom, he knew, he would never win as a shopkeeper.
By the time he was fourteen he had left school and was established
in his father’s business. In 1879 his father sent him to work as a
secretary, where he learned business administration and book-
keeping, but by 1881 he had set out to discover the world beyond
Rioja and hopefully to make his name and fortune—and win
Eleonora. He set off down the Marañon River and then followed
the Amazon to Iquitos, Manaus, and finally Pará, where he dis-
covered the important rubber traders. They all appeared to have
money to burn—sometimes literally, as displays of ostentation
such as lighting one’s cigar with a large denomination banknote
would result in one’s neighbour immediately doing the same,
but with a note of even more value. Selling hats to a gathering of
such exhibitionists, where each would vie to pay the most, was
child’s play!
In 1884 Arana returned to Yurimaguas, a settlement near Rioja
where Eleonora, now a qualified teacher, had opened the State’s
first school, to follow up his fevered written declarations of love
with a personal approach, and by 1887 he had won her.
During his travels he had become infected by the bites of many
insects and animals, but the one he could not shake off was that of
the rubber bug, and by 1889 he had established a rubber-
collecting business with his brother-in-law, Pablo Zumaeta, in the
small settlement of Tarapoto on the Huallaga River, which feeds
into the Marañon from the Peruvian Andes. Travelling the
waterways, he put his business training to good account as he
would trade anything for rubber and he always costed the rubber
at the price prevailing at the time of the deal. This was usually out
of date because of the rising market, but the traders, who may
have seen no white man since his last visit, remained in ignorance
of that. He then shipped to the US or Europe and sold in the
markets there, where the prices were almost inevitably higher.
This led to a massive profit on each shipment.
But this was not enough. He wanted to cut out the ‘middle
men’, so he bought his own rubber estate near Yurimaguas and
recruited natives from Ceará, on the eastern seaboard of Brazil, to
work them. These natives were much stronger than the local
Indians and could not escape as they were bound by debts to Arana
for transport and basic supplies. These debts would never be
cleared since they had to buy their supplies in his store at exor-
bitant prices. In any event, the punishment on recapture for trying
to escape tended to be a painful death!
By 1896 Arana had moved the centre of his operations down-
stream to Iquitos and was living in a ten-room house. He had
built up international business connections and for eight years he
prospered, although still not making the fortune he felt was his
right. He believed his operation was too small, so he sold up
and went looking for something bigger. Now luck and interna-
tional politics came to his aid. In 1899 he had first explored the
Putumayo River and had traded goods for the rubber collected by
a few small isolated trail masters. None of the big rubber barons
had found this river and, even if they had, they might not have
wanted it as it was a war zone, with the governments of Colombia
and Peru continually fighting over its possession. After years of
argument they asked Pope Pius X to arbitrate and, at his sug-
gestion, agreed that they would both declare a ‘demilitarised
zone’ along the river. Arana moved and bought out nearly, but
not quite, all the trail masters to control twelve thousand square
miles of Putumayo territory. He was now frustratingly near
realising his ambition of having the Putumayo known as ‘his’
river. All he had to do was to remove the few Colombians who
were still tapping independently upstream and legitimise his claim
to the land. The President of Peru was happy with the arrange-
ment (Arana was of course Peruvian), but Arana needed more
funds to cement his control of the region and decided that
these could best be obtained by taking the company he had
formed with his brother, Lizardo, Pablo Zumaeta, and Abel
Alarco—J. C. Arana & Hermanos Company—public. The two
largest rubber-consuming countries were the US and the UK, but
the UK had one particular advantage; American ships did not
journey up the Amazon beyond Pará, but the British operated a
regular service between Liverpool and Manaus, and even sent
smaller ships further upstream as far as Iquitos, past the junction
of the Putumayo and Amazon Rivers. Britain it would have to be.
Arana set to work on his prospectus whilst tightening his hold
on the river. Although there was plenty of indigenous native
labour to be had, they did not have leadership qualities and, like
Leopold, Arana realised that supervisors who were in no way
related to the workers could generally obtain the highest pro-
ductivity as there were no tribal or personal loyalties to interfere
with their loyalties to him.
His idea was to put in place a strong administrative layer of
management, leave his brother-in-law to look after the day-to-day
running of the business, and retire to Europe where he had
already established his wife and children in a more congenial
climate. He soon recruited his supervisors, including two hun-
dred West Indians who were offered two-year contracts, and
built up an armed ‘police force’ which had absolute control of all
passage up and down the river. Arana had intended the recruit-
ment of the West Indians to be an advantage in floating his
company in the UK, but, as we shall see, it backfired with a
vengeance. The illustrations in Fig. 8.4 show the public face of the
rubber-collecting industry. The people are obviously not from the
native tribes which traditionally supplied tappers to the large
estates, whilst the ‘Seringueiros’ seem relatively prosperous and
well equipped and are more likely to be ‘enforcers’ or family
members of the landowners.
Throughout 1907 Arana laboured to set up his company, and
by early 1908 the Peruvian Amazon Rubber Company was
formed, capitalised at one million pounds and with seven hundred
thousand £1 shares held by Arana and his family. Important
British figureheads on the Board were Henry Read, manager of
the London Bank of Mexico and South America, John Gubbins,
a merchant with years of experience dealing with Peru (but
knowing nothing of the rubber trade), and the mandatory titled
director, Sir John Lister-Kaye, Bart.
Unfortunately for Arana, the price of rubber was now falling
and he was advised to postpone going public for a few months.
He used this time constructively to rename the company the
Peruvian Amazon Company (PAC) (no ‘Rubber’) and to stress in
the prospectus that its main assets were its trading businesses in
Manaus and Iquitos. Land holdings around the Putumayo were
a minor bonus!
(a)
(b)
Fig. 8.4 The public face of rubber tapping: (a) Amazonian Seringueiros,
and (b) tappers smoking rubber pelles.
Just as Arana’s dream was coming to fulfilment, his nemesis
was crossing the Peruvian Andes from the Pacific coast and dis-
covering himself at the westernmost limit of the Putumayo.
Nemesis here was named Walter Ernest Hardenburg, a twenty-
one-year-old engineer, born in Illinois, who had been working on
a new railroad in Colombia, but who had always had a passion for
the Amazon. For over a year he had heard nothing but stories of
that river and its riches, so, when he discovered that a railroad was
being built alongside the Madiera River, close to one thousand
miles south of Manaus, which would bypass over two hundred
miles of rapids-infested river to link up with the Mamoré River
and provide an easy route to deliver the Bolivian rubber of Suárez
to the Amazon, he quit his job with the intention of travelling
down the Amazon and up the Madiera to find work there. No one
had told him that life expectancy for a worker on the construction
site was three months!
As he canoed down the Putumayo with a friend and colleague
he met various Colombian rubber collectors who treated him well
but warned of trouble ahead from Peruvian rubber men, who
were slowly taking over the whole river. They claimed that Julio
César Arana was their leader and that his company was British!
Keen to be on his way, Hardenburg put the remarks down to
inter-country rivalry and left Remolino with a native Huitoto
guide, who told him of the atrocities carried out by the Bolivian
overseers—floggings, rape of the wives or daughters, and exe-
cution, usually after the amputation of some part of the anatomy
and a period of agony—if one did not bring in one’s quota of
rubber. One story was very reminiscent of the Congo, where here
an overseer would blindfold young girls and use them for rifle
practice as they ran about in front of his house. As yet these tales
made little impact as the guide admitted that he had seen nothing
of them himself but that every forest Indian knew of them.
He added that his bosses, the Colombians, were good people and
it was only the Peruvians who were bad. As Hardenburg travelled
further down the river he began to have second thoughts, as he
met people such as David Serrano, who had had his stock of rubber
forcibly taken by Peruvian ‘soldiers’ employed by Arana and
whose wife had been raped in front of him by the officer in charge,
one of Arana’s ‘enforcers’, Miguel Loayza. It was not long
afterwards that Hardenburg was taken prisoner on Arana’s
‘flagship’—the somewhat ironically named Liberal—and he heard
first-hand of the massacre which had just taken place upstream,
including the killing of his most recent befriender, Serrano. As a
prisoner of Loayza at El Encanto, he saw for himself how the
natives were treated, the tappers being starved, beaten, and left to
die if they no longer had the strength to work.
He saw young Indian girls working as domestic slaves during
the day and either locked in a compound or used as sex slaves at
night. Using various official-looking documents which he was
carrying and realising Loayza’s lack of English, he was able to
bluff Loayza into releasing him and sending him to Iquitos on
the Liberal. It was five weeks since Hardenburg had started his
journey down the Putumayo and his first priority was to alert
Arana to the atrocities being carried out in his name, as he could
not believe that the atrocities were being carried out with his
prior knowledge.
Unfortunately, Arana was away, so, being completely out of
funds, Hardenburg took a part-time job teaching English. He
stayed with an American dentist, Guy King, who seemed to be
aware of the stories about Arana and his ‘enforcers’ but preferred
to turn a blind eye to them. Although Acting Consul, he did not
see how it could be America’s problem. One day Hardenburg
heard sounds of a commotion across the road and saw the police
raiding the offices of a local newspaper run by Benjamin Saldaña
Rocca, who, he was soon to discover, had tried to rouse the
populous by publishing stories given to him by ex-employees of
Arana. Hardenburg tried to obtain some of the publications,
but to no avail. At last Arana returned to Iquitos and granted
Hardenburg an audience, but from Hardenburg’s point of view it
was unsatisfactory. Arana told him that he had only visited the
Putumayo region a few times in his life and that his soldiers were
there to protect his interests against marauding Colombians.
Arana added that he would soon be visiting the region again and
there the discussion ended. Soon after this meeting he was
approached by a young native who claimed to be the son of Rocca,
who by that time had fled to Lima in fear of his life, and the native
had all of Rocca’s original testimonials from the enslaved natives
of the Putumayo. As Hardenburg read them he realised that all he
had heard, and more, was true and that Arana was knowingly
running his ‘empire’ along lines which, if he had known it, exactly
paralleled those in the Congo. Even the tales of mutilation, rape,
and decapitation were interchangeable. From that point on, in his
writings on the subject Hardenburg referred to Arana’s company
as the ‘civilising company’ (his italics)! However, few of the
documents were notarised, so Hardenburg set out to find any
ex-employees or slaves of Arana who would talk to him directly
and whom, he hoped, he would be able to persuade to provide
sworn affidavits. Here he was initially unlucky but, as his repu-
tation as ‘a man who was about to do something’ spread, he
managed to meet a number of witnesses who would talk freely
to him and this gave him the answer to his one big question—
why would the overseers act so cruelly; surely they could not all
be that sadistic? It was a simple answer: they were only paid
commission.
At last, with eighteen sworn depositions, he decided it was
time to let the British people know what a British company was up
to in the jungles of South America. He set sail for London in July
1909 with his mass of documentary evidence that Britain, the
world leaders in anti-slavery legislation in the nineteeth century,
was home to a company still practising all the most terrible of
activities associated with slavery in the new twentieth century.
He had first thought of approaching the British directors of the
PAC, but then he decided that it would be safer to get his story
published. Unfortunately, no paper would touch him for fear of a
libel action and, as his frustrations grew, he was only persuaded to
continue by his new-found friend, Mary Feeney.
Almost at the end of his patience, he was introduced to the
Revered John H. Harris of the Anti-slavery and Aborigines Pro-
tection Society who had just finished his decade-long campaign
against Leopold and the Congo rubber trade. Harris in turn
introduced Hardenburg to Sydney Paternoster of the newspaper
Truth, who was able to confirm enough of Rocca’s story to begin
the crusade in his paper. His allegations included rape, torture,
and murder of the natives, and emphasised that the PAC was a
British company. The uproar the articles caused could not be
ignored by the Government, but it was unsure how to tackle the
problem. Then Arana’s second mistake came to light (his first was
to make the company a British one). He had recruited British
subjects (West Indians) and, if these were being treated as slaves
or held against their wishes, then Britain had every right to
intervene. The matter was now out of the hands of Hardenburg
who, by March 1910, had arrived in Canada to start a new life
with his wife, Mary (née Feeney).
In May of that year the Foreign Office asked Roger Casement,
who, as we have seen in the previous chapter, had been involved
in exposing the Congo horrors, to investigate. He travelled
throughout the Putumayo region and reported that the funda-
mentals of Rocca’s and Hardenburg’s allegations were based on
fact. He demanded that the law should take its course and, in
order to prevent a Government cover-up, as he had experienced
with his reports from the Congo, he copied his report to the Anti-
slavery and Aborigines Protection Society. (This was probably
sensible as it took until 1912 for the UK Government to actually
publish it.) One year after he had set out, in May 1911, each
director of the PAC received a personal copy of Casement’s
report from the Foreign Office and it was confirmed in the House
of Commons that the allegations were true.
Just as they finished reading the report the directors got
another shock when Arana’s brother-in-law, Pablo Zumaeta,
notified them that, acting with his sister’s (Eleonora’s) power
of attorney, he had mortgaged the Putumayo estates for sixty
thousand pounds to pay off the company’s debts to her—debts
the directors did not realise existed due to their imperfect
understanding of the company books! A few months later, in the
autumn of 1911, the company was wound up with, amazingly,
Arana elected as liquidator to resolve the position as best he
could.
At this stage it should be pointed out that other voices were
being raised against Arana. The governments of Colombia,
Ecuador, and Peru were all concerned with the tales coming out
of the Putumayo, but nationalism and politics were used by each
to manipulate the truth to its own advantage. Colombia and
Ecuador used the stories to take the moral high ground and to
reinforce their territorial claims on the area, whilst Arana roused
all patriotic Peruvians to help him, blaming soldiers from the
other two countries for the atrocities. As Arana was Peruvian, the
Peruvian Government was in an embarrassing position, although
it had been quietly investigating Arana’s activities for some
time. Finally, spurred on by articles in the ‘serious’ press, it
directed Judge Carlos Valcácel to investigate. This appointment
fell through and it was left to Judge Rómulo Paredos to set off
and initiate Peru’s formal investigation in early 1911. Four
months later he returned with his evidence which, when docu-
mented, came to 1242 pages and confirmed all that had been
said about the horrors of the Putumayo. Valcácel supported
Paredos and issued over 200 arrest warrants, but the pro-Arana
camp was so powerful and vociferous that he quickly realised that
his life was in danger and fled the country. The courts cancelled
the warrants.
Arana’s argument was simplistic and appealing. The PAC was
a strong and civilising force in the wilds of the jungle and he
was promoting Peru’s national interests and international posi-
tion; to say otherwise was simply unpatriotic. Within the country
this argument could appeal to a compliant Government, but Peru
was now facing a rising tide of anger in the UK and, perhaps more
importantly, by 1912 the quantity of clean Asian plantation
rubber coming onto the market was virtually equivalent to
the less-clean wild material, and this was starting to threaten the
world market for Amazonian rubber. The writing was on the
wall for the whole Amazonian economy. America was sitting on
the fence for fear of upsetting its South American neighbours,
whilst Brazil was keeping a very low profile as it was well
aware that the ‘Putumayo affair’ was not unique but fairly typical
of rubber collecting throughout the Amazon and related river
basins.
The eventual publication of (now Sir Roger) Casement’s
report in 1912 by the UK Government contained figures which
could no longer be ignored. Casement calculated that at least
30 000 natives had been directly murdered or killed by deliberate
starvation brought about by crop destruction for a gain of 4000
tons of rubber in the Putumayo region alone in the first twelve
years of the century.
On 5 November 1912 UK Government agents arrived at the
PAC’s offices to impound all the company records, and the next
day a parliamentary committee began its investigations into the
affair. Charles Roberts MP was in the chair.
Casement produced both documentary evidence, and photo-
graphs, of the atrocities he had seen (see Fig. 8.5). He then
delivered to the badly shaken committee a range of trade goods,
listing their real values and the prices charged to the tappers by
Arana’s company enforcers or trail bosses. It was then the turn of
the PAC. First to be called was the company accountant, Henry
Gielgud, who had been sent to South America by his employer,
a London firm of accountants, to reorganise the books of the PAC.
On his return he was asked to report on the treatment of the
natives and had assured the directors that they were well treated
and happy, but before the committee his answers were rather less
Fig. 8.5 The not-so-public face of the rubber industry: an Indian

woman condemned to death by starvation on the upper Putumayo.
forthcoming. He prevaricated and blustered, claimed that as an
accountant it was not his responsibility to investigate the workers’
conditions, and that his very trip had been devised and orche-
strated to provide cover for the PAC. One question which he was
unable to answer in his role as accountant was why the company
should spend seven thousand pounds on rifles, each costing just
over two pounds according to Casement. His suggestion that the
tappers might buy them to protect themselves against jaguars was
treated with derision since Casement had also pointed out that it
would have taken a tapper’s total income for two years to buy one
(remember the ‘public face’ illustration in Fig. 8.4).
The committee then moved on to the directors and began with
the ex-chairman, John Gubbins. Although he had had a career in
South America, it had been in the sugar trade in Peru and he, like
all the British directors, had never visited the Putumayo. He
excused himself from knowledge of the atrocities by claiming that
he had read nothing of the background of the company before
accepting his directorship and had read nothing about anything to
do with its business since. In one outburst in his defence he
claimed that the subjection of Indians by commercial companies
was the condition prevailing in the whole of the Amazon valley.
This did his claim of ignorance little good. He finally admitted that
he did accept the evidence and there had obviously been atrocities
but, not only was the British board unaware of them, so was
Arana, and he would come before the committee and say so. It
was doubtful if Arana, at that time at home in Manaus, expected
any such outburst from Gubbins, but he was left with no choice if
he was to salvage anything out of his rapidly crumbling empire.
In the meantime the situation continued to deteriorate for
Arana. The mandatory titled figurehead on the board, Sir John
Lister-Kaye, confessed to speaking no Spanish whilst agreeing that
all board meetings were held in that language. The banker, Henry
Read, was just as ignorant of life in the Putumayo as anyone. He
could speak Spanish but claimed that vast numbers of documents
and letters were never tabled at board meetings, being dealt with
privately by Arana, and that he relied on Arana to provide any
information he wanted. He was, after all, a banker looking after
his bank’s interests and knew nothing about rubber.
Finally, in March 1913 Arana arrived back in England—just in
time to hear his company being wound up and to find that he had
been stripped of his position as liquidator. Possibly he was able to
read Hardenburg’s book—The Putumayo, the Devil’s paradise—
which not only told his story but included seventy-three pages
abstracted from Casement’s report, and which was published in
December 1912.
Arana’s defence was three-pronged: nobody had told him
what was going on, he had not witnessed anything himself, and
his accusers were all of bad character and unreliable. He had to
accept Casement’s evidence but, as he had already said, he knew
nothing of the atrocities himself. He was then questioned about
Hardenburg’s documents and reports. He had already, even
before Hardenburg left Pará, set in train a sequence of events
which would enable him to call Hardenburg a liar and forger, but
this had backfired and he was now called to explain what had
happened in detail and under oath. Eventually, he drew back and
withdrew all his direct allegations against Hardenburg, yet refused
to unambiguously clear him.
At that point Hardenburg himself was called. Arana had no idea
he was even in the country and sat still as he told his story. Again
Arana tried to destroy him by labelling him a forger, but the
committee had seen enough to ignore this and returned to press
Arana further, who was now claiming that all who had given
evidence or testimonies against him were liars and blackmailers
who had turned against him because he would not give in to their
demands. In the end the committee accepted all the evidence
against Arana, including his attempts to destroy the reputations of
Hardenburg and others whom he saw as potential troublemakers.
The committee’s report showed its opinion of Arana, accusing
him of ‘callous indifference and guilty knowledge’, whilst
it accused the board members of ‘negligent ignorance’ and
‘deserving of severe censure’. It further concluded that the
Putumayo affair was only one shockingly bad instance of condi-
tions liable to be found over a wide area of South America.
However, the British courts were unable to try Arana for any
specific crime, so he returned to Peru where he continued his
rubber business. Britain tried to persuade Peru, Brazil, and the US
to close him down, but to no avail. The run-up to the First World
War was generating a sustained demand for all the world’s rub-
ber, including whatever could be obtained from the Amazon, and
the PAC survived until 1920.
In 1921 Arana was granted rights to land along the Putumayo
and Caquetá Rivers by the Peruvian Government, but a later
treaty defined the Putumayo as the border between Peru and
Colombia and cost Arana 60% of his holding—for which he
received two million pounds sterling in compensation!
In 1932 Arana, together with his son and daughter, were
involved with a ‘patriotic junta’ which attempted to reclaim what
he saw as his land, and this precipitated a full-scale but brief war
between the two countries, stopped under pressure from the US.
The losers were, as always, the Indians and, this time, Arana
himself who finally lost the lands he was fighting to regain. The
time had come to retire. He was, after all, now sixty-nine, but it
was some twenty years before the end of Julio César Arana. He
died in 1952.
Compared with King Leopold and the Congo, Arana’s reign of
terror was on a very small scale but, pro rata, it is comparable.
Fig. 8.6 J. C. Arana in 1925 as senator from Loreto.
For over a decade he stripped what rubber he could from the

Putumayo and the scale of his atrocities can be deduced from the
fact that the contribution of the Putumayo to the world’s rubber
supply over this period was some 4000 tons—and, according to
Sir Roger Casement, the lives of at least 30 000 Indians, that is,
four million kilos of rubber for about two million kilos of natives.
The British Parliament concluded that this was only one shock-
ingly bad instance of what was probably happening over much of
the rubber-producing area of South America!
9
Competition!
Although this book tells the story of natural rubber, it would be

unrealistic to say nothing of the birth and rise of some of the
synthetic materials which have properties broadly similar to those
of the natural material, i.e. materials which are ‘elastomeric’.
Indeed, these synthetic elastomers are essential to the world in
which we live today.
So what do we mean by saying something is ‘elastic’ or that it
has ‘elastic properties’ (i.e. it is an elastomer)? The basic criterion
which all readers will recognise is that it must be capable of
undergoing large extensions or deformations and that these must
be essentially reversible. For example, a rubber ball will bounce
as it returns to its spherical shape from the deformed one it adopts
as it hits a surface, whilst a simple elastic band can be stretched up
to ten or more times its original length and then revert to its
original size when the stretching force is removed. Elastomers
have some unusual physical properties and these exclude them
from the normal definition of a solid. In fact, the reversible
deformability is more reminiscent of a gas and the term ‘elas-
tic’was first used by Robert Boyle in the middle of the seventeenth
century to describe the properties of a gas. Charles Marie de la
Condamine used the French equivalent, ‘elasticité’, one hundred
years later when he was describing the dried sap he had found in
South America.
Competition! 165
The facts relating to the reversible deformation of elastomers
have therefore been known since the earliest days of Western
interest in natural rubber, but the whys remained a mystery. Some
of the anomalous properties of an elastomer are known to all
schoolchildren, although they may just be accepted without an
appreciation of their unusualness. If an elastic band is stretched
and quickly placed on the upper lip, an area of extreme sensitivity
to temperature changes, it will feel warm or even hot. If it is held
stretched until it cools and then allowed to relax then, it will feel
cool. A related experiment will prove that, if the band is sub-
jected to some light force so that it is stretched and it is then
warmed, it will shrink rather than stretch further as might be
intuitively thought. This observation was first noted by Gough in
1805 and investigated further by Joule in the 1850s, when it
became known as the Gough–Joule effect. However, it was to be
almost 100 years later before the spatial structure of natural
rubber was determined and a satisfactory explanation proposed.
This is no place to detail the thermodynamics and mathematics of
rubber elasticity, but a simple explanation is offered.
In 1920 Staudinger proposed the idea that elastomers consisted
of long chains of linked smaller units; in 1925 Katz discovered that
crystal structure could be seen with X-rays, and in the early 1930s
Meyer, von Susich, and Valco recognised that elastomer chains
had a statistically random spatial configuration and that they
would also have a random thermal motion. By 1932 Busse had
documented the conditions required for ‘rubber-like elasticity’.
The chemistry of vulcanisation will be discussed later, but, if we
imagine the polymer chain as a chain of individual links with some
‘springiness’ in each link, it can be considered here as the tying
together of occasional links of different chains, where they happen
to overlap, to give a three-dimensional network. Within this the
chains are in constant thermal motion (Brownian motion) during
which they are able to twist and flex within the strictures of the
network. The anomalous effects can now be explained. As the
rubber band is stretched the chains become more orientated and
closer together, so there is less opportunity for movement. They
must therefore lose energy and this is dissipated as heat. On
releasing the tension the chains have more space to move in and
absorb heat to provide more thermal energy. The band will
therefore become cold. Using a similar argument it will be seen
that, if a stretched rubber band is heated, more thermal energy
will be available and so the chains will undergo more thermal
movement. Because the chain lengths between crosslinks are
fixed, this will bring the fixed points (the crosslink sites) closer
together, and thus the overall stretched length will decrease.
Now we know what an elastomer is, we can look at how and
why the synthetic rubber industry developed to compete with the
natural material.
The graphs in Fig. 9.1 show the development of natural
and synthetic rubber production throughout the twentieth cen-
tury and indicate that today around 60% of the world’s elastomers
are synthetic. Two features are of particular historical interest.
The first is the scale on the left of the main graph, which should
be compared with that of the graph of the export of Pará
rubber during the nineteenth century in Fig. 8.1. Plotted on
the same scale, Fig. 8.1 would run from 0 to 7 and be totally
invisible. The second is the ‘blip’ between 1940–1945 due to the
loss of plantation rubber from the Far East during the Second
World War.
Natural rubber output continued to grow at a steady pace
throughout the twentieth century, but demand far outstripped
supply and this enabled the synthetic materials to find a market.
Of the wide range of materials we shall consider in this chapter
there are two, butadiene rubber (BR) and styrene butadiene
Competition! 167
16 000
120 Total
14 000 100
80
Natural %
12 000 60
40
Thousands of tons
10 000 Synthetics
20
8000 0
1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000
Year
6000
Natural
4000
2000
0
1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25 28 31 34 37 40 43 46 49 52 55 58 61 64 67 70 73 76 79 82 85 88 91 94 97
Year
Fig. 9.1 Graph of natural and synthetic rubber production 1900–1997,

and natural rubber production as a percentage of the total elastomers
produced worldwide.
rubber (SBR), which are general-purpose rubbers which can

replace the natural material in many applications, although the last
still has certain properties which make it the material of choice
in certain circumstances. One area in which all of these three
elastomers show poor properties is resistance to swelling in
hydrocarbon oils, and here two other synthetics come into their
own, polychloroprene (CR) and nitrile rubbers (NBR).
The growth of the synthetic rubber industry begs the primary
question: If rubber had not existed would man have invented it?
He certainly would not have set out to because, without its being
there, the concept that a material could have been made with such
peculiar properties would have been unlikely to have occurred to
him. Some elastic materials would probably have come to light by
serendipity, since chemists have always enjoyed mixing chemicals
together to see what results, but it is doubtful if, without the spur
that such a material did exist, this would have occurred until well
into the twentieth century. What a difference that would have
made! It will also be seen later in this chapter that the vast
majority of the modern synthetic plastics industry developed as an
offshoot of man’s attempts to make elastic materials.
The story of natural rubber is one which developed over a
period of time and if one were to highlight some specific people
who were responsible for the great steps forward one might think
of la Condamine/Fresneau, Goodyear/Hancock, and Wickham/
Ridley. The story of the synthetics is somewhat different as it was
first necessary to establish some chemical understanding of
the natural material before leaping into the great unknown.
Unfortunately for the non-scientific reader, this requires some
chemistry.
It was obvious to all Victorian scientists that man could
improve on nature, and as early as 1860 Williams thermally
decomposed rubber and identified ‘spirit’, ‘oil’, and ‘tar’—the
spirit, or volatile substance, he named ‘isoprene’ and correctly
gave its elemental composition as C5H8. In 1879 Bouchardat
recombined isoprene to a rubbery material and Tilden wrote in
1884 of its possible industrial significance (if it could be syn-
thesised cheaply enough—one of life’s perpetual problems for
any chemist!).
In 1900 Kondakoff polymerised 2,3-dimethylbutadiene to
obtain ‘methyl rubber’ and this became the first commercial rubber
when it was produced by Bayer in 1909. Interestingly, Tilden had
carried out this reaction some twenty years earlier, but possibly by
accident or mistake as he never recorded it and his material was
only identified recently. In 1912 a few car tyres were made of this
elastomer and one set went to Kaiser Wilhelm II. At least one of
these is still in existence and was displayed at an exhibition of the
history of rubber which toured Europe during 1995–1996. It had
oxidised to such an extent that its tread surface was rock hard!
Competition! 169
However, it was still not a commercially viable material so
Germany obtained most of its natural rubber from the US. This
obviously ended when the States entered the Great War in 1916
and German production of methyl rubber was recommenced with
some 2500 tons being manufactured by the war’s end.
Russia was also active during this period, polymerising many
monomers including 1,4-butadiene in 1910 to give butadiene
rubber (BR). However, neither the Russian nor the American
synthetic rubber industries were under the same pressures as
Germany and, with the price of natural rubber low, there was
little incentive for anything other than academic research.
Although the words ‘polymerise’ and ‘polymerising’ have been
used earlier in the chapter, the scientists who had carried out
these reactions had no chemical understanding of what they had
achieved, and it was only in 1920 that the German chemist,
Hermann Staudinger, suggested that they had made molecules of
very high molecular weight by chemically combining thousands of
repeat units of simple molecules or monomers. He called these
long chains ‘polymers’ and later the word ‘elastomer’ was adopted to
identify those specifically with elastic properties and so differ-
entiate them from the non-elastic polymers—plastics.
The situation regarding research changed drastically in 1922
when the Stephenson Reduction Plan was introduced. This was
designed to cut production from the British-controlled planta-
tions and so force up the low price of natural rubber. Over the
next three years there was a tenfold price rise—followed by an
equally rapid and catastrophic fall as producers outside the control
of Britain flooded the market. It was this political intervention in
the free market which triggered the next phase in the develop-
ment of the synthetics.
One of the first of the new materials was far removed from the
work of the preceding years in that it was prepared, by accident,
by Dr Joseph Patrick whilst he was trying to develop a new
antifreeze for cars in the early 1920s (although he did not patent
the discovery until 1932). Could this be the serendipity
mentioned earlier? The substance was an ethylene polysulphide—
the first of the ‘Thiokols’ which are still in use as sealants
today. Working independently in Switzerland, Baer produced a
similar material in 1926 on which IG Farbenindustrie based its
‘Perdurens’, whilst in the States the thiokol rubbers were referred
to as GR-P (GR denotes government rubber).
It was in 1926 that Waldo Semon synthesised a substance
known worldwide today by just three letters—‘PVC’. In actual
fact, this is not an elastomer and had been synthesised towards the
end of the nineteenth century, but Semon discovered that it could
absorb large amounts of certain liquids and the resulting material
had, to some degree, elastic properties. Because of this, his later
discoveries, and his fascinating life, he merits a special place in the
history of synthetic elastomers.
Waldo Lonsbury Semon was born in 1898 into a family which
had seen its share of American history. His father was an engineer,
involved in construction projects throughout the country, whilst
two of his uncles had been involved in building the Great
Northern Railroad. His grandfather fought both in the American
Civil War and against the Sioux with General Custer, whilst his
father, Semon’s great-grandfather, had crossed the country from
east to west at the time of the Californian gold rush. In contrast,
the maternal side of his family had a literary bent and Waldo’s
genes seemed to represent a perfect fusion of these two sides of
his family.
His father travelled extensively, working on numerous
engineering projects (Waldo claimed that he had ‘itchy feet’),
which resulted in him living in a different place for almost each
year of his school life. However, he was fascinated by books and
Competition! 171
learned to read and write before he entered school in 1904. His
early reading seemed to be shared between his father’s engin-
eering textbooks and his mother’s Shakespeare!
His fascination with applied science soon led to experimenta-
tion. He built a battery and electric buzzer at the age of nine, and
then tried to recharge dead batteries from the live rail of the local
electric railway. Surprisingly, and to our advantage, he survived.
Fortunately, this failed to dampen his investigative spirit and soon
he and two friends cast their own cannons, which they charged
with black powder to fire wooden missiles. To show that
chemistry was also an interest at that early age, he attempted to
dye his aunt’s (white) cat black with silver nitrate. The resulting
red, black, and white tricoloured cat was, perhaps, his first
intimation that practical and theoretical chemistry often follow
divergent paths!
His first part-time job, aged eleven, did not suggest a career in
science. It was with Bill Cody’s Wild West Show, where his pay
was being taught to shoot by Buffalo Bill himself. His next sum-
mer job was with an electrical company. Not surprisingly, elec-
tricity and radio transmission became his new passion. Moving to
Ashland, he set up his first laboratory above the stables of the new
family home, but his father was soon on the move again to Oregon
where, here at least, he achieved two consecutive years of edu-
cation before being uprooted yet again.
In spite of all these travels, his avid reading and experi-
mentation gave him an academic knowledge well in advance of
most of his classmates, but, now eighteen years old, he still had no
career in mind. Enlightenment came when the National Bureau of
Standards refused him a research position because he had no
degree. Mr Miller (a co-founder of Boeing) offered him an
immediate position, but pointed out that, ultimately, paper
qualifications mattered and he should get himself some.
He decided to enrol at the University of Washington where a
degree in engineering should have been his obvious choice, but,
perhaps because of his father’s wandering lifestyle and a reluct-
ance to continue this for the rest of his life, he chose chemistry as
his main subject. Unfortunately, his family was soon off again, so
he had to organise accommodation and the means to pay for it.
This he did by working evenings and Sundays as a janitor in the
University. It was during his first term at university that he met
Marjorie Gunn, who was also studying chemistry and would,
eventually, become his wife.
Perhaps because of his upbringing, Semon had always been
interested in the appliance of knowledge to practical problems
and this led him to switch from pure chemistry to chemical
engineering, where he was soon recognised by his peers as a
brilliant experimentalist.
By now it was 1918 and the US army took him from his
studies, quickly realised his abilities, and set him to work at the
University on army projects. Developing a new manufacturing
process for TNT must have taken him straight back to his child-
hood! He finally graduated in 1920 and he and Marjorie were
married in September of that year. He then began working for a
postgraduate degree, funded by some teaching, whilst his wife
tutored students at the University.
At the end of this first year, when the colleges closed, their
combined incomes fell to zero. Semon obtained a job in a factory
which generated gas from oil and coke but which wanted to
switch to using local coal. By the end of the summer he had
succeeded, but the cost of the plant conversion proved too high
for the process to be viable. On the ‘plus’ side, the University
heard of his success and offered him a position as Assistant
Chemistry Instructor. He was now reasonably settled, with a
number of research projects and a plot of land near Seattle where
Competition! 173
he was building a house. More stability was provided by the birth
of two daughters, Mary and Marjorie, in 1922 and 1924. A third,
Constance Anne, was to follow in 1929. However, good fortune
did not last, and in 1925 funding changes at the University put an
end to his external contracts and forced him to look for a more
lucrative position.
At about that time B. F. Goodrich of Akron, Ohio, a company
known worldwide for its rubber products and, in particular,
automotive tyres, was starting to think of developing a synthetic
rubber to replace the natural material sourced from the far side of
the world. The man in charge of chemical research at Goodrich
was Dr Trumbull, who had been Semon’s Professor of Chemistry
in his first year at university, and, remembering the abilities of his
young student, he offered him the job of inventing this material.
Semon accepted and decided to drive to Akron with his family
rather than go by train. His interest in developing an improved
automotive tyre grew rapidly as he experienced fourteen punc-
tures over the two-week journey!
His first project was to synthesise a material which could
replace natural rubber as a tank-lining material and which could
be stuck to the metal tank (or tubes) with Goodrich’s existing
rubber-to-metal adhesive (Vulcalok). He studied what little was
known about synthetic polymers and decided to investigate the
field of vinyl polymers. These were not new but, as understood,
were commercially valueless. The year was 1926 and within a few
months he had made polyvinyl chloride (PVC)—a hard white
powder which, as already said, Semon found would swell to a gel
which was mouldable and had certain rubber-like properties, its
hardness and ‘rubberiness’ depending on the amount of solvent
present.
Unfortunately, he could not bond it to metal—which had been
the purpose of the research—but Goodrich got some early return
for its investment by way of PVC shoe heels and coated chemical
racks. This was not sufficient to provide the company with the
funds it needed to keep on developing the material, and it was on
the point of backing out when Semon came up with the idea of
coating fabrics to give waterproof materials and of producing soft
flexible PVC sheets for applications such as shower curtains. The
company Vice-President whom he had to convince was a keen
camper who was used to being soaked inside his so-called
‘waterproof tent’. Not surprisingly, Semon was able to get his
approval and in 1931 a range of products came to the market. The
name ‘Koroseal’ was proposed for PVC by Goodrich’s Director of
Research and soon became the registered trademark. Semon was
granted the US Patent for PVC in 1933, No. 1929453.
In speeding through his life, much has been omitted, so it
should be said here that this was actually Semon’s 22nd US Patent,
the others including amine antioxidants, the adhesive ‘Plasticon’
based on scrap rubber, as well as bookbinding using adhesives
instead of stitching and chewing gum.
With the success of PVC behind him, Semon returned to his
search for a synthetic elastomer to replace natural rubber in
automotive tyres. The rise of Hitler and the possibility of the US
being isolated from its sources of the natural material con-
centrated Semon’s, Goodrich’s, and the US Government’s
minds, individually and collectively. He was aware of the joint
work of IG (which now included Bayer) and Standard Oil in
the US into synthetic elastomers, and this was resumed in 1925 as
the price of natural rubber soared in response to the Stephenson
Plan. They soon managed to synthesise polybutadiene rubber,
which was called ‘Buna’, as well as two copolymers synthesised
by mixing two different monomers together before the poly-
merisation stage—‘Buna S’ (styrene butadiene rubber, SBR or
GR-S in America) and ‘Buna N’ (butadiene acrylonitrile rubber,
Competition! 175
NBR or GR-A). These had reached laboratory production by
1930 but were not industrially developed when reaction to the
Stephenson Plan made the price of natural rubber head for the
floor again.
Semon decided that the polymerisation of butadiene offered
the most likely route to a viable synthetic elastomer, but the
practical difficulties in obtaining a high polymer were formidable,
and it was only in 1939 with solution polymerisation, rather than
gas-phase polymerisation, that he got the breakthrough he needed
to synthesise a useful material. This, blended with natural
rubber, was quickly used to manufacture some automotive tyres
and surpassed all expectations with practically determined life
expectancies of over 50 000 miles. Goodrich christened his
polybutadiene ‘Ameripol’, whilst the tyres, launched in June 1940,
were named ‘Liberty Tyres’. Whether this referred to a freedom
from Eastern sources of natural rubber or was prescient of their
importance over the next five years is not reported.
Throughout this period all the work in the US was privately
funded and when the Second World War started there were
only minimal synthesising facilities. Production only rose from
2000 tons in 1939 to 10 000 tons in 1941. In that year Goodrich
agreed to make available its confidential process to its competitors
so that the US could increase output in anticipation of its con-
tribution to the anti-Nazi war effort. Semon was appointed
Chairman of the Technical Committee which had been set up to
coordinate the synthesis of Ameripol and the manufacture of tyres
from it, whilst the Government paid for the plant to be built. In
today’s money this investment would have been around 3 billion
pounds. The first of these came on-stream in mid-1942 and by
1945 the year’s production exceeded 830 000 tons. Over this
same early period Germany’s production went from 22 000 tons
to a peak of about 100 000 tons in the middle years of the war, and
then, not surprisingly, fell to zero in 1945. Directly out of this
extended research came commercially viable GR-S or SBR
(styrene butadiene rubber), and these two synthetic elastomers
remain today the general-purpose rubbers of choice to replace or
blend with the natural material.
There was one further valuable material to come out of the pre-
war IG/Standard agreement and that was butyl rubber (IIR). Its
precursor was synthesised by IG as polyisobutylene (IM) and had
no olefinic groups, so it could not be vulcanised. Standard added a
few per cent of butadiene or isoprene to give a low level of residual
unsaturation and thus a vulcanisable elastomer—butyl rubber.
In 1943 Semon was made Director of Pioneering Research at
Goodrich, but he could not get away from PVC which was now
being used to manufacture many dozens, if not hundreds, of
products ranging from hosepipes to electric plugs and plastic toys
of every description. The age of tinplate was at an end. PVC resin
was marketed under the trade name ‘Geon’, although it was
known worldwide just as ‘vinyl’. In 1993 that part of Goodrich
concerned with PVC was spun off as the independent Geon
Corporation, and in 2000 Geon merged with M. A. Hannah Co.
to form the PolyOne Corp.
Waldo Semon continued to work for Goodrich until his
Sixty-fifth birthday in 1963, when he ‘retired’ and took a teaching
post at Kent State University but by 1971 his eyesight was failing
rapidly and he had to resign. Even then he was in considerable
demand as a consultant and expert witness, whilst, in his spare
time, he worked his vegetable garden. In his eighties he was still
teaching informally at local schools, where he believed in the
‘catch them young’ philosophy of inspiring children with enthu-
siasm for investigative science. In 1979 Marjorie died. Waldo sur-
vived her for some twenty years, passing away on 26 May 1999,
halfway through his one-hundredth year.
Competition! 177
In following the life and research activities of Semon it has been
necessary to skip the inter-war discovery of one of the other great
synthetic elastomers, polychloroprene (CR). This was due to the
pioneering work of Wallace Carothers whilst he was working at
DuPont. In fact, there is a double credit in the history of polymers
due to this pairing since, not only did Carothers’ team at DuPont
develop the first commercial synthetic elastomer, which is still
technically important today, but also, a few years later, he was
responsible for the discovery of arguably one of the greatest
families of plastics ever commercialised. In view of his position as
the second of the two great names in the field of synthetic elasto-
mers, we shall look briefly at his life.
He was born on 27 April 1896, the eldest of four children, in
Burlington, Ohio. He was considered ‘bookish’ at school, but that
was to underestimate his breadth of interests. As well as
devouring every book he could find, he was fascinated by
mechanical toys and he also loved music. His tastes were catholic,
ranging from Bach to Gilbert and Sullivan. In high school his
interests turned to chemistry and he built a laboratory in his
bedroom.
His father taught at Capital City Commercial College in Des
Moines and it was there that Carothers went to study accountancy
when he left school. He then moved to Tarkio College in Missouri
to study chemistry, although, being short of funds, he used his
accountancy knowledge to advantage by teaching it in his spare
time. He must have been a remarkable student—possibly
unique—because he was made head of the chemistry depart-
ment whilst still an undergraduate. He graduated in 1920,
obtained his Masters in 1921, and his Doctorate from the
University of Illinois in 1924. He was then appointed a professor
at Harvard where he began his serious research career into
high polymers.
It was during his time in Illinois that the tormented side of
Carothers’ character surfaced; he filled a phial with cyanide, to be
carried with him for the rest of his life as an escape route if his fits
of depression became too much to bear.
In 1928 DuPont broke new ground by setting aside a labor-
atory for pure research. The ‘blue skies’ approach was not unusual
fifty years later, but at that time corporate research was very much
‘cash flow oriented’—as indeed it has become again more
recently. The chance to forgo teaching and devote all his time to
research was not to be missed and, at thirty-two, he was placed in
charge of DuPont’s research division. It was known that he suf-
fered from moods of deep depression and his staff was warned to
look out for them, but his mentor, Roger Adams, believed that
these could be controlled and that Carothers had much to give the
world from his researches. He proved to be just half right.
Dupont was aware of the work of Father Julius Nieuwland into
the synthesis of chloroprene from acetylene via divinyl acetylene,
and believed that this could be the precursor of a viable synthetic
elastomer. (Natural rubber consists of monomers which have
four carbon atoms joined in a line, with carbons two and three
unsaturated in the cis configuration and with a methyl group
attached to the second carbon atom; chloroprene has a molecular
structure which can be described as exactly similar but with the
branched methyl group replaced by a chlorine atom.) This
became Carothers’ first project and in April 1930 the polymer
was synthesised by one of his team, Arnold Collins. This had the
anticipated ‘rubbery’ properties and, whilst these were somewhat
poorer than those exhibited by natural rubber in many areas, it
had a much greater oil resistance. This gave it a niche market and
it went into production in 1931 as ‘Neoprene’, the first commer-
cially successful synthetic polymer which is still in production
today. The chemical name for the elastomer is polychloroprene,
Competition! 179
Neoprene being DuPont’s trade name, but, like Hoover, the
word has now been accepted as generic. They even made
some tyres from it in 1934. It should be recorded that Father
Nieuwland was offered royalties by DuPont for his part in the
discovery, but he refused since he was under a vow of poverty.
With that problem quickly resolved (three years from the start
of research to commercial production!), Carothers’ group turned
its attention to synthetic fibres, specifically to find a replacement
for silk, which was in short supply because of trade and political
problems between the USA and Japan.
He had postulated some years earlier that, if an acid and alcohol
could condense with the elimination of water to produce an ester,
it should be possible to make a giant molecule or polymer by
linking diols to diesters. This was soon achieved by one of his
team, Julian Hill, to give an early polyester, but the physical
properties were too poor for commercialisation and Carothers
turned his attentions to polyamides, replacing the diols with
diamines. In 1934 the first successful fibres were made.
Carothers’ team was working with over 100 different materials
and he identified them by two numbers, indicating the number of
carbon atoms in the diacid and diamine. In February 1935 he
polymerised adipic acid (which contained six carbon atoms) and
hexamethylene diamine (which also contained six carbon atoms)
to give ‘specimen 66’, which had good physical properties when
it was drawn into a fibre. The material was initially christened
‘Tiber66’, but in September 1938 it was renamed ‘Nylon66’. In
three years of research Carothers’ team had created the first
commercial synthetic rubber with the discovery of neoprene, and
now they had done it in the plastics field with nylon.
Carothers’ immediate superior decided to target just one
initial market with this new product, and in May 1940 nylon
stockings arrived in hosiery stores nationwide. At just over one
dollar per pair, five million pairs were sold on the first day. When
the United States entered the Second World War and arrived in
the UK, a few pairs of nylons could buy anything! By then,
however, nylon production had been directed towards the war
effort, particularly parachute canopies, rot-proof cords, and life
rafts, and the ladies had to wait a few more years to have an
unlimited supply of seamless or fully-fashioned nylon stockings.
The research work of Carothers and his team changed the
world, but he could not cope with it even as it was and he never
knew what he had achieved. His earlier bouts of depression and
heavy drinking had destabilised him. He grew up in a very close
relationship with his sister, Isobel, and then fell in love with a
married woman, but, when she became available, he retreated to
his parents’ house. He spent time in a psychiatric hospital and was
advised to marry by his doctor.
In January 1936 his sister died and soon afterwards he married
Helen Sweetman, a coworker at DuPont. She and DuPont rapidly
agreed that he needed hospitalisation, and after some treatment
he was released to take a walking holiday in the Alps with
his old friend Roger Adams. According to Adams he seemed
to improve during this time, but relapsed on his return to the
US, even though he was actively cared for by his wife, psychiat-
rist, friends, and colleagues. In the middle of April 1937 Helen
told him that she was pregnant, and on 29 April of that year,
alone in a hotel in Philadelphia, he cracked open his phial of
cyanide and died believing that he was ‘morally bankrupt’ and
that his work had been useless. Helen later gave birth to a
daughter, Jane.
Let us return to the story of the synthetics. The American
contribution to synthetic rubber production during the war had
been a vast amount of fundamental research together with pro-
duction technology and plant, but, when the war finished in 1945,
Competition! 181
the cycle of cheap natural rubber returned, leading yet again to
reduced commercial interest in the synthetics.
It was left to Ziegler and Natta to reactivate the cycle in the
early 1950s when they developed catalysts which enabled high-cis
1,4-polybutadiene to be synthesised. The third phase of pro-
duction techniques had arrived (gas-phase reactions, emulsion
phase, and now catalysed stereo-regular emulsion phase).
In the early 1960s DuPont echoed the pre-war work of
IG/Standard when, instead of copolymerising just ethylene and
propylene to make ethylene propylene rubber (EPM) with no
crosslinking sites, they included a small amount of ethylene
norbornene which provided, after copolymerisation, olefinic
crosslinking sites. This material was to be known as EPDM. The
‘M’ indicates that the main polymer chain is saturated and
the olefinic double bond is part of the pendent norbornene
group. In contrast, butyl rubber (IIR) is classified as an ‘R’ type
because, although the main polymer chain contains no unsatura-
tion from polymerisation of the isobutylene, the residual double
bond from butadiene or isoprene does reside within that polymer
chain itself.
All of the elastomers discussed so far have been either homo-
polymers (that is, one monomer polymerised), or random copoly-
mers of two (or three) monomers, but when some structure is fed
into this randomness we get quite different properties.
This is the principle behind some of today’s thermoplastic
elastomers. In these materials there are soft ‘rubbery’ regions
to provide extensibility, coupled with ‘glassy’ regions which serve
as physical network junctions at their operating temperatures
but melt when they are heated, thus making the material
mouldable (or remouldable). These materials have been around
for approaching thirty years and, in a world where recycling
is king, they are taking an ever-increasing share of the elastomer
market, with recent figures suggesting about 20% of the non-tyre
market.
In this brief summary of the synthetics many materials have
been omitted, but one class must be mentioned since it is unique
in containing no carbon. This is the silicone rubbers, introduced
as early as 1944 and today ubiquitous, being found in almost
every environment from the most hi-tech to every DIY fanatic’s
toolbox.
In order to provide some structure for the identification and
naming of the vast numbers of synthetic elastomers which were
being developed since the early days of PVC and polychloroprene,
a classification system was introduced which is now an Interna-
tional Standard—ISO 1629. The last letter of the identification
code defines the basic group to which the polymer belongs, whilst
the earlier letters provide more specific information and in many
cases define the polymer absolutely. For completeness it is out-
lined below.
‘M’ Group: Rubbers Having a

Saturated–C–C–Main Chain
IM: Polyisobutylene (e.g. VISTANEX), a soft inert plastic.
A low molecular weight material used as a plasticiser
and adhesive.
EPM: Copolymer of ethylene and propylene; the rubber-like
materials have a wt/wt composition between 70–30
and 30–70.
EPDM: A terpolymer of ethylene, propylene, and a diene or
polyene giving pendent olefin groups as crosslinking
sites (e.g. NORDEL). An ozone- and oxidation-
resistant rubber.
Competition! 183
CSM: Chlorosulphonated polyethylene (e.g. HYPALON),
containing both C–Cl and C–SO2CI groups. Cl con-
tent 20–45%; S content 0.5–2.5%. Optimum propert-
ies 30% Cl, 1.5% S. Ozone-resistant rubber also used
in varnishes.
FPM: Fluoro/fluoroalkyl groups on C–C backbone (e.g.
VITON and FLUOREL, copolymers of hexafluoropro-
pylene and vinylidene fluoride; e.g. TECHNOFLON,
a copolymer of vinylidene fluoride and 1-hydropenta-
fluoropropylene).
CFM: As above, but containing Cl as well as F; vinylidene
fluoride (VF): chlorotrifluoroethylene (CTFE) copoly-
mer (e.g. VOLTALEF, KEL F). All the fluoropolymers
are thermally stable and relatively inert.
‘O’ Group: Rubbers Having Carbon and Oxygen

in the Main Chain
CO: Poly(epichlorohydrin) (HERCLOR H)—the parent
material from which came ECO and GPO.
ECO: Copolymer of epichlorohydrin and ethylene oxide
(HERCLOR C).
GPO: Copolymer of propylene oxide and allyl glycidyl ether
(PAREL). All these materials have good heat resistance
and excellent low temperature properties.
‘Q’ Group: Silicone Rubbers

MQ: Polydimethylsiloxane; depending on the molar mass
this can be an oil, wax, or rubber.
MPQ: As MQ, with the addition of phenylmethylsiloxane.
MPVQ: As above, but with vinyl groups.
MFQ: As MQ, but fluorinated. These are all relatively stable
thermally, and because of their cold-cure character-
istics they may be used as electrical insulants, seals,
moulds, etc.
‘R’ Group: Rubbers Having an Unsaturated

Carbon Backbone
ABR: Refers to copolymers of butadiene and methyl metha-
crylate (e.g. BUTAKON ML) used to impregnate paper,
but also includes the terpolymer with acrylonitrile
(primer, before adhesive layer applied) and the tetra-
polymer with styrene (used as a synthetic rubber).
BR: Poly(butadiene)—available as high cis (98%þ), high trans
(98%þ), and anywhere in between. Can also have vinyl
groups present at any level. General-purpose rubbers
usually 90%þ cis or about 45% cis, 45% trans, 10% vinyl.
High vinyls have some specialist uses.
CR: Poly(b-chlorobutadiene) (e.g. CHLOROPRENE,
NEOPRENE). Two main types: ‘G’, amber in colour
with large molar mass range centred at about 100 000;
‘W’, white, molar mass of narrower range and centred
about 200 000. Used as an adhesive or where oil or ozone
resistance required, e.g. gaskets, sub-aqua suits, etc.
IIR: Copolymer of isobutylene and isoprene (BUTYL). Only a
small amount of diene added (circa 5%) to give cross-
linkable sites. Has a low gas permeability; hence uses in
inflatable products, and as general-purpose rubber.
CIIR: Chlorinated IIR with 2–3% wt/wt halogen to
decrease gas.
Competition! 185
BIIR: Brominated IIR }permeability and improve self-adhesion
on building (e.g. HYCAR 2202, BUTYL HT 1066,
1088). Uses as for IIR.
IR: Synthetic cis-poly(isoprene) (e.g. CARIFLEX, NATSYN,
SKI3). cis level 90–99%, remainder trans and vinyl.
General-purpose rubber.
NBR: Copolymer; acrylonitrile and butadiene (e.g. KRYNAC,
NITRILE). Available with a wide range of ACN loadings
to alter hardness; oil-resistant applications. Also available
is terpolymer (see ABR) and tetrapolymer with styrene.
NR: Cis-poly(isorene) natural rubber, essentially 100% cis,
trans/vinyl <0.1%. Contains about 95% polyisoprene.
Various grades available. Also modified NR—PA, SP,
OENR, ENR, DPNR. NR was the original general-
purpose (GP) rubber.
SBR: Random copolymer of styrene and butadiene. Styrene
level varies from 10% to 80%, but the general-purpose
level is 23.5%. Many types available and the exact type
identified by a numeric code. General-purpose rubber.
Vast amounts used in tyres. Also available as terpolymer/
tetrapolymer systems (see ABR and NBR).
‘T’ Group: Rubbers Having Carbon (Oxygen)

and Sulphur in the Main Chain
OT: Polymer of bischloroalkylether (or formal), with sulphur.
Most common one uses bis-2-chloroethylformal;
CH2(OCH2CH2Cl)2 (with a little 1,2,3-trichloropropane
for crosslinking) THIOKOL ST.
EOT: As above, but copolymerised with ethylene dichloride.
All of these smell strongly of sulphur and are used for oil
and solvent seals. The liquid polymers cold cure and find
a wide acceptance as sealants in the building trade.
Popular ones include:
‘U’ Group: Polymer Chain Contains Carbon,

Oxygen, and Nitrogen
AU: Polyesterurethanes.
EU: Polyether urethanes.
A wide range of materials used as oil-resistant materials,
in oxidation-resisting applications, and as lightweight shoe
soling.
Although not true elastomers, certain polymeric materials
merit inclusion here because of their application as rubber-like
materials.
PVC: Poly(vinylchloride); hard, brittle material (d ¼ 1.4) often
copolymerised with vinylidine chloride, vinyl acetate,
styrene, ABR, ethylene vinyl acetate, etc. for a wide
range of applications. When plasticised, usually with
esters such as phthalates, it becomes quite ‘rubbery’.
Used in conveyor belts, paints, varnishes, floor coverings,
erasers (rubbers), flexible tubing, wellington boots, and
many cheap ‘rubber’ goods. Thermoplastic.
PS: Polystyrene; only occasionally met as a reinforcing
plastic within a continuous elastomeric phase (e.g. shoe
soling), but can be considered to be present in some
thermoplastic elastomers such as the block copoly-
mers: SIS (styrene-isoprene-styrene) and SBS (styrene-
butadiene-styrene). Analytical data show that in both
cases the styrene exists as ‘polystyrene’ rather than
randomly dispersed styrene as in SBR.
Competition! 187
Chicle: A naturally-occurring mixture of cis and trans poly-
isoprene (25:75); with resins, used in chewing-gum.
Guayule: Natural cis-polyisoprene isolated from the shrub
Parthenium argentatum by solvent extraction. Uses and
properties as for NR, but smell reminiscent of gin.
Efforts to develop commercial exploitation have not
been particularly successful.
Although many people think that today’s world is ruled by
synthetics and the natural material is dead, we have seen that its
output has continued to grow throughout the last century. The
synthetics have expanded more rapidly as demand for general-
purpose elastomers, which can replace or be blended with the
natural material in many applications, has grown more rapidly
than the latter can be produced, and also because ‘speciality
elastomers’, which are used for a range of applications such as oil
resistance or extended thermal stability for which natural and
general-purpose rubbers are not suited, have been developed. In
round figures there are currently about 6 000 000 tons of natural
rubber and 9 000 000 tons of synthetics produced per year.
This chapter concludes with a final thought. Most of the major
synthetic elastomers of today are made from that finite material,
oil. Natural rubber comes from a renewable resource, and
chemical treatments of it are being investigated and used to enable
modified natural rubber to operate in areas once considered to be
the sole preserves of the synthetics. The biosynthesis of natural
rubber also consumes the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and it
produces commercially useful timber as a by-product.
As the graph in Fig. 9.1 shows, the story of the synthetics
versus natural rubber is by no means over.
10
The Heavy Mob
However much natural and synthetic rubber the world is able to

produce it would be useless without the machinery to make
something from it. Britain was lucky in that the industrial
revolution had begun some years before Hancock started his
experiments, but, in terms of the size and mass of the equipment
required to process rubber, it was still in its infancy. In part,
this was due to a lack of available and useable power. If the
industrial revolution is defined as the application of power-driven
machinery to manufacturing, the power was just not available. In
1853 Goodyear wrote:
It is for want of adequate power and corresponding machinery for
this purpose, and of that only, that the inventor is dissatisfied with
the present state of manufacture.
In Europe, in the early part of the nineteenth century, applications
were based on products which could be cut from either sheet or
block rubber, or from products such as rubber bottles or shoes
made originally from latex and imported from Amazonia. In
America the major products on sale were overshoes imported
from Pará. The discovery of solvents which could dissolve raw
natural rubber to give a viscous syrup-like solution led to this being
the major way forward, as can be seen by reading articles written
towards the end of the eighteenth century, as well as Goodyear’s
The Heavy Mob 189
and Hancock’s autobiographies. Rubberised fabrics or articles
made by dipping formers into the solutions provided the majority
of products being manufactured. The equipment required for this
was neither heavy nor had excessive power requirements;
Macintosh began by painting rubber solution onto sheets of fabric
with a simple brush, and when Hancock designed a spreading
machine it was little more than a large table with a trough to
hold the rubber solution followed by an open drying oven (see
Fig. 10.1). Later, with the advent of Parkes’s ‘cold-cure’ process
using sulphur chloride gas, the rubberised fabric was led through
a loosely-sealed cabinet in which the vulcanisation took place.
Hancock’s ‘pickle’, as described earlier, was the first important
piece of rubber-manufacturing equipment, although, since it was
man-powered and produced a few ounces of rubber per day, it
could hardly be classed as part of the industrial revolution! Its
purpose was to convert rubber scrap into a useable material and in
Fig. 10.1 A simple spreading table.

this it succeeded admirably. It combined the scraps into dough
which, as an unexpected bonus, was found to be much more
soluble than the ‘unpickled’ rubber and to give high-quality
solutions—much to the benefit of Macintosh and Hancock him-
self. This breaking down of the rubber became known as ‘mas-
tication’ and is particularly important in the processing of natural
rubber because the average size of the molecule is so large—
ranging from 10 000 to over 100 000 monomer (C5H8) units—
that they are unable to ‘untangle’ themselves and dissolve. Most
of the synthetic elastomers have much shorter chain lengths—
perhaps 2000 to 10 000 monomer units—and these will dissolve
more easily.
However, there was still no engineering industry able to meet
the demands of the rubber product manufacturers. Indeed, it is
fair to say that the two industries developed together as demands
for multi-horsepower machines built to close tolerances grew
from all areas of industry.
Hancock was the first to introduce a power-driven machine
into the rubber industry, and this consisted of a single roller with a
fluted surface rotating in a concentric case, as shown in Fig. 10.2.
As it rotated, the rubber was torn or masticated, as in his
‘pickling’ machine. This could claim to be the forerunner of
today’s internal mixer. Hancock’s later models could handle up to
1800 pounds of rubber in one charge. Two later examples of this
type of mixer, manufactured by Francis Shaw and David Bridge,
are also shown in Fig. 10.3.
In America in the 1830s Edwin Chaffee adopted a different
approach. He had concluded that the use of a solvent to prepare
cast thin films of rubber was the main cause of the latter’s rapid
degradation, so he developed a machine which he called a ‘cal-
ender’. This had three or more rollers with adjustable ‘nips’
between the rollers, through which the rubber could be passed to
The Heavy Mob 191
Fig. 10.2 Hancock’s 1840 masticator.
(a)
Fig. 10.3 Single-roller masticators manufactured by (a) Francis Shaw,

and (b) David Bridge.
(b)
Fig. 10.3 (Continued).
produce ever-thinner sheets (see Fig. 10.4). A sheet of fabric

could be passed through the final nip together with the rubber,
enabling rubber-impregnated fabric to be manufactured without
recourse to any solvent.
This illustration in Fig. 10.4 gives some idea of the size of these
calenders. A crucial point to notice is that the calender squeezes
the rubber like an old-fashioned mangle; normally there is no
shearing effect between the rollers as they rotate at the same speed.
However, some machines, such as the one illustrated in Fig. 10.4
and on the market at the beginning of the twentieth century, have
the option of altering the rotational speed between the rollers, and
if this is done between the final pair, between which the fabric
passes, the rubber can be forced more easily into the fabric. This
facility gives the machine its name—a shearing calender.
The three-roll calender pictured in Fig. 10.5, the Iron Duke, is
believed to be the first such machine built in Britain. It was built
The Heavy Mob 193
Fig. 10.4 A three-roll calender.
for Stephen Moulton in 1849 and was based on an American

design.
The company archives offer a clear insight into how far the
manufacturers were pushing the frontiers of their science. In April
Moulton wrote to the Bilston Foundry:
I am glad to hear that two of the rolls are finished but how do you
intend to grind the third? They must all be ground together in the
same frame or otherwise they will not be true.
In July the foundryman complained of the expensive experi-

ence he was having (‘if you could see the number of rolls strewing
our foundry yard you would not complain’) and informed Moulton
Fig. 10.5 Moulton’s three-roll calender—the Iron Duke.

that:
We find the friction so very great now that the rolls approach a
smooth surface that we are compelled to abandon the machinery
hitherto in use and remove the rolls to another place so that we
may be enabled to have the direct power of another engine.
The problem would not go away. In the 1870s one manufacturer
wrote, ‘The roll we had on our lathe has proved a waster, making
the third.’ Another manufacturer, when Moulton queried the
price, replied, ‘Rolls never seem worth their money. They are
very risky things to make.’ Nevertheless, they were made and in
number.
Back in the 1830s, a year or two after Chaffee had developed
the calender, he produced the two-roll, two-speed mill, which
The Heavy Mob 195
Additives
Rubber
Fig. 10.6 Diagram of

mastication and the addition
of additives.
rapidly replaced Hancock’s machines and which was specifically

designed to masticate the rubber. By rotating the horizontally-
opposed rollers in opposite directions at slightly different speeds,
the diagram in Fig. 10.6 shows how the rubber ‘bands’ on the left
roller whilst, because here the right one is rotating slower than
the left, the rubber will be sheared and ‘bulk up’ in the nip.
The rubber is masticated by the shearing action, and any
additives that are required can be poured in between the rollers at
the nip so that they become finely distributed throughout the mix.
For that reason these are sometimes called mixing mills.
The calender and two-roll mill remain the basic equipment of
virtually every rubber-manufacturing facility today and, although
they may have changed with refinements such as heating or
cooling for the rollers, the fitting of safety guards, and more
modern designs of cover, the fundamentals remain the same now
as they were one hundred and fifty years ago (see Fig. 10.7). The
only significant advances are in the electrics.
Although the illustrations in Fig. 10.7 are of quite large
machines, they are manufactured in a vast range of roller lengths
and diameters. A laboratory mixing mill might have rollers some
four inches long and one inch in diameter, whilst a large industrial
(a)
(b)
Fig. 10.7 (a) An early electric two-roll mill, and (b) a modern sixty-
inch two-roll mill.
The Heavy Mob 197
mill might be one hundred by thirty inches, able to take up to four
hundredweight (200 kg) of final rubber compound, and require a
motor capable of delivering over three hundred horsepower.
These mills had one particular disadvantage in that they were
open to the atmosphere, and the search for new methods of
mixing with more compact equipment which was quicker, less
power-consuming, and which offered a cleaner working envir-
onment than the ‘open’ mill led to various ‘internal mixers’ being
developed. Werner Pfleiderer, a company that had begun some
thirty years earlier to manufacture machinery for mixing and
kneading dough, made the earliest in 1913, while in 1916 Fernley
Banbury launched the ‘Banbury’ mixer, which remains probably
the most popular mixer for rubber compounding around the
world today.
The principle of operation is shown in Fig. 10.8(a). The
Banbury used a pair of counter-rotating winged tangential rotors,
which can be seen as pear-shaped objects, inside a closed chamber
into which the rubber and additives could be dropped via the hop-
per on the left-hand side and then sealed under pressure by the
vertical ram. After mixing, the compound was dropped through
the floor of the mixer for subsequent moulding and vulcanisation.
Diagrams never give a good idea of the sheer size of these
machines, but Fig. 10.8(b) shows a photograph of a Banbury in use
in an American tyre factory. The operator is dwarfed by its bulk.
Francis Shaw adopted the same principle in the 1930s with the
‘Shaw Intermix’. The intermixer is a variation on the Banbury
theme which uses rotors which intermesh and shear/mix the
rubber between their nogs and root diameters. Since the nogs are
slewed on the rotors, the mixing material is continually swept
from side to side within the chamber to give excellent overall
mixing.
(a)
Fig. 10.8 (a) A diagram of a Bridge–Banbury, and (b) a Banbury

internal mixer.
The Heavy Mob 199
(b)
At least one manufacturer today incorporates both intermixing

and tangential technology within one mixer, but rubber mixing
still remains a batch process and no one has yet succeeded in
devising a fully-continuous mixing process.
Fig. 10.9 Three-mould hydraulic press.
The next stage in the manufacture of a vulcanised rubber

product is to shape it and then apply heat to effect vulcanisation.
In 1855 Johnson patented the idea of using a press with shaped
platens to bring about the shaping. In 1860 Pitman introduced
steam-heated platens, a practice still in use today, although
electrically-heated presses have steadily increased in use since
the latter third of the twentieth century. The final shape of the
product depends only on the design and manufacture of the
mould, although, in practice, the quality of the finished product
can be crucially dependent on subtle details of the mould and the
way in which the rubber compound flows to fill it.
The Heavy Mob 201
There are two basic types of moulding processes: compression
moulding and transfer moulding. In compression moulding a slab
of compounded rubber is placed in the bottom portion of the
mould and the top mould is lowered onto it—thus compressing
the slab to fill the mould. Any spare compound is forced out of the
mould as ‘flash’, to be trimmed off later. In transfer moulding the
compounded rubber is placed in a separate part of the mould
(the transfer pot) which is connected to the mould proper by a
series of small channels or sprues. A plunger then forces the
compound through the sprues so that it transfers from the pot into
the mould.
As with compounding on a mill or in an intermixer, moulding
with platens is a ‘batch’ process and this is obviously of little use in
the manufacture of articles such as hoses or automotive rubber
seals and profiles. In this area the rubber industry learned from the
plastics industry, specifically from Bewley, who had invented the
plastics extruder in 1847 to extrude gutta-percha as an insulating
and protective coating for the first submarine telegraph cables.
In 1881 Francis Shaw developed the screw extruder in which
the compounded rubber was forced through an appropriately-
shaped die from a large cylindrical reservoir that was compressed
by a screw piston. The product squeezed from the die (the
extrudate) was then coiled on flat pans in spirals and cured in air
ovens. More modern developments retain the extruder but use
a variety of continuous-curing procedures. In Fig. 10.10 rubber
compound is being mixed on a two-roll mill at the rear and
a simple rod profile is being extruded. The final shape of the
moulding, i.e. a car door seal, is infinitely variable, depending only
on the die design.
Surprisingly, it took over half a century for the extruder and
shaped platens to be brought together in one machine in the
process known as ‘injection moulding’. Although it had been used
Fig. 10.10 Milling and extruding.
by the plastics industry since the 1870s, the process was not
applied commercially to rubber until the 1940s, and it was only in
1957 that Arburg commenced series production of this type of
machine. Early versions used either a simple ram or a screw ram to
both inject the compound into the curing chamber and maintain
pressure while the curing took place, but in the 1960s screw
machines with separate rams were introduced by REP. These had a
‘V’ head design, with one arm of the ‘V’ being the screw extruder
which forced the compound through a non-return valve into a
small chamber, from which it was injected into the mould by
a ram; this ram constituted the other arm of the ‘V’. This allowed a
high degree of control over batch volumes and ram pressures, thus
minimising wastage and improving product reliability. This type
of machine is today fully automated and the industry standard.
The schematic illustration in Fig. 10.11(a) shows how the
rubber mix or compound is forced into the reservoir by the screw
The Heavy Mob 203
(a)
ram
tion
Injec
Ru
bb
er
mi
x
Rubber being
forced into mould
(b)
Fig. 10.11 (a) A schematic illustration of injection moulding, supplied

by REP UK, and (b) a bathing cap being injection moulded.
on the left as the ram on the right is withdrawn. The valve at the
base of the screw then closes and the ram injects the mix into the
mould.
This chapter has so far been concerned almost entirely with the
heavy equipment needed to process raw rubber—natural or
synthetic—but in 1920 Philip Schidrowitz discovered how to pre-
vulcanise latex. His product looked and behaved exactly as ‘raw’
latex, but when it was dried or coagulated and heated at a rela-
tively low temperature, around 130 C, it gave a vulcanised
product which had all the properties of conventionally vulcanised
‘dry’ rubber. This led to the birth of a new industry—the
manufacture of a vast range of dipped rubber goods. Some are
illustrated in Fig. 10.12.
Modern dipping lines are fully automated and use formers
made of wood, plastic, glass, or porcelain which can be inter-
changed to meet demand (see Fig. 10.13), although it is usual for
one line in a factory to keep to one product.
Pre-vulcanised latex can be sprayed onto fabric or formed in
moulds with a blowing agent so that vulcanised latex foam
products, such as soft rubber balls or toys (see Fig. 10.14), can
be made.
It is also possible to whip latex into a foam and cure that to
give, for instance, latex mattresses. This process was first
developed by E. A. Murphy, working for Dunlop, who dis-
covered in 1929 that whipping bubbles into latex and then adding
a gelling agent stabilised the foam. In 1931 the first mattresses
were produced, but it was only in 1960 that the Talalay process
(named after its inventor, Leon Talalay) was patented in the UK.
This involved a sophisticated manufacturing process—mechanical
foaming followed by vacuum expansion, then freezing and gelling
with carbon dioxide in specially designed moulds containing
dozens of heated probes. The probes were an essential practical,
The Heavy Mob 205
(a) (b)
(c)
Fig. 10.12 Batch dipping of (a) bathing caps, (b) catheters, and (c) balls
and bladders.
Fig. 10.13 Modern continuous production of dipped medical gloves.

Fig. 10.14 Various toys made from latex.
rather than design, feature which overcame the difficulty of

uniformly heating a large block of such a thermally insulating-
material.
11
Chemicals and Curatives
This chapter provides a brief and necessarily superficial look at the

history of vulcanisation. Its intent is not to educate chemically but
to describe in as non-technical a way as possible the changes which
have taken place from the first faltering steps of its infancy, guided
by Goodyear and Hancock, to its full maturity today. Without this
process our rubber would be useless.
There can be no doubt that the discovery of vulcanisation of
high polymers with unsaturated carbon backbones (polyolefinic
elastomers), such as natural rubber, changed the world as much
as, if not more than, any other discovery over the last few hundred
years. In non-chemical terms, vulcanisation can be described as
the process by which the chemical reaction between a polyolefin
and sulphur results in greatly increased elastic properties of the
polyolefin and the maintenance of these properties over a com-
paratively wide temperature range.
It has already been mentioned that the actual term ‘vulcani-
sation’ was suggested by William Brockedon to Hancock in the UK,
although it is now accepted that the action of sulphur, certain metal
oxides, and heat on natural rubber to ‘cure’ it of its propensity
to turn brittle when cold and sticky when hot was discovered by
Charles Goodyear in 1839. Indeed, in the US the terms ‘cure’ and
‘curing’ tended to be used interchangeably with ‘vulcanise’ and
‘vulcanising’. This has resulted in a number of anachronisms
which will be addressed later.
In the light of what has been written about vulcanisation in
previous chapters, the first point of note is that heating pure
rubber and sulphur will not give a vulcanised product. Pure
rubber in this context means just the polymeric material, but
since natural rubber, even after normal cleaning and ‘purifying’,
is only about 95% pure, the experiments of Goodyear and
Hancock were successful. The reason lies in the presence of
natural proteins in the rubber which act as ‘activators’ to start the
vulcanisation process. Hancock’s work showed that this was all
that was needed, but Goodyear found that lead oxide also assisted
the process. Unknown at the time, other natural materials in the
rubber—long-chain organic fatty acids such as stearic acid—were
also involved in the complex chemistry.
In 1881 Rowley patented ammonia as a promoter for the
vulcanisation reaction, but for obvious reasons this did not prove
popular and it was some twenty years later before anyone sug-
gested using the less volatile organic base, aniline, as its
replacement. Unfortunately, its toxicity ruled it out very quickly,
although it had also been patented in 1908 as an antioxidant,
a pointer to the way forward on this front which will be returned
to in a later chapter. In 1911 Bayer suggested another base,
piperidine, but again this was rejected commercially because of
both its smell and toxicity. In the early 1920s there were great
advances with the discovery that diphenylguanidine (DPG) and
mercaptobenzthiazole (MBT) greatly assisted vulcanisation. This
type of chemical became known as an accelerator; however, in
one sense the word is inappropriate because, although it did make
the reaction proceed more rapidly, it also enabled the operator to
have much more control of the vulcanisation chemistry. Perhaps
the origin of the word ‘accelerator’ can be laid at the door of
Peachy, who patented nitrosodimethylaniline in 1914 under the
name ‘accelerene’.
Chemicals and Curatives 209
Several other accelerators were soon introduced, such as the
thiurams and xanthates, and in 1923 Bruni and Hopkinson,
working in Italy, introduced the zinc dialkyldithiocarbamates
(ZDRC), where R could be methyl (M), ethyl (E), or an extended
range of alkyl groups. These accelerators, together with DPG and
MBT, all of which were developed in the first half of the 1920s,
remain the accelerators of choice for many applications today.
One further patent is worthy of note. Again in 1923, Russell
patented a combination of fatty acids and zinc oxide to assist
in vulcanisation, and this completed the fundamental rubber
vulcanising system:
a polyolefinic rubber,
sulphur,
an activator—fatty acid with zinc oxide,
an accelerator—GDPG, MBT, ZDRC, etc., used singly or in
combinations.
Apart from the obvious reason of patenting a new accelerator
to obtain a slice of an existing market, the reasons for developing
new ones tend to be threefold:
1. to modify the vulcanisation process in such a way as to make it
more cost-effective;
2. to modify the vulcanisation chemistry and thereby obtain a
product with improved performance characteristics;
3. for environmental or ‘health and safety’ reasons.
Although the development of this basic vulcanisation system
had followed logical and progressive lines of research, the actual
chemistry remained a mystery—if indeed it was chemistry at all!
For close to a century after the discoveries of Goodyear and
Hancock the argument raged as to what was the interaction
between rubber and sulphur. In 1898 Ostromislenski proposed a
combined chemical/physical theory of vulcanisation, in 1902
Weber proposed a purely chemical one, and in 1910 Ostwald
opted for some sort of physical mixture or ‘alloy’ formation.
Although the evidence for a chemical inter-reaction became
overwhelming for most scientists, there were still arguments
between the various camps at an international conference on
vulcanisation as late as 1939.
The chemical structure of the natural rubber vulcanisate was
finally resolved during the 1960s and 1970s at the Malaysian
Rubber Producers’ Research Association (now the Tun Abdul
Razak Research Centre or TARRC) by studies of the reactions
between combinations of sulphur and various accelerators
with low molecular weight olefins, the last being taken as models
for the monomeric rubber olefin unit. This work led to the
conclusion that the polymer chains of an unvulcanised rubber
were joined together (crosslinked) by sulphur bridges to give a
three-dimensional network, and it was this which provided the
increased elasticity of the vulcanised product.
At this point it should be noted that, because a rubber product
can contain a range of substances which are not part of the
vulcanisation process, it is the ratio of sulphur to accelerators
and to the rubber which is important in defining the type of
vulcanising system. Thus quantities in a rubber mix are expressed
not as percentages of the total but as ‘parts by weight per hundred
parts of rubber’, generally abbreviated to ‘phr’.
The detailed picture which emerged was extremely complex
but a simplistic picture can be drawn to advantage. The first stage
of the vulcanisation process is the reaction between elemental
sulphur, the accelerator, and the activators to produce the ‘active’
sulphurating agent. This then attaches itself to one of several
carbons within one of the monomer units of the polymer, whilst
the other end of the sulphur chain is doing the same to another
monomer unit. The expression ‘sulphur chain’ is significant as
there could be many more than one sulphur atom joining together
to form this linking chain or bridge. It is possible that the bridge
might not be formed between two adjacent polymer molecules at
all, as it could have looped back and coupled to the same polymer
chain to which the first attachment took place. However, even
this is not the end of the story. Chemistry which takes place at
the vulcanisation temperature of 160 C and above will continue,
albeit at a much slower rate, at ambient or product-operating
temperatures. The sulphur–sulphur bonds in the sulphur bridge
are relatively unstable and can break and re-form. If they rejoin
where they broke then that has no effect, but if they join up with
another ‘free’ sulphur atom there will result changes in crosslink
lengths and possibly the formation of more crosslinks or chemical
modifications to the polymer chain.
In order to ‘visualise’ the chemical changes which occur during
crosslinking and to observe how changing the chemicals and their
relative proportions can alter the properties of a vulcanisate, an
instrument called a rheometer is used. There are several types
available but they all provide a measure of the stiffness of the rubber
mix as it vulcanises. A typical printout from a Monsanto rheometer
is shown in Fig. 11.1. The mix, when placed in the instrument, has
a particular stiffness (A), but as the temperature rises it falls (B).
Between B and C the chemistry which the mix is undergoing does
not introduce crosslinks, but these start being formed at C and
continue with time to give the maximum vulcanised state at D. The
difference between the stiffness at C and D indicates the degree of
crosslinking or crosslink density. As heating continues, between
D and E there is a fall in the crosslink density as the various chemical
reactions mentioned earlier take place. This is called reversion.
At any temperature and for any combination of curatives, such
an instrument will show very quickly what the final crosslink
D
E
‘Stiffness’
B C
Time (arbitrary scale)
Fig. 11.1 A rheometer printout for the vulcanisation of a ‘conven-

tional’ mix.
density will be and how long the heating should continue to give
that required state—information Goodyear, Hancock, and their
competitors would have given a great deal to have had.
An appreciation of these factors now enables us to understand
some quantitative observations obtained almost a century ago. In
the early days of vulcanisation, before the introduction of a range
of modern accelerators but when the advantages of adding a little
organic base were appreciated, trial and error had shown that
around 2.5 phr sulphur gave a good useful vulcanised rubber
product, and this came to be known as a conventional vulcanisate.
This level of sulphur is used today with around 0.5 phr acceler-
ator, but a combination of model olefin studies with calculations
of the crosslink density of the vulcanisate have shown that this is
not a chemically efficient system. The polysulphidic crosslinks and
other non-crosslinking sulphur chemistry mean that there are
about twelve sulphur atoms consumed to produce one crosslink.
If the levels of the ingredients are reversed to 0.5 phr sulphur
and 2.5 phr accelerator then we have a much more efficient
vulcanisate (EV), with only about three sulphurs required for
each crosslink. Not surprisingly, it is possible to design ‘semi-EV’
systems which fall between the two extremes. Zinc oxide is today
the preferred inorganic base, usually added at around 5 phr,
although for applications where transparency is desired (baby
feeding teats, medical tubing, etc.) it can be as low as 1 phr.
Just because the terms ‘conventional’ and ‘efficient’ are used
these should not be equated with ‘old’ and ‘new’ (better). The
different systems give different properties to the vulcanisates at
the same level of crosslinks (crosslink density) and the system
chosen will depend on the anticipated use of the product, bearing
in mind the changes which might occur during its service life.
Various properties can also be adjusted by altering the number of
crosslinks inserted into the vulcanisate during manufacture, all
other factors being constant. For instance, stiffness and hardness
will increase with increased crosslink density, as will resilience.
Resistance to abrasion will also increase, but so will the likelihood
of fatigue cracking. Properties such as the extent of elongation
before the product breaks, heat build-up during work, swelling in
solvents, creep, and set will all decrease.
If the cure system chosen gives an increase in average sulphur
chain length, that is, as one moves from an EV system to a con-
ventional one, then creep and set will increase, as will the prod-
uct’s resistance to tearing and its resilience, but its heat and
thermal ageing, together with its fatigue resistance, will all fall for
the service-ageing reasons discussed earlier.
By now the subtle complexity of the chemical vulcanising
components of a particular rubber vulcanisate will be appreciated.
It requires a detailed knowledge of many features of the service
life and design expectations of each product to select the optimum
combination of chemicals.
Many rubber vulcanising systems which have used chemicals
other than sulphur have been investigated over the last 150 years,
but very few exist commercially today and here we tend to move
from the word ‘vulcanisation’ to ‘cure’. The use of sulphur
chloride (the Parkes process of 1846) is described as the sulphur
chloride cold-cure process, whilst processes such as those which
occur in the ubiquitous cycle-repair patch tend also to be desig-
nated ‘cold cure’. We also have peroxide- and radiation-cured
(rather than vulcanised) rubbers. To add a further layer of
complication, the chemicals which may be added to a rubber mix
to effect vulcanisation, including the accelerators, are collectively
called curatives, and the remains of these chemicals after vulca-
nisation are called cure residues.
It should be remembered that early stories of the preparation of
‘dry’ rubber from latex in South America involved the smoking
over open fires of layers of rubber built up on ‘paddles’ and,
indeed, smoking sheets of coagulated and semi-dried natural
rubber in smokehouses (see Fig. 11.2) is still practised today in
the Far East. This process was familiar to the British as it mirrored
that used to smoke or ‘cure’ fish. Inevitably, therefore, the
smoking process for rubber also became known as curing and for
some time the two quite different meanings were used with much
confusion. Eventually, it became accepted that ‘curing’ only
referred to the reaction with sulphur and the other process was
called ‘smoking’.
In the previous chapter it was noted that in 1920 Peter
Schidrowitz discovered that natural rubber latex could be
vulcanised over a period of several hours (or days) by the addition
of the usual ingredients—sulphur, zinc oxide, and an
accelerator—to latex, either as it came from the field after sta-
bilisation or after concentrating it to remove about half its water
content, the precise timescale being dependent on the latex
temperature. Visually, the vulcanised latex appeared indistin-
guishable from the untreated material, but when it was coagulated
and dried it was found to behave as if it was vulcanised. The
Fig. 11.2 Sheets of natural rubber after smoking in a smokehouse.
procedure of treating the latex in this way is called pre-

vulcanisation, and the further short heating period after coagu-
lation is called post-vulcanisation. The chemistry of this process
was finally understood in the 1990s, again following work at
TARRC in the UK. It was shown using transmission electron
microscopy that initially there was crosslinking between the
elastomer chains within each particle of latex which, as the par-
ticles were widely separated, did not affect the individual identity
of each. However, when the latex was dried to a film, which
brought the individual latex particles into intimate contact, loose
ends of the polymer chains which ‘waved free’ from the particle
acted like VelcroTM to hold the particles together. Slowly at room
temperature, or more rapidly at elevated ones, the vulcanisation
chemistry described earlier continued with S–S bonds in the
polysulphidic crosslinks breaking and reforming. Some of the
reformed bonds were inevitably between the entangled polymer
ends of different particles and the whole product then became
chemically ‘fused’ together.
There are two particular advantages of vulcanised latex over
vulcanised ‘dry’ rubber. Firstly, the latex tends to be very much
stronger and elastic as the polymer chains have not been degraded
by the mechanical work needed to incorporate curatives into the
dry material; and secondly, since both pre- and post-vulcanisation
take place at relatively low temperatures (the latter generally
below 130 C), it is possible to incorporate colouring chemicals
which would not survive the high temperatures used for cost-
effective conventional vulcanisation (typically 160 C to 200 C).
The mixing or blending of two or more elastomers together
during the manufacture of a rubber product is considered in the
next chapter. However, here it should be noted that, whereas
some blends can be considered almost completely compatible
and, within specific performance limits, interchangeable (for
instance, natural rubber, polybutadiene, and styrene butadiene),
there are cases when synthetic rubbers such as nitrile, poly-
chloroprene, and ethylene propylene rubber are blended with
natural rubber to improve particular properties, such as oil res-
istance or longevity. These elastomers are naturally incompatible
with natural rubber. The important practical result of this
incompatibility is that the properties of the finished product are
not those one would expect from a simple mathematical extra-
polation of the individual ones and, indeed, are usually sig-
nificantly inferior. It was long suspected that this was due to an
uneven distribution of crosslinks between the elastomers of the
blend, owing to the preferential solubility of the vulcanising
ingredients in one or other of the elastomers. Until recently there
was no means by which this could be measured as physical testing
methods would always give a ‘composite’ value. In the 1980s a
technique was developed which used nuclear magnetic resonance
spectroscopy to measure the individual contributions from the
crosslink densities of each elastomer, and the results confirmed
earlier suspicions. Thus, with a blend of natural and nitrile
rubbers, it was found that the crosslinks were virtually all in the
nitrile rubber due to the greater solubility of the vulcanising
agents in this more polar material, whilst the natural rubber
was essentially uncrosslinked. This was later confirmed using
a microscopical technique originally developed by Shiibashi
in 1987 in which the vulcanised rubber blend is swollen in styr-
ene, which is then polymerised to ‘lock’ the elastomer blend in its
swollen state. Sectioning, staining, and examination using a
transmission electron microscope (TEM) enables the effect to be
‘visualised’.
200 nm
Fig. 11.3 A vulcanised blend of natural rubber and nitrile rubber.

(a)
2 ␮m
(b)
2 ␮m
Fig. 11.4 (a) A two-phase polymer system with weak bonding (white
areas) between the phases. (b) A three-phase polymer system where
the third polymer (thin black line around the white areas) acts as a
‘compatibiliser’ between the other two phases.
In the micrograph shown in Fig. 11.3 the natural rubber phase
is the lighter, more open, mesh whilst the nitrile rubber is the
darker, tighter, mesh. Indeed, the mesh structure in the latter is
difficult to see because it is so compact. The lower the crosslink
density the more the elastomer will swell, so the natural rubber is
lightly crosslinked and the nitrile is heavily crosslinked.
The ability to observe and quantify these effects enabled altern-
ative vulcanising agents, or mixtures with varying polarities, to be
investigated and a more equal distribution of crosslinks obtained.
This inevitably led to an improvement in the properties of the
blends.
Further valuable information could be obtained from this
technique. In the micrograph shown in Fig. 11.4(a), obtained by
the same swelling technique as that described above, an ‘S’-shaped
white edge can be seen between the two elastomer phases. This is
caused by the two phases tearing apart and would account for
the premature failure of the product. In Fig. 11.4(b) a faint black
line can be seen around the discrete phase particles; this is a third
elastomer which is reasonably compatible with both the others
and was added to act as a compatibiliser or ‘glue’, holding the
phases together.
12
Padding or Performance
Enhancer?
With the exception of dipped goods, it is usual for most

commercial rubber products to contain appreciable levels of
two other types of materials, namely fillers and plasticisers or
extending oils. The former are generally inorganic, although
carbon black is the obvious exception to the rule! In the absence of
black, the fillers can be further separated into neutral or brightly
coloured. Some idea of the range of materials used at the turn
of the twentieth century is given by the advertisement shown in
Fig. 12.1, which appeared in 1909.
Inorganic powders have been used to dust rubber surfaces, and
so reduce their stickiness, since the first Mesoamericans used
rubber to fabricate balls and, no doubt, many other articles.
Initially, they would just have used dried powdered earth, and
little changed until the nineteenth century when Thomas Hancock
began to study the effect of a range of inorganic chemicals on
rubber surfaces. However, it was not until he invented his mas-
ticator and Edwin Chaffee developed his mixing mill that it
became relatively easy to intimately disperse virtually any powder
in a rubber matrix. Before that it had required dissolution of the
rubber, incorporation of the additive, and then removal of the
solvent, a process known to give a relatively poor-quality product.
Padding or Performance Enhancer? 221
Fig. 12.1 An advertisement for rubber fillers which appeared in the

early twentieth century.
Charles Goodyear did not become interested in rubber until after
the inventions of Hancock and Chaffee, but he again initially
investigated surface treatments before turning to bulk fillers in an
attempt to stop the stickiness of the rubber.
Hancock’s patent for vulcanising rubber has already been
mentioned and the point made that the title contains no specific
reference to this process. In fact, the long patent, running to over
three thousand words, is at least in half concerned with the
incorporation of magnesium silicate (talc) and other inorganic
fillers, as well as powdered asphalte, into rubber. The final summary
is concise; he claims:
Firstly the combination of caoutchouc with silicate of magnesia,
whereby manufactured caoutchouc is rendered free from that
clammy and adhesive character which it usually possesses.
Secondly I claim the modes herein described of combining
asphalte with caoutchouc; and,
Thirdly I claim the treating of caoutchouc (either alone or in
combination with other substances) with sulphur when acted on
by heat, and thus changing the character of the caoutchouc as herein
described.
In Goodyear’s book of 1855 he mentions using magnesia, lime,
and white lead, as well as various colourants such as chrome salts.
With the discovery of vulcanisation, and the realisation that
rubber products could actually have a reasonable life expectation,
the demand for them began to grow. With the raw material being
in short supply and therefore expensive, anything which could be
done to ‘bulk it out’ with cheaper materials and which did not
detract too much from its expected properties was welcomed by
the manufacturers. Since vulcanisation removed the problems
related to the sticky rubber, there was no longer any need to add
fillers to prevent this, but it was still not appreciated that certain
fillers could actually improve the properties of a vulcanisate.
Hancock maintained that pure rubber goods were always the best,
although with some contradiction he advocated the incorporation
of (not the coating with) linseed oil or stearine to improve surface
finish. As late as 1882 Hoffer was describing how fillers could be
used only for cheapening, as colourants, or to make abrasives by
the addition of sand or emery powder.
It was left to Heinzerling and Pahl, in 1891, to carry out
a classic experiment in which they prepared a range of vulcani-
sates containing most of the common fillers in use at that time
and compared their properties. They were able to reach certain
conclusions which had a degree of validity, but, with the absence
of any test data on crosslink density, they missed a crucial fact. A
number of the fillers used had an effect on the vulcanisation
process, some accelerating it and others retarding it. Since they
used identical vulcanising conditions, they were not comparing
test pieces with identical crosslink densities. However, they
certainly had a valid claim when they reported that zinc or
magnesium oxide ‘strengthened’ the vulcanisate more than a filler
such as silica. It also became obvious that the quality of the fillers
was sometimes suspect and that certain impurities such as copper,
manganese, nickel, chromium, and cobalt salts could have a very
deleterious effect on the longevity of a vulcanised product.
By the 1920s most of the fillers in use today—talc, chalks, clays,
and barytes—had been evaluated and adopted by the industry,
although one relatively modern material, titanium dioxide, only
started to be commonly available in the early 1950s. This white
powder had, and continues to have, two significant advantages
over filler levels of zinc oxide, although not replacing it as a
vulcanisation activator. It has a much higher tinting strength, i.e. it
is a ‘brighter’ white pigment, and it lacks any toxic properties.
With the advent of the motor car came demands for a tyre
which would last more than a few months. This required a
‘strengthening’ or reinforcing of the rubber way beyond that
which then could be obtained by the use of the various inorganic
fillers. Carbon black was about to come into its own.
Carbon black had, of course, been known for centuries and
was used by the Chinese and Egyptians to make inks and eye
make-up. They burned resins, fats, and oils under inverted
pottery cones and collected the soot which became deposited on
the pottery surface. Today this soot is called ‘lampblack’. Not
surprisingly, ink-making was its primary use when large-scale
production started in the US, with natural gas, associated with
petroleum deposits, being the source raw material. Both
Goodyear and Hancock had used this as a colourant and at filler
levels without noticing its reinforcing or strengthening proper-
ties, although it is fair to comment that the reinforcing effect of
lampblack is minimal when compared with types or grades of
black which were developed later. A variation on the lampblack
process, manufacturing what became known as ‘channel black’,
was invented by McNutt in 1892, also in the USA, and this found
its market in the ink and printing-ink business, as well as in the
rubber industry.
It has already been mentioned that in 1895 the first motor
vehicle specifically designed to run on pneumatic tyres took part
in the Paris to Bordeaux (and back) race. In spite of accumulating
twenty-two punctures, it finished a creditable ninth from a field of
forty-two. The era of air-filled tyres had dawned and by the end of
that century most of the western tyre manufacturers who are
household names today were manufacturing pneumatic tyres:
Dunlop in 1889, Michelin in 1895, Goodrich in 1896, Goodyear
in 1898, and Firestone in 1900. In 1887 Moseley patented
‘Flexifort’, a tyre cord with 98% warp and 2% weft, which
eliminated the problems of abrasive degradation associated with
conventional fabric-reinforced tyres. This was immediately
adopted by Dunlop for its tyres, but the standard warp:weft fabric
continued to be used by many manufacturers through to the end
of the First World War.
In 1904 S. C. Moke, working at the India Rubber, Gutta
Percha and Telegraph Works at Silvertown, showed how carbon
black could be used to give a remarkable increase in the mech-
anical strength of a rubber vulcanisate. However, it was a number
of years before this was adopted by the tyre industry in general,
probably only when tread wear took over from tyre-fabric wear as
the major cause of short tyre lives.
In 1916 Brownlee and Uhlinger introduced a new process
whereby the gas was injected directly into very hot ovens, and
they found that by changing conditions a wide range of particle
sizes could be obtained. These were called ‘thermal blacks’ and
this type included the largest of all the black particles. A third
process was developed in 1922 by the Colombian Carbon
Company which again burnt gas but in a furnace, giving rise to
their designation as ‘furnace blacks’; the combustion of acet-
ylene was found to give yet another type, ‘acetylene black’,
which found a use in the manufacture of electrically-conductive
rubber.
In 1923 Frank and Marckwald prepared vulcanisates which
were identical in all respects except that one contained
German lampblack and the other contained American oil black.
They found that their physical properties were significantly
different, with the former giving a more elastic product and
the latter a much tougher material. It was realised that carbon
blacks produced by different routes and from different starting
materials gave a range of products that differed not only in
particle size but also in structure and purity. By varying the
type of black used in an otherwise consistent mix, it was
possible to impart a wide range of different physical properties
to a rubber product, and today blacks are available in many
grades, the correct choice of which is of crucial importance to
the performance of the finished product.
Of these blacks, all but channel black are still manufactured,
although furnace black, now manufactured by the oil furnace
process, is by far the most important, probably accounting for
over 95% of the world’s production. Of this, some 70% is cur-
rently used in the production of tyres and other automotive
products, whilst around 20% goes into rubber products such as
hose, belting, and engineering applications. A few of the basic
types of black are listed below, but within each of these, several
subtly different grades of blacks are available.
Black type Particle Raw material

size (nm)
Channel black 10–30 Natural gas
Acetylene black 35–70 Acetylene
Super-abrasion furnace black 10–19 Natural gas or oil
High-abrasion furnace black 26–30 Natural gas or oil
Fast-extruding furnace black 40–48 Natural gas or oil
General-purpose furnace black 49–60 Natural gas or oil
Thermal black 150–500 Natural gas
The divisions above are made according to particle size, but this
is idealistic since, although the individual particles approximate to
spheres in shape, they are rarely seen individually as they fuse
together in chains or clusters, referred to as aggregates. These in
turn tend to cluster together in agglomerates, which are believed
to break up on mixing with rubber. Aggregates, on the other
hand, may occasionally fracture, but in essence represent the units
of carbon found within a vulcanisate. The type of aggregate
indicates the structure of the black, which may be considered to
500 nm
Fig. 12.2 A representative virgin carbon black as seen using a trans-

mission electron miscroscope.
reflect the ratio of the surface area exposed to the rubber

molecules to that hidden from the rubber inside pores or channels
too small for the rubber molecules to penetrate; the higher the
structure, the greater the number of particles per aggregate.
There are thus four parameters which affect the way in which
the black modifies the performance of a vulcanisate: the basic
particle spherical size, the structure, related to the shape and size
of the aggregate, the absolute surface area, and the area actually
available for rubber–black interaction. The black manufacturer
must control his processes precisely and, as has been said pre-
viously, the manufacturer of the rubber product must know
exactly what its service life is going to require before he can
decide which type and grade of black to use.
Although it has been said that fillers were originally added to
‘bulk out’ a formulation, no mention has been made of what level
constitutes a ‘filler’. Small additions make no real contribution to
quality or cost, although they may on occasion be used to fine-tune
the properties of a vulcanisate so that it meets some specification.
Inorganic fillers were, and still are, added at levels typically
between 25 phr and 150 phr, although in certain applications, such
as rubberised carpet backings where the elastic properties are
utilised to a minimum, levels of up to 600 phr have been seen.
Goodyear mixed magnesium oxide with rubber to such an extent
that he was able to make buttons and knife handles from the stiff-
ened product. Titanium dioxide has been mentioned as a filler, but
it is expensive and when white goods are required it is commonly
used at relatively low levels, perhaps 5–10 phr, as a ‘brightener’ in
conjunction with another ‘bulk’ filler such as chalk or talc.
Carbon black can be used just as a colourant at levels of 1% or
so, but for reinforcing purposes it normally falls in the same range
as the inorganics, namely 25–150 phr. As the black loading of the
rubber increases, so does the stiffness of the final vulcanisate. To
counteract this effect, oil can be added, thus reducing the rubber
content even further. A ‘play-off’ of black and oil loadings can be
used to manipulate the performance and durability of a particular
product. Perhaps the most simplistic example of this would be to
compare the life expectancy of a Formula one racing-car tyre with
that of an average family runabout (although that is only a fraction
of the story). Historically, the oil used in the rubber industry was
known as an extending oil, whilst the oil used in the plastics
industry was called a plasticiser. Nowadays, particularly since the
advent of polar rubbers such as polychloroprene and the nitriles,
the distinction has become blurred. However, it is crucially
important that the correct type of oil is used for each elastomer in
order to achieve the desired effect.
Given the propensity of rubber product manufacturers to add
almost anything available to the basic rubber mix in the hope of
producing some particular advantage, it is not surprising that as
soon as synthetic elastomers became available they too were
mixed with natural rubber to give a blend of elastomers, and
today the elastomeric component of many products is such a
blend. Modern tyres are extremely complex in that different
elastomers or elastomer blends are used in different parts of the
tyre—the tread, sidewall, liner, bead, etc.—and the tread is
often a two-or three-elastomer blend of natural rubber, styrene
butadiene rubber, and butadiene rubber in almost any ratio one
cares to choose. Overall, some 70% of the world’s production of
polybutadiene goes into treads and sidewalls, about the same
proportion as for natural rubber. The advantages of polybutadiene
rubber are good abrasion resistance, which leads to low tread
wear, and a low rolling resistance, which means good fuel
economy. However, it also has relatively poor wet traction
properties. Different manufacturers and consumers have dif-
ferent priorities and these dictate the blend ratios with natural
rubber or styrene butadiene which are available throughout the
world.
The problems of preferential migration of cure chemicals into
one phase of an elastomer blend have been highlighted as one
cause of unexpectedly poor physical properties in these blends,
but there is another factor and that is the compatibility and
morphology, or form, of the blend.
Two examples are illustrated in Fig. 12.3. In Fig. 12.3(a) there
is an example of a blend of two elastomers where the two phases
are described as co-continuous. The sample has been treated to
remove one component and the remaining component has the
appearance of a sponge. Essentially the same effect would be seen
had the other elastomeric component been removed. The
micrograph in Fig. 12.3(b) was taken at a lower magnification and
using a different technique to identify the phases. Nevertheless, it
(a)
2 µm
(b)
20 µm
Fig. 12.3 A Micrograph of (a) a two-elastomer co-continuous blend,

and (b) a two-elastomer blend showing one discrete (dark) phase and
one continuous (light) phase.
is clear that there is one pale elastomer matrix, with the second
elastomer existing as discrete units within the matrix.
Moving from the blending of different elastomers to the
blending of an elastomer with a non-elastic polymer (a plastic)
seemed an obvious next step, and this resulted in a new class of
materials, the thermoplastic elastomer. These perform as one
would expect from a vulcanised elastomer at ambient or near-
ambient temperatures, but, unlike a vulcanisate, they can be
remoulded when heated above the melting temperature of the
plastic. Such a material was first made by Thomas Hancock in
1848 when he mixed natural rubber with gutta-percha, a
naturally-occurring polymeric substance with the same chemical
formula as natural rubber but with the atoms in a different spatial
arrangement, but it seemed to have no commercial use and the
concept lay dormant for over one hundred years until the advent
of modern synthetic plastics.
The rebirth began in the 1960s in the plastics, rather than
the rubber, industry when low levels of elastomers such as
polyisobutylene, butyl rubber, and ethylene propylene rubber
(EPDM) were blended with the plastic polypropylene (PP) to
overcome the low-temperature brittleness of the latter. These
were called ‘impact-modified plastics’. Soon the whole ratio range
was investigated and at the other end of the scale polypropylene-
modified EPDM was patented in the early 1970s. The use of
natural rubber in similar blends also began in the 1970s and
this type of thermoplastic elastomer is available commercially
today. It is not surprising that these and similar materials are
making considerable inroads into certain areas which were pre-
viously the prerogative of the vulcanised material as they offer
considerable advantages in recycling and waste management,
not least the absence of sulphur. The main limitation is their
restricted operating temperature range which, for practical
purposes, cannot be considered to be much above ‘hot’
ambient.
Chemically-modified natural rubber has also been blended with
polypropylene to provide an oil-resistant thermoplastic elasto-
mer, whilst a material in which the natural rubber phase is
vulcanised during the blending process gives a ‘hybrid’ material
with improved properties, but which is still able to be ground and
reprocessed.
There are other types of thermoplastic elastomers available
commercially where the polymer chain itself is synthesised to
have elastic and plastic regions, but these obviously do not involve
the natural material and are thus outside the scope of this book.
There is one other chemical which may be added to rubber,
natural or synthetic, at relatively high levels but which is neither a
filler nor a plasticiser, and that is sulphur. The levels used to
vulcanise rubber have been considered in some detail and rarely
rise above 3 phr; but when it is added at considerably higher
levels, typically 25–50 phr, a quite different material is produced,
and that is ebonite. This hard material is known by a number of
names including vulcanite, preferred by collectors, and hard
rubber, preferred in the US.
Its origins are obscure. Various eighteenth-century scientists
prepared hardened rubber, but it seems likely that these were
mostly the heavily-oxidised material. The first record of rubber
possibly reacting with a sulphur-containing chemical was made by
Roxburgh in 1801, who obtained a white inelastic material when
he passed chlorine into a solution of rubber in carbon disulphide
and then poured the solution into water, but there is no analytical
data to show that this was ebonite. In 1831 Leuchs added rubber
to molten rubber and got a violent reaction, resulting in a coal-
like hard mass which might just have been ebonite, but he did not
pursue the chemistry further.
Nathaniel Hayward introduced Charles Goodyear to sulphur
when he showed that dusting rubber with sulphur and exposing it
to sunlight (the ‘solarisation’ process) gave it a hard skin, and this
could well have been an ebonite skin. In fact, Ludersdorff had
done exactly the same thing some years previously, but not in
Goodyear’s presence.
The first authentic samples of ebonite were prepared by
Thomas Hancock some time prior to 1843, and the details are
given in his ‘vulcanisation’ patent, BP9952. If the rubber was
heated in molten sulphur at 310–320F for a period of over two
hours it ‘turns nearly black and has something the appearance of
horn and may be pared with a knife similar to that substance.’
By 1846 he had obtained the first patent for its use, and that
was for making moulds for the vulcanisation of ordinary ‘soft’
rubber vulcanisates.
In the US Charles Goodyear and his brother, Nelson, were
heavily into ebonite, although the first US patent was only granted
to Nelson in 1851. In the same year he took out British patent
13542 for the manufacture of ebonite by mixing rubber, 50 phr
sulphur, and 50 phr mineral filler, and then heating for between
two and six hours at temperatures of around 270 F. In the patent
he listed applications such as buttons, door knobs, and inkstands.
Between 1851 and 1855 Charles Goodyear took out a further
nineteen patents for ebonite, listing its application in the manu-
facture of a wide range of products.
The Great Exhibition of 1851 in London and the Exposition
Universelle of 1855 in Paris have previously been referred to, and
in both of them Goodyear displayed his range of ebonite articles in
a suite of rooms constructed of and furnished with ebonite or
ebonite-veneered wood. He even had a special edition of his book
Gum elastic printed on rubber pages and bound between elab-
orately carved ebonite covers, and in it he listed over one hundred
different articles which he had already made from the material.
He also called it caoutchouc whalebone and caoutchouc ivory. His
description of his ebonites was as follows:
The hardest of these compounds resembles marble; that which is
less hard, ivory and buck-horn; that is still softer, buffalo-horn
and whalebone; while they possess, in general, more durable
properties than any of the substances above named, except
marble, and they are even more substantial than that, in some
respects; because, in all degrees of hardness, they have a great
degree of toughness or tenacity, and the property of retaining the
shape into which they have been moulded and heated.
Hancock was less passionate about ebonite, but still appre-
ciated it and manufactured a wide range of products from it.
The hard vulcanised rubber has been applied to many useful
purposes to which this patent has contributed. Combs, knife and
other handles, ornamental panels for carriages and furniture,
stop-cocks, tubing, pump-barrels, pistons and valves for use in
chemical works, &c. &c., –these are capable of being turned in
the lathe, and to have screws cut on them in the same manner as is
practised with wood, ivory or metal. I have also had some flutes
made of it, the colour is a jet black, and it polishes like ebony; the
notes or sounds are equal to the best flutes, whilst they are said to
be produced with greater ease by the performer. I furnished the
material to the flute maker without instruction, and he made it in
his ordinary practice. . . . We have supplied it by the ton for the
use of comb-makers, who like it, not only because it makes a good
saleable article, but because they can have it in large sheets of the
thickness they require, and make much less waste than when using
such small pieces as are produced in horn, tortoise-shell, &c. The
turner, the engraver, the comb-maker, and most other artists and
mechanics, have only to apply their ordinary means, tools, and
skill as to wood, ivory, metal, and other substances. It is also a
fair substitute for whalebone and walking-sticks, and also more
delicate articles, as bracelets, gold and silver mountings, pens,
and penholders, picture-frames; and one may go from these to the
contrary extreme, and if it were economical, or in any way
advantageous to do so, it would make good houses, ships,
wagons, and carts, and almost everything where wood is now
employed, which I only mention to show the universality of its
application, and in general, by the ordinary means practised in the
different departments of Art.
Due to its ease of fabrication and its usefulness in a

pre-synthetic-plastics age, demand was high. In the UK Chas.
Macintosh and Co. had already manufactured articles for the 1851
Exhibition and continued to do so. The India Rubber, Gutta
Percha and Telegraph Works moved into this field in 1860, and in
1861 the Scottish Vulcanite Company became the first British
company to be formed solely for the purpose of manufacturing
ebonite articles. In the US there was similar activity, with several
firms making ebonite products in the early 1850s. One of these
was Poppenhusen and Koenig, which was formed in 1852 after
Conrad Poppenhusen split with his long-term partner, Adolph
Meyer, with whom he had been manufacturing combs and corset
stays from a diminishing supply of whalebone. Soon after, Mayer
returned to his native Hamburg to found Harburger-Gummi-
Kamm-Co in 1856, which manufactured ebonite combs.
Apart from ‘domestic’ uses, ebonite was in great demand from
industry as an inert and electrically-insulating material. Ebonite
pumps had been manufactured in the 1860s, but by 1900 it was
almost possible to construct a complete chemical manufacturing
plant from ebonite. It was also used in telegraph equipment and
later radio equipment, as well as the ubiquitous car battery case
which survived virtually until modern times.
With the advent of synthetic rubbers coupled with the shortage
of the natural material, it was inevitable that synthetic ebonites
should be made, and the first of these was made from methyl
(a) (e)
(b) (f)
(c) (g)
(d)
Fig. 12.4 Ebonite articles: (a) a jumble of necklace chains, (b) pen-
dants, (c) buttons and brooches, (d) detail of one brooch (top right
in (c)), (e) fountain pens, (f ) flute, (g) pipe bowl, (h) revolver hand
grips, (i) brooch, (j) Queen Victoria Jubilee medal, (k) ornamental
comb, (l) combs, (m) medicine holders, and (n) cigarette lighter.
(h) (l)
(i)
(m)
(j)
(n)
(k)

rubber during the First World War when the Germans used it to
make accumulator cases. By the end of the Second World War it
was estimated that 90% of American ebonite was synthetic, whilst
the British figure was nearer 60%.
Some idea of the ‘domestic’ product range is shown in
Fig. 12.4.
13
The Rot sets in
The discovery of vulcanisation in the middle of the nineteenth

century was believed to be rubber’s Holy Grail and, whilst in part
this was true, it gave rise to other problems which had to be
resolved. Now that vulcanised rubber products could be manu-
factured, it was more obvious than ever that there still remained
forces at work which rendered them useless after a relatively short
period of time. Hancock, in his classic book on rubber techno-
logy, published in 1857, repeated the observation which he had
first made in about 1826: ‘The injurious effects of the sun’s rays
upon thin films of rubber we discovered and provided against
before much damage accrued.’ He had obviously realised at a very
early stage in his ‘rubber career’ that sunlight induced degradation
of rubber, but in spite of his assertion it was certainly not ‘pro-
vided against’. What Hancock did not realise was that light-
catalysed degradation was oxidation and it was left to Spiller, in
1865, to show that degraded rubber had, in fact, been oxidised.
The song in Fig. 13.2 found in a magazine from the 1860s, but
without any suggestion as to how old it might be, certainly
indicates that there was complete awareness in the trade of the
problems with proofed cloth.
The story of the understanding of rubber degradation and the
ways of limiting it, albeit only to a certain extent, is very much
one of the twentieth century. In 1895 Henriques discovered that,
Fig. 13.1 Examples of degraded rubber fabric.
if a piece of natural rubber was extracted with acetone and then

vulcanised, then it showed a much greater tendency to oxidise
than did the rubber if it had not been extracted. Conversely, in
1931 Dufraisse and Drisch showed that, if the extract from a
sample of natural rubber was recombined with a previously
extracted rubber, then much of the protection returned. Their
conclusion was that there must be some naturally-occurring
chemical present in the ‘raw’ rubber which acted as an anti-
oxidant. At the turn of the twentieth century it was discovered
that amines and amine-based materials offered considerable
protection against oxidative degradation, but it took until about
1930 for purpose-designed amine-based antioxidants and anti-
ozonants to become commercially available. However, these
materials had one considerable handicap; although they were pale
straw in colour when first synthesised, they soon oxidised to
various shades of blue, purple, and black. Whilst this might not be
too important in a black vulcanisate such as a car tyre or an
The Rot sets in 241
The Proofer’s Song
Sung to the tune: ‘the Vicar of Bray’
1 3
When cloth was proofed with Whene’er my risky proof gives way,
pure Para, I rise in righteous wrath, sir,
There then was little danger, And hold, ‘gainst what the weavers say,
And very little chance for a The fault is in the ‘Cloth,’ sir;
Big debit ‘gainst a stranger. And when my strongest argument
But now and then a faulty mix But very weakly halts, sir,
Would happen midst our toil, Another reason I invent,
sir, So every time, when in a fix, And blame ‘the ‘Copper Salts,’ sir.
I blamed it on the ‘Oil,’ sir. Chorus:
Chorus:
This view so strong I’ll hold in 4
song, Until my dying day, sir, Should fuller knowledge prove too
That whensoe’er the proofing’s strong
wrong Somebody else may pay, sir. For this, my just contention,
I’ll never own the proofing’s wrong,
2 But trust to my invention’
When rubber substitute was made For when engaged in a dispute,
To help adulteration, Perhaps you may not know, sir,
I ne’er by word or glance betrayed I change my argument to suit
‘Oil’ caused deterioration. Whichever wind may blow, sir.
My mix became infallible Final Chorus:
As any Pope of Rome, sir, That this is right I’ll strive and fight,
And if it did prove variable Until my dying day, sir,
I swore ‘twas caused by And sing my song, though proof
‘Chrome,’ sir. goes wrong,
Chorus: The proofer should not pay, sir.
Fig. 13.2 ‘The Proofer’s Song’.
industrial bearing, it was certainly of little use in the many light-

coloured products, such as rubber thread or strip, coming to the
market at that time for use in the clothing industry.
Today paraphenylenediamines (PPDs) are regularly used and
function as both antiozonants and antioxidants. As antiozonants
they operate by reacting more readily than the rubber double
bonds with any ozone present at the surface of the article. In so
doing they build up a protective film which, as it thickens by
migration and further reaction of the migrated antiozonant,
eventually provides an impermeable barrier to the gas. Any
damage to the skin, such as cracking, is repaired by further
migration. As well as discolouring the product, and since part of
the mechanism by which these antidegradants operate is by
migrating to the product surface, they could then further migrate
into any material in contact with the protected rubber and then
oxidise in their new environment, producing a dark stain. There
are many different paraphenylenediamines and one of the main
reasons for a manufacturer to select a particular one for a specific
product is its solubility and rate of migration in the polymer
system being protected. Since this is so obviously a crucial factor
in the long-term protection of a product, it is not unusual for
several such materials to be added and so give a broad spectrum or
extended lifetime of protection. However, because they so readily
stain, their use must obviously be selective.
It took a further generation (the late 1940s/early 1950s) for
the ‘non-staining’ phenolic antioxidants to be developed and
brought to the market, even though Murphy had patented the use
of phenol and cresol as antioxidants as early as 1870. Everything is
relative, and it was soon realised that, whilst these antioxidants
were certainly ‘non-staining’ compared with many of the amine-
based materials, it was not true to say that they would remain
colourless, or that they might not discolour materials in contact
with them. Indeed, some gave very pronounced yellowing to
fabric in contact with them. Phenolic antidegradants are not
considered antiozonants, only antioxidants. When oxygen attacks
a rubber molecule various sequential and competing chemical
reactions occur which may result in polymer chain breakage
and/or the insertion of further crosslinks. The phenols offer an
alternative path in the chain reaction sequence which stops it
The Rot sets in 243
progressing. It is essential to realise that they do not stop the
initiation step, so their effect is, at best, to slow down the
oxidative breakdown, perhaps by up to five times. They do not
form a protective ‘skin’ if oxidised on the rubber surface; indeed,
because of their mode of operation they need to be intimately
dispersed or dissolved in the rubber to function. However,
conventional diffusion theory predicts that, if two materials are in
contact with one another and one contains a dissolved substance
not present in the second, then that substance will migrate from
one to the other, and it is often the case that light-coloured rubber
vulcanisates are in contact with fabrics.
The discolouration of ‘white’ vulcanisates may sometimes be
related to poor-quality or inappropriate grades of white filler or
brightener (although this hardly ever results in the staining of
contact fabrics). A common source of organic discolouration or
staining is the reaction between dithiocarbamate cure residues
and trace amounts of copper, or to a lesser extent iron. There are,
however, certain cases where some yellowing has been traced to
phenolic antioxidants. This was initially put down to impurities in
the chemicals, but it soon became apparent that it was oxidative
degradation of the antioxidant itself that was producing a derivative
which was coloured yellow. Obviously, staining could be due to
either migration of that yellow derivative or migration of the
unoxidised antioxidant followed by its oxidation to the coloured
product.
The yellowing effect was found to be stronger in urban or
industrial environments than rural ones, suggesting that the
extent of oxidation was being increased by the oxides of nitrogen,
which are nowadays major atmospheric pollutants, produced as
by-products of the high-temperature combustion of fuels by
motor vehicles, industrial boilers, etc. These oxides of nitrogen
(collectively known as NOXs) have the potential to cause
colouration by the introduction of a nitro group into the anti-
oxidant, or by oxidising it to a quinone. Both of these new groups
are known as chromophores, and the more chromophoric groups
a compound contains then the deeper its colour will be. Groups
such as the phenolic OH are called auxochromes and these will
deepen, although not cause, any colouration.
Unfortunately, these processes cannot be described without
recourse to chemical terms, but the following illustrations may
make them comprehensible. It was shown that four distinct
reactions were responsible for their discolouration and it is a sad
fact that none of this chemistry relates to the way in which a
phenolic antioxidant is supposed to function:
para-oxidation,
ortho-nitration,
para-nitration,
oxidation of the phenol group.
Furthermore, each molecule which is oxidised by one of these
mechanisms is one molecule which is lost to the protective system.
The yellowing reactions are therefore undesirable reactions which
should be prevented for good commercial and longevity reasons, as
well as preventing the discolouration of the product or material in
contact with it. A comparison of the structures of those anti-
oxidants which discoloured with those which did not showed
that oxidation or nitration of the para- position only occurred
when there was no meta- substitution, and here it is important to
remember that the yellow derivatives are not only the nitrated
phenols, which obviously require the presence of NOXs, but also
the quinones, which do not, these being simple oxidation products.
Of the antioxidants which did not discolour, all were either
para- substituted or, if they had no para- group, they were
meta- substituted, with the substituent groups being large enough
The Rot sets in 245
(a) (b) OH
(CH3)3C C(CH3)3
OH
ORTHO 6 2 ORTHO 2, 6 di-t. butylphenol (ethyl antioxidant 701)
5 3
META META
4 C(CH3)3 C(CH3)3
PARA
O O
OH
C(CH3)3 C(CH3)3 (CH3)3C C(CH3)3
4,4'-bis-(2,6-di-t. butyl cyclohexadiene-1-one)
NO2
2,6-di-t. butyl-4-nitrophenol
Fig. 13.3 (a) Substitution positions on a phenolic ring. This is the basic
phenolic group. At each point (2–6) there is a C–H group and the
substitution positions are named. (b) Possible atmospheric degradation
routes illustrated by formulae. A commercial phenolic antioxidant
(top) has alkyl groups at the ortho- positions which ‘block’ it from
further attack. The left-hand product shows two molecules oxidised
and joined together to give a quinone. The right-hand product has been
nitrated in the para- position.
to prevent the introduction of the relatively large nitro group into

the para- or 4-position, or preventing oxidation to the quinone.
Even if we have a well-protected vulcanisate there are many
ways in which it may degrade during its service life. The factors
which influence this life fall into two basic categories which can be
called ‘product characteristics’ and ‘ageing processes’. There is no
chance of retrospectively influencing the product characteristics
since these describe the product as it was made and precipitate
such questions as:
1. Which elastomer was used?
2. Is the product filled or not and, if so, is it black, coloured, or
white?
3. What is the vulcanising system?
4. What is the protective system?
5. Is it properly designed and manufactured or has it built-in
stresses?
6. What is its size and shape?
Once the product exists, the simple but informative illustra-
tion in Fig. 13.4 shows that there are a number of potential routes
by which damage can occur. Abrasion and external chemical
attack may be unavoidable during service life, but should not
occur on storage. Temperature, sunlight, and stresses can all
accelerate or initiate the chemical changes which are waiting to
happen.
These changes, collectively known as ‘ageing’, involve three
distinct and potentially co-synchronous mechanistic routes for
Mechanico- Ozone cracking

oxidative
fatigue O 3
2
Sunlight
Heat and Crosslink crazing
oxidation reversion
O2 SS
S O2
Abrasion
O2
Chemical attack
Compression set at high temperature
Fig. 13.4 Pictorial illustration of possible routes to rubber degradation—

the ‘imps’.
The Rot sets in 247
most (sulphur) vulcanisates. These can be described as:
1. continuing sulphur chemistry,
2. shelf ageing, and
3. atmospheric ageing.
Continuing sulphur chemistry has been described earlier and is
particularly important in vulcanised products which are resisting
a distorting force. This will include anything from a stretched
rubber band to a flat tyre. One of the features of vulcanisate
ageing is ‘set’, and this is caused by the polysulphidic bonds which
form the chemical crosslinks between polymer chains breaking
and the loose ends reattaching to either their original partner or
another loose end (crosslink reversion). If the vulcanisate is under
a distorting force, then, as the bond breaks, the elasticity of the
polymer chain causes it to relax against the force, so that the bond
will join with another loose sulphur chain end further down the
elastomer chain. The result is a slow ‘slippage’ of the vulcanisate
which cannot be reversed, although it can be minimised by the
appropriate choice of crosslinking agents.
Shelf ageing is basically oxidative degradation. The detailed
chemistry of oxidative degradation is, even now, not completely
resolved. However, in a simplistic form, the oxidation of
a sulphur-vulcanised polyolefin such as natural rubber proceeds
via at least one chain reaction sequence which introduces C–C
and C–O–O–C crosslinks between polymer chains as well as
C–O–O–C rings within the same polymer chain, and another set
of chain reactions between oxygen and the sulphur atoms of the
crosslinks or pendent groups. These two sequences of chain
reactions can result in both chain scission and the formation of
additional crosslinks. The reactions between sulphur and oxygen
can also, eventually, lead to the formation of sulphuric acid,
a particular problem with ebonites. There is therefore a large
range of both sequential and competing reactions, and the ones
which predominate will depend on factors such as the composi-
tion of the vulcanisate as well as the influences of heat, light, the
atmosphere, and metal catalysis.
In heat ageing we are balancing the rate of reaction of oxygen
with the elastomer against the rate of diffusion of the oxygen into
the bulk material. If the temperature is relatively low, it has been
postulated that for an unprotected vulcanisate diffusion pre-
dominates, and therefore there is slow oxidation throughout the
product. However, as the temperature rises, the rate of oxidation
increases much more than the rate of diffusion, so substantial
oxidation occurs on the surface and an oxidised (hard) surface skin
is formed. As oxidation continues the chain breakdown may
become more significant and the hard surface then softens and
turns sticky. To complicate matters further, under certain con-
ditions this order can be reversed and an initially sticky degraded
surface can harden with further oxidation.
The mechanism for light-catalysed oxidative degradation
requires the energy of ultraviolet (UV) light to be sufficient to
break a C–H bond and generate a radical species, which can then
react with oxygen to initiate the same chain reaction sequences
as those which occur in direct oxidation. Two types of protective
agents are available to combat this, namely the ultraviolet absorbers
(UVAs) and the hindered amine light stabilisers (HALS). The
UVAs competes with the olefinic double bonds for the available
energy and dissipate it harmlessly. It is important to remember that
the absorption of light follows Beer’s law, so even if one has a UVA
present it would give no real protection to a material less than
about 0.5 mm thick. The HALS operate by a different mechanism
which is still not completely resolved, but is believed to be a radical
trap. It thus operates throughout the UV-transparent sample and
the HALS are often used in conjunction with a UVA.
The Rot sets in 249
Light-catalysed oxidation can result in an inelastic skin which,
as it thickens, cracks in random directions and produces a pattern
known as ‘crazing’. In the early stages, in thin sheets, the effect
has been called ‘light stiffening’, whilst in highly-filled articles the
degradation can result in complete loss of the resinified elastomer
and one ends up with what has been described as a ‘chalking’
effect. This has given rise to comments about ‘blooming’ inorganic
fillers, which is mechanistically impossible. Due to the light-
absorbing properties of black-filled materials, this effect is not
normally seen in them. In many real-life vulcanisates of reasonable
bulk under ambient conditions, it seems that the ingress of oxygen
is limited and, apart from the surface few millimetres or so, the
bulk rubber remains in excellent condition over many decades.
Atmospheric ageing differs from shelf ageing in that it is
characterised by the attack of ozone on the rubber. It is essential
to be aware that this is not just another form of oxygen-induced
degradation as the mechanism is quite different. Simple bimole-
cular ozonolysis of the rubber olefinic double bond being followed
by immediate cleavage gives two carbonyl end groups. If the
rubber is under any sort of stress this will result in ‘atmospheric
cracking’, in which the cracks are perpendicular to the direction
of elongation. As early as 1931 it was shown that ‘ozone cracking’
was different from ‘light ageing’ and actually took place more
readily at night than during the day.
The effect of trace metal contaminants such as copper, chro-
mium, and iron in any of the compounding chemicals is inevitably
to accelerate the rate of degradation, although the change in rate
cannot be predicted as it depends on many factors, not least the
chemical state of the metal.
As long ago as 1931, Semon, Sloan, and Craig reviewed pro-
posals, published over the previous fifty years, to give protection
to objects made without added antidegradants by the topical
application of protective agents dissolved in a solvent. Under
their accelerated ageing tests some benefit was found, but the
protection was not long-term. Today, this may still be advocated,
using a solvent for the antidegradant which will swell the rubber
and thus facilitate diffusion into its bulk. This may not damage a
new vulcanisate, although why one should wish to treat it in this
way is not obvious, but, if the object is not vulcanised, or is
degraded so that the surface is structurally weak, then the rubber
will either dissolve, or swell to such an extent that the surface will
be severely damaged. Damage could also be done to the bulk
rubber vulcanisate, particularly since the solvent will be
extracting whatever it can from within the bulk rubber whilst the
antidegradant is diffusing in. If one really wishes to use this
method then a non-solvent for the rubber must be a better choice,
as this will still allow diffusion into the bulk rubber without
appreciably swelling and damaging the surface structure. It might
still, however, extract previously added materials from the article
to its subsequent detriment.
If the choice is not to diffuse protective chemicals into the
unprotected rubber then there is still the option of adding a
protective surface coating, and such a skin can be built up by
topical application, provided that the limitations to crack repair
and surface finish are appreciated. One barrier technique has been
well established for many years; this is the coating of the article
with an oil lacquer which is then vulcanised. A possible modern
equivalent procedure might be the use of a pre-vulcanised butyl
latex spray-coat, since butyl rubber is relatively impermeable
to air.
There is one particular area of degradation which needs a
separate discussion and that is the area of blooming, which, as a
visually obvious time-related event, is generally classified with
degradation, although it need not have any actual connection.
The Rot sets in 251
Everybody knows what they mean by the word bloom, occasion-
ally called ‘frosting’, but it is quite apparent from investigations
carried out over the last thirty years that these words include
a wide variety of very different effects. These can be divided
conveniently into:
1. true blooms,
2. modified blooms,
3. pseudo blooms, and
4. surface contamination.
It is also worth including here a consideration of stains and
discolourations, as these are sometimes confused with blooms.
The mechanism of true bloom formation is simple in broad
theoretical outline, but was only described by Nah and Thomas in
1980. The substance which blooms must have a limited but
appreciable solubility in the rubber, and must be present in excess
of that solubility. This excess will exist as discrete particles
throughout the mass of the rubber, either because it has never
dissolved or because, having dissolved at some higher temperat-
ure, it has crystallised-out on cooling. These discrete particles can
easily be seen in sections cut from pure gum rubber and examined
under the microscope. As the substance crystallises it will be
appreciated that micro regions of local strain will be set up in the
rubber which is displaced by the formation of the crystal. This
strain results in pressure on the crystal and its solubility is thereby
increased. At the exposed surface of the product, crystals of the
material can form without distortion of the rubber and the
solubility will be unaffected. This means that the solubility of
the substance will be slightly less at the surface, and there will
therefore be a concentration gradient of dissolved material which
will cause diffusion from the inside towards the surface. This will
persist until all the material crystallised in the bulk has dissolved
under the influence of pressure and diffused outwards. The
magnitude of the increased solubility due to pressure will, of
course, be minute, as also will the concentration gradient within
the rubber, but large forces are not necessary. Water will flow
down the gentlest of slopes!
Free residual cure sulphur is probably the most common
substance to give a true bloom, and in a vulcanised product such a
bloom is due to the product not being adequately vulcanised (see
Fig. 13.5). This, in itself, could result from a number of factors,
Fig. 13.5 Sulphur bloom seen under a microscope.

The Rot sets in 253
and the relationship between the time and temperature of cure
should be factors to be considered first of all. Indeed, it will be
recalled that it was a bloom of sulphur on one of Goodyear’s
vulcanisates which convinced Hancock to persevere with his
experiments using it to obtain vulcanised products. In spite of
this, it was not until 1950 that Galloway and Foxton described a
quick test for identifying a bloom of free sulphur.
Zinc dithiocarbamates are also known to give blooms, and of
the three common ones, the dimethyl-, diethyl-, and dibutyl-
dithiocarbamates, it is the middle one which shows the most rapid
and, over a period of time, the densest bloom. The order of
solubility is ZDMC<ZDEC<ZDBC. It is therefore concluded
that the soluble fraction of ZDMC is relatively low, resulting in a
low rate of migration, whilst ZDBC is sufficiently soluble for the
solubility limit to not normally be exceeded and thus for there to
be no bloom. It is unfortunate that ZDBC gives a slower rate of
cure than the methyl or ethyl homologues and therefore it is not
always practicable to use it.
Of the other commonly used accelerators, mercapto-
benzothiazole and zinc mercaptobenzimidazole have also been
observed to bloom.
Waxes have been added at low levels since the earliest days of
product formulation, often as process aids to improve the
smoothness of a rubber surface. However, many instances have
been recorded of protective waxes being the cause of complaints
about blooms. This suggests a lack of knowledge of the function of
wax which is added to protect against ozone, since the presence of
a surface layer or bloom of wax is the object of its addition and the
reason protection is afforded to the rubber. It must be noted,
however, that the extent of a wax bloom is not only a function of
its loading, but also of its melting point, and these two parameters
can be played off against each other for different applications.
Certain chemicals present within the matrix of a rubber vul-
canisate react, either by design or incidentally, with constituents
of the environment, and this results in a significantly different
mechanism of blooming. As has already been described, typical
examples are the paraphenylenediamine (PPD) antiozonants,
which protect the rubber by reacting with ozone to form an
insoluble protective skin on the surface. More PPD migrates to
the surface to compensate for that consumed, and the process of
migration will continue until the skin of oxidised PPD prevents
further ozone penetration. An equal concentration of PPD will
then be established throughout the bulk of the rubber whilst it
waits to carry out any repairs to the film.
Paraphenylenediamines may also bloom by the ‘true bloom’
mechanism and it is therefore important that they are only added
at levels below their solubility. Although this is usually the case
when a formulation is originally devised, subsequent modifica-
tions without a full realisation of their significance have been
known to take formulations ‘over the limit’.
Zinc salts of carboxylic acids (in particular, zinc stearate) con-
stitute further examples of both true and modified blooms. Zinc
stearate has a known solubility in cis-polyisoprene of about 0.3%,
and thus the addition of 1 phr stearic acid and 2–5 phr zinc oxide
should inevitably produce a bloom. However, it is also known that
the solubility of zinc stearate is greatly increased when it complexes
with amines and, since these are usually present as accelerator
decomposition products, or in raw natural rubber, the problem is
less acute than it would appear at first glance. In moist atmospheres,
a bloom of zinc stearate reacts with water vapour to produce ‘basic
zinc stearate’ which forms on the surface as a solid layer, visually
indistinguishable from a bloom, and this is completely insoluble in
the rubber. A true zinc stearate bloom can be dissolved back into the
rubber by heating, but this is not the case with the basic salt.
The Rot sets in 255
On a surprisingly large number of occasions the matt finish on
an initially smooth shiny surface is not due to the blooming of
a particular compound or to deposition of a contaminant, but to
the degradation of the rubber surface itself. The pitted surface
which may develop from oxidative degradation results in suffi-
cient light scattering to give the impression of a bloom. In the
particular example shown in Fig. 13.6 the oxidative degradation
follows a pattern which suggests that there are internal stresses
Fig. 13.6 Stress-induced surface oxidation showing loss of the smooth

surface.
within the vulcanisate which are tearing the weakened surface.
This is particularly significant in view of comments by Moakes in
1950, who claimed to have seen ‘blooms’ of calcium and zinc
carbonate. There is no doubt that, because of their complete
insolubility, these inorganic materials cannot migrate and there-
fore cannot bloom. This latter phenomenon is often observed in
lightly-coloured articles and is due to the even more extensive
degradation of rubber surrounding the filler particles, which
results in the exposure of these particles in a ‘crater’ of rubber.
It is always difficult to decide by visual inspection whether a
surface deposit is a bloom or contamination. For instance, one of
the most common causes of surface contamination is silicone oil
which has been used to coat the mould in which the rubber article
is to be formed. Not only does this impart an oily film to the
surface, but it also gives a base to which dirt and dusting powders
may adhere.
The washing of rubber products also gives rise to contamina-
tion if rinsing is inadequate, and both inorganic salts and organic
materials have found their way onto the surface of rubber articles
by this route.
Haze is defined as a cloudy appearance within the bulk of a
transparent article, and from a visual inspection it is often difficult
to distinguish between it and a bloom. This will result from the
presence of insoluble particles or, in the case of liquids, micelles
or droplets having a different refractive index from rubber and so
able to cause light scattering. One of the commonest causes of this
is the use of zinc oxide either of the wrong grade or in excessive
amounts, and this problem can be eliminated by the use of special
fine-particle grades at levels not exceeding 1 phr.
Although the terms ‘staining’ and ‘discolouration’ tend to be
used interchangeably, it is probably better to consider dis-
colouration as applying to the rubber article itself, and staining as
The Rot sets in 257
describing the effect produced on a material in contact with the
compounded or cured rubber. In the vast majority of cases these
effects are brought about by free sulphur or dithiocarbamates in
contact with copper, as both copper sulphide and copper
dithiocarbamate are very dark in colour and give a visible stain
even at the single-figure parts-per-million level. Trace metals
such as iron and copper in the rubber itself or in fillers such as
clays or calcium carbonate (whiting) can also give rise to dis-
colouration, as too can the use of zinc oxide with an over-high
level of lead. Perhaps one of the hardest problems is in defining at
what level these elements become effective discolourants.
Although this chapter draws together a wide range of effects,
some of which can only be deduced from a fall-off in product
performance whilst others will be visually obvious, there are good
reasons for treating them together. With the exception of the
often misunderstood deliberate skin formation of waxes and
antiozonants, they all signify the approaching end of service life
for the particular product. Even those effects which are only
visually offensive will tend to get the object discarded in a
domestic environment, although industry might well wait for
more positive indications of a potentially catastrophic physical
failure before replacing it.
14
Death and Destruction
Whatever is done to extend the life of a vulcanised rubber article,

it will eventually fail to give satisfactory service or meet minimum
legal requirements and will have to be disposed of. In today’s
world there is an explicit presumption in favour of ‘recycling’,
although historically ‘dumping’ would be a better word. In 1996
the American artist, Meg Belichick, was so distressed at the
state of the Gowanus Canal, which she saw every day as she trav-
elled between her home and studio in Brooklyn, that she
handcrafted one hundred books with lead covers and letterpress-
printed rubber pages interspersed between historical photographs
to chart its history from a pristine state to a badly polluted
waterway. The lead and rubber were symbolic of the pollutants.
This is not the only time that rubber, waste, and art have joined
three-in-a-bed. In the mid-nineteenth century the journalist
and author, Nathan D. Urner, produced the ‘weepie’ shown in
Fig. 14.1. Many countries, but by no means all, have now
legislated against the dumping seen by Meg Belichick, whilst in
those countries the ‘little ash girl’ no longer exists. If dumping is
banned then recycling becomes part of the life and death cycle,
but what does this mean for rubber?
The word recycling implies a closed loop as, for instance, in the
case of glass bottles or metal cans which are used, scrapped,
collected, and then simply recycled to produce more new bottles
Death and Destruction 259
The Rubber Doll
A Christmas Story in Verse
What is this that, at last, my weary task This doll recalled it again just now,
In dirt and ashes all day unearths? This Rubber relic of playthings past!
A doll of rubber, just such a one And but yesterday, when outwearied quite,
As brings the glimpse of a Christmas gone I paused as I marked a lady bright
Amongst pleasant people and happy hearths! Sweep to her coach from a toyshop vast.
The nails are worn from my fingers sore, Her arms were loaded with Christmas things,
And naught but a little ash girl am I. For darlings at home I doubted not:
The policemen bid me move along, As she rustled by, how I dropped my look!
Swinging their arms and amongst the throng How mean my rags when her kindly look
I shrink to the kerbs with downcast eyes. Fell upon me as she passed the spot!
The little children, prettily dressed, Her brow was noble and her eyes were
Draw back, or mockingly troop around; sweet:
And from the gay shop-windows are And with tenfold force in my foolish brain
looks of distrust, That broken vision glowed fresh and clear
As from barrel to barrel of rubbish and dust Of one who, perchance, held me dear
I scrape and delve for what may be found. In that midst of the past, now blank and vain.
The brutes who reared me in this black toil, And I sobbed aloud, but I scraped away
And whose den I seek at the day’s dark close, Till my sack was heavy as it could be;
Are quick to seize what my wanderings win, Then hurried back to that noisome den,
And, after their orgies of beer and gin, With its smells and oaths, like a prison— pen,
Have nothing fore but oaths and blows. And the cuffs and kicks ever ready for me.
I call her mother and him my sire, But I dreamed that night a delicious dream,
But a thrill in my blood throbs back the lie, That has since made light in my darkened heart:
For a fragment of broken memory slips I will dream it again, I know, to-night,
Back, back from a dream of loving lips With this Rubber doll in my arms held tight—
To my baby mouth; and a vision flits by So tight it never shall from me part!
Of a pleasant home in a garden old, ‘Tis a shining dream of a garden old,
And a dark-eyed lady whose voice was sweet, With a painted boat in a river’s flow,
And shaggy dog and a painted boat And all in a world far better than this,
On the waves of a shining river afloat, With a mother’s love and a mother’s kiss,
And I on the shore, in wee bare feet. Which this little ash-girl at last shall know.
Nathan D. Urner 1839–1893
Fig. 14.1 ‘The Rubber Doll, A Christmas Story in Verse’.

and cans. This can hardly apply to vulcanised rubber which cannot
be ‘melted down’ and reshaped whilst retaining its original
properties. A broader definition is required. Perhaps the simplest
one would be based on a desire to find ways in which rubber
products can be used or treated at the end of their design life so
that they provide some cost benefit to the community and reduce
the environmental damage that results from dumping in landfill
sites. Indeed, many countries have regulations in place which
already control or ban this practice.
Worldwide, around seventy per cent of all elastomers are used
in the manufacture of tyres and vehicle-related components. This
is the area which is concentrated on today, but the history of
recycling rubber is almost as old as the industry itself. One of
Hancock’s first forays into rubber was to slice rubber bottles
imported from Amazonia to make elastic bands, and, whilst this
might not quite fit the definition in that the bottles had not
reached ‘the end of their design life’, the other criteria were met.
Whilst ‘recycle’ is a modern word, the reuse of scrap vulca-
nised rubber by grinding it to a powder or crumb and incorp-
orating it as a filler in a new product was first patented by
Goodyear in 1853. Indeed, some low-quality products were made
just by shaping the crumb in a heated mould under pressure. This
would imply that there was a considerable amount of free sulphur
in many ‘vulcanised’ products at that time and, perhaps, reflects
on their overall quality.
The market for rubber crumb was restricted and raw rubber
was expensive, so efforts continued to devise ways of chemically
devulcanising scrap rubber. In fact, the first patent to achieve this
had been taken out a few years earlier, in 1846, by Alexander
Parkes, although his work seems to have been largely ignored.
However, the numerous patents taken out between 1853 and
1878 reflected the ongoing interest in the field. In 1881 Mitchell
set up the first company in the US dedicated to the manufacture of
reclaimed rubber, his raw material being that stalwart of the
American rubber industry—the rubber overshoe or galoshes. His
process could best be described as chemically ‘vicious’! The
rubber was treated with sulphuric or hydrochloric acid for several
hours at high temperature and pressure before being neutralised,
washed, dried, and ground. It was then passed over magnets to
remove iron, mixed with a softener, devulcanised with steam for
twenty hours, and then sheeted on a mill. This became known as
the ‘acid process’ and the reclaimed rubber was reputed to
produce some excellent products. The company became well
established and one can only assume that with raw rubber and
silver costing about the same, pound for pound, it was cost
effective.
The advent of the motor tyre containing fibre reinforcement
required a different reclaim procedure, and the ‘alkali process’
was patented by Marks and Price at the turn of the twentieth
century to deal with this. Ground tyre (or other) scrap was
treated with caustic soda solution at high temperature for twenty
hours and then further separated and sorted. This reclaimed
rubber was also reputed to have good physical properties and,
being slightly alkali even after washing and drying, gave the added
bonus of acting as a vulcanisation accelerator.
In the early part of the twentieth century the demand for
rubber was such that up to fifty per cent of the rubber used was
reclaim, but the industry had to evolve as the inclusion of carbon
black and accelerators made the rubber much less amenable to the
existing processes. Developments between the two world wars
were mainly concerned with high-temperature treatment in
either an inert gas or in air/oxygen which was controlled to
fragment the elastomer chains, as well as the sulphur–sulphur
bonds, until the resulting molecules were short enough to be
processed in the same way as the original masticated rubber.
Reclaim from car and truck tyres continued to be a significant
business through to the 1960s, but demand fell when cheap oil,
the feedstock for the synthetic rubber industry, became available,
and the advent of steel-belted radial tyres made the reclaiming
process more difficult and time-consuming and therefore, inev-
itably, more expensive.
By the early 1990s demand had fallen to single figure per-
centages, but things changed when environmentalists became
concerned about the number of tyres being dumped in landfill
sites. Figures for scrapped tyres are notoriously difficult to obtain,
but a ‘typical’ car tyre contains about twenty pounds of natural
and synthetic rubbers, a bus tyre perhaps one hundred and twenty
pounds, and the biggest truck tyre over five thousand pounds,
weighing in with a total weight of over five tons. About nine
million tons of natural and synthetic rubbers are reputed to be
used in tyres each year, representing over fifteen million tons of
tyre. This will be an overestimate of the scrap tyre market as there
is an expanding demand for all types of vehicles and tread rubber
is obviously lost during service. Nevertheless, figures in excess of
one billion scrap tyres per year are normally quoted. In America
alone there are estimated to be between two and three billion
scrap tyres in landfill or other ‘storage’ sites.
The recycling of non-tyre rubbers is fraught with problems.
A significant amount is used in the medical and related health
industries and this has the potential to be contaminated in a
number of ways. There is little realistic choice but to burn this
with other hospital waste. Fluorocarbons, chlorine-containing
elastomers such as plasticised PVC and polychloroprene (neo-
prene), as well as nitrogen-containing elastomers such as the
nitrile rubbers have their own problems. They first have to be
identified and their service history evaluated so that the possibility
of contamination can be considered. They must then be disposed
of by specialist processes so that toxic gases are not released to the
atmosphere by their destruction. It is worth noting that, apart
from non-car uses, these elastomers may well be found in today’s
motor vehicles as hoses, gaskets, boots, etc. Nevertheless, these
are all relatively small components and there is little prospect of
recovering any useful elastomeric materials from them. The move
towards the use of thermoplastic elastomers in the manufacture of
vehicle components such as door and window seals, boots, and
mats offers a compensatory ‘bright side’ to this picture. Tyres,
however, remain the major disposal problem.
Landfill with whole tyres carries a number of environmental
problems. They render the land unstable as they have a tendency
to ‘heave’ or work their way to the surface and they can damage
the landfill linings, potentially allowing contamination of local
groundwater or surface water by substances which have been
leached from the landfill. Stored out of landfill, they can burn.
There have been a number of scrap tyre fires which have burned
for weeks, months, or even years, and these have caused con-
siderable environmental damage. Much of the rubber degrades to
an oil by pyrolysis, that is, thermal degradation in the absence of
an adequate supply of air, and this oil, being less dense than water,
will float away on the firefighters’ water to contaminate local
supplies, or even spread the fire if conventional firefighting
techniques are used. Many fires are just left to burn. In the EU the
disposal of whole tyres in landfill sites was banned after 2003 and
shredded tyres will also be banned by 2006. This leaves some
form of recycling, rather than simple disposal, as the only way
forward.
Whatever is done, there has to be a market for large quantities
of ‘end product’ at a satisfactory price—profitable for the recy-
cler and cheaper than any performance-equivalent material for the
purchaser. This could be direct or through some form of gov-
ernment subsidy but, in the end, it must be financially worthwhile
for any company to invest capital to build a plant and to carry out
the recycling. There is also a further factor to consider. The energy
requirements for whatever form of recycling is chosen must be
justified against those of other methods of disposal. It is no good
recycling something if the recycling and remanufacturing processes
require more energy in total than is needed both to create the
same product from virgin elastomer and to dispose of the old one.
The concept of ‘total energy audit’ for any product from its
birth to final disposal is becoming a vital commercial tool.
In truth, the recycler is limited in what he can do with his scrap
tyre. He can reuse the tyre as a tyre or find a new non-tyre use for
it. He can also mechanically fragment the tyre or more seriously
degrade it. All these options are currently being used. Some are
established whilst others have yet to get past the research stage
and be proved cost-effective.
There are three primary ways in which tyres can be reused as
tyres and the first is by retreading or recapping a good quality
carcass or casing. In the developed world, where radial car
tyres have virtually eliminated cross-ply tyres, passenger car
tyre retreading is almost non-existent. This is partly due to the
perceived poor image of these tyres as they are always speed-
restricted, and this does not gel well with the ever-increasing
performance of passenger cars. There is also a simple economic
fact; new tyres can be bought from eastern Europe more cheaply
than retreads can be manufactured in the West. Furthermore, the
lightweight design of modern car radial tyres makes them unsuit-
able for retreading. If they were designed and built more strongly
so that they could be retreaded, then there would be a penalty in
performance and comfort terms which would add yet more
energy and cost implications into the overall energy equation.
In the truck and aircraft tyre market, retreading is common and
it is not unusual for up to six retreads to be placed on a truck cross-
ply casing, although it is usually one or two on a radial-ply casing.
As already suggested, the word ‘retread’ has a poor image, and in
the case of aircraft tyres it has been changed to the more acceptable
‘recapping’. There is a ‘spin-off’ from the retreading trade as the
used casings first need to have their old treads removed by buffing,
and these buffings find a ready use in the manufacture of play-
ground pads and other child-friendly equipment since there is no
possibility that they could be contaminated with metal shards.
Tyres can also be reused by the simple process of resale! It has
been estimated that up to fifty per cent of US tyres are scrapped
before they are halfway through their design life, probably by
owners changing complete sets or pairs when only one has
been damaged. A significant number of these are resold in the US
and more are exported to less-developed countries. A parallel
position exists in Europe, whilst there are also regulations which
govern the minimum tread depth allowed before the tyre becomes
illegal. Again, exporting to less-developed countries for both
road use and for fitting on agricultural trailers and carts is a well-
established business. There is a downside to this exporting trade
as the tyres will eventually be scrapped in a country where the
facilities and environmental pressures for disposal compare with
those of the developed world a generation or more ago.
The third and final way of reusing a tyre applies to bus and
truck tyres, which are specifically built and marked on the side-
wall for re-grooving. It is then permitted to hand-cut a new tread
pattern when the old one has been substantially worn away,
although this is a job for the professional, not a person at home
with a sharp knife.
There are many ways in which old tyres can be used and one
familiar one is as an energy absorber at the barriers of all types of
motor racing circuits, from go-carts upwards. They often have a
similar application as fenders (see Fig. 14.2(a)) for preventing
small boats from damaging piers (or vice versa) and can be spread
over piles of manure or silage in farmyards to hold down the
covering tarpaulins.
A slightly more exotic use is shown in Fig. 14.2(b). This shows
a row of planters, made by turning truck tyres inside out. In
Thailand similarly-worked tyres are used as rubbish bins in many
towns. Perhaps the most unusual application on record is shown
in the photograph in Fig. 14.3, taken in Mexico, where a squatter
has created a level foundation for his house on a pre-existing slope
by building a base from old tyres filled with sand. A similar use is
found in the poorer parts of South Africa, where discarded tyres
are filled with mud or dirt and used as actual building blocks of
houses. Whether such a structure would receive planning
approval in the UK or EU is a moot point!
Scrap tyres have also been used to create artificial reefs off the
coasts of Australia, Israel, and America, where they have the
potential to provide a structure on which coral can grow. They
have also been used for crab and lobster farming and for coastal
stabilisation. These are just a few examples and, no doubt, many
more uses have been, and will continue to be, developed.
The third approach a recycler can use is to mechanically
fragment the tyre, and here the products will depend on the
degree of ‘fragmentation’. The picture in Fig. 14.4 is of a com-
plete suite of furniture which was made in the Far East and
certainly represents a degree of lateral thinking! It is arguable
whether this should fall within the category of a complete tyre or a
fragmented one but, if neither, it certainly forms a link. One of
the other uses to which large pieces of cut tyre tread have been
put is to make native ‘shoe soles’, which are tied to the feet with
binder twine.
(a)
(b)
Fig. 14.2 Old tyres used as (a) boat fenders in Crete, and (b) planters
in Malaysia.
Fig. 14.3 A Mexican house using old tyres filled with soil to create
a level stable (?) foundation.
At greater levels of fragmentation, rubber chips and crumb

are currently the staple of the recycling industry. The tyres are
first shredded and chopped to give chunks about two inches in
size which are then ground to a crumb. Two major types of
grinding procedures are currently in use, namely ambient and
cryogenic. In the ambient process the chunks enter the granu-
lator or crackermill at room temperature but heat up rapidly as
they are torn apart. The crumb size is determined by meshes
which fit in the machines and which can be changed to meet
specific demands. These particles tend to have a rough texture
from their torn faces. In the cryogenic process the chunks are
cooled with liquid nitrogen and then reduced in size using a
Fig.14.4 ‘Tyred’ furniture.
hammermill. The final product from this process is shiny and has
clean fracture surfaces. In both systems any metal (steel) is
removed with magnets and any fibre by aspiration. The cryo-
genic product tends to be less contaminated because of the clean
fracturing between the rubber and steel, and has obviously been
less exposed to the possibility of thermal degradation. Both of
these processes give crumb around one-quarter of an inch in
size, but, if finer materials are required, they can be manu-
factured by a secondary process which usually involves wet
grinding. The uses for crumb rubber are legion but can be
divided into four basic categories:
1. automotive-related products,
2. athletic and recreational products,
3. moulded and bonded products, and
4. rubberised asphalt or bitumen.
It is common practice to add crumb at between three and five
per cent to cross-ply truck tyres, and it seems possible that this
figure will increase somewhat if test results show that the tyres
meet performance and safety standards. There is virtually no
crumb added to radial tyres as it results in a lower resistance to
flex cracking and abrasion, both of which shorten the life of a tyre.
Indeed, some automotive regulations specifically exclude the use
of any sort of ground rubber or reclaim in radial tyres. Some
acceptable applications include agricultural and trailer bumpers,
as well as mudflaps and splash guards. Inside the vehicle, door step
mats and brake pedal covers are prime candidates, although care
has to be taken not to use crumb with a high volatiles content as
this may cause ‘fogging’ of the vehicle’s windows in hot condi-
tions. Again, the maximum extent of permissible ‘fogging’ is
governed in specifications issued by some vehicle manufacturers.
In athletic and recreational applications the most common uses
for unbonded material or loose mulch are for top dressings in
children’s playgrounds, where it has been found to be a safer and
more cost-effective option than wood bark, and equestrian
training or display rings. It has also been found that a layer of
rubber crumb, laid under turf, can give considerable advantages in
terms of drainage whilst minimising soil compaction, both of
which improve the longevity of the surface. This application has
been used both in playing fields and the greens of golf courses.
Its general use as a top dressing in landscaping has also been
advocated.
Bonded materials fall into two distinct types. The first of
these is the incorporation of a small amount of moisture-curing
urethane rubber as a binder into the crumb, which is then poured,
spread, rolled, and the urethane left to cure. This provides the type
of loose textured material used on athletics tracks, again as a base
in children’s play areas, and for temporary matting in numerous
applications such as where a horse racetrack crosses a road. The
second category requires the incorporation of high levels of
crumb into an unvulcanied mix, which is then moulded to give
a product. Applications include low-speed solid tyres, speed
control humps, mats of all sorts, and interlocking rubber tiles.
Rubberised asphalt or bitumen has been an area of interest at
least since the 1930s and it has the potential to absorb large
quantities of rubber scrap. Experiments have been carried out
using latex, as well as both raw and vulcanised natural rubber
added as either a powder or crumb. The viability of using some
synthetics has also been examined. There is now plenty of evid-
ence that the incorporation of rubber tyre crumb extends the
longevity of highways when a one- to three-inch layer of rub-
berised bitumen is used to resurface it. It certainly adds to the
cost of laying the surface but in the long term the process is cost-
effective. Unfortunately, too many roads are resurfaced from
short-term funding and this is probably the biggest area of tyre
disposal where government intervention could be useful. For
instance, the US introduced legislation which would have required
those states which had federally-financed resurfacing projects to
insist that at least five per cent were surfaced with rubberised
bitumen in 1994, rising by five per cent per annum to 1997.
Pressure from individual states over the extra costs and from the
bitumen suppliers over reduced material sales prevented it from
ever being implemented. Nevertheless, many individual states are
now demanding its use in attempts to clear their scrap tyre
dumps. The incentive is certainly there; current research shows
that crumb rubber may be used either as part of the asphalt
binder to give ‘asphalt rubber’ or as an aggregate substitution to
give ‘rubber-modified asphalt concrete’. There are two processes
used to incorporate the crumb into asphalt. The wet process
incorporates the crumb into the asphalt mix with a liquid, such as
kerosene, to serve as a blender, whilst the dry process blends
crumb directly into the asphalt mix. In the US the Federal
Highway Administration has been promoting crumb rubber in
asphalt paving and points out that one mile of a two-lane road with
a three-inch-thick layer uses 1600 tyres in asphalt rubber and
8000–12 000 tyres in rubber-modified asphalt concrete. India is
also actively implementing this technology, as are a number of
other countries such as New Zealand and Australia, but the EU
seems disinterested.
The final option to consider for dealing with a scrap tyre is to
degrade it to such an extent that it no longer physically exists as a
vulcanised rubber matrix. The easiest way to do this is to burn it.
This appears to be the current method of choice as it is the largest
single way of disposing of scrap tyres, either whole or as chunks,
in both the EU and US. A popular location for this is the cement
industry since the residual ash can be incorporated into the
product, and thus there is no secondary waste to be disposed of.
Germany disposes of some ten per cent of its waste tyres by this
route, whilst Japan, with its meagre indigenous fuel resources, is
another advocate of the process. Other energy-intensive appli-
cations such as paper mills and metal foundries may also use this
scrap which, pound for pound, has a heating value greater than
coal and is certainly easier and cheaper to obtain. It has also been
claimed that burning a mix of coal and tyre scrap is environ-
mentally better than burning coal by itself.
There are a number of other programmes of research in the
area of polymer destruction being carried out today, but none has
yet reached commercial maturity. One such approach is controlled
thermal degradation by pyrolysis or polymer fragmentation to
oils and gases by heat in the absence of oxygen. This enables the
carbon black, zinc oxide, and steel to be recovered, whilst the oils
and gases can be either sold or recycled within the unit as fuel.
The furnace design is crucial in these applications to optimise the
heat output and to trap the environmentally damaging gases
containing sulphur, and possibly chlorine, but this is well-
established technology in the oil industry and in practice causes
no problems other than an increase in costs. One factor which
must be considered in all ‘total polymer destruction’ processes is
that the most appropriate use of the recovered carbon black
would be to recycle it back into new tyres. In an earlier chapter
the criteria identifying a satisfactory black were discussed and it is
essential that the black structure or its reinforcing properties are
not reduced by the pyrolysis process.
Although research into true devulcanisation was virtually
abandoned in the 1960s, new processes are now being investi-
gated. These include the use of microwaves or ultrasonics, as well
as bacterial and chemical attack to break the sulphur–sulphur
bonds and thus produce a remouldable rubber. These are currently
giving rise to different levels of optimism, but at all times it
is necessary to remember that the process must be cost- and
energy-effective.
As has been noted earlier, in ecological terms the effectiveness
of any recycling policy can only be quantified if it first takes into
account the energy requirements to produce the raw materials, to
deliver them to the factory, process them, and distribute the final
product. It must then look at the energy requirements in service,
recycling (including collecting and delivery to the recycle unit),
remanufacturing, and ultimate disposal. However much the
ardent ecologist might argue, ecological concerns are not the only
criteria by which life should be judged. Up to twenty per cent of
rubber from a tyre will be lost from that tyre by abrasive wear
during its lifetime. This gets washed down the drains, into rivers,
and eventually out to sea. It causes some ecologists concern. They
accept that these minute fragments cannot be trapped and
therefore want tyre wear to be reduced. This can be done, but the
inevitable consequence is a lower skid resistance, more accidents,
and, even just in energy terms, more wrecked cars and people to
be looked after. Speed bumps and road ‘nips’ may arguably save
lives and injuries, but the energy cost is more wear and tear on
vehicle components and a higher fuel consumption.
The obvious difference between natural rubber and its two
direct competitors, butadiene rubber (BR) and styrene butadiene
rubber (SBR), is that the first is a natural product whilst the others
are synthetic, manufactured from that ever-diminishing asset—
oil. The energy requirements to produce these elastomers and
to transport them to a western manufacturing facility were cal-
culated in the mid-1990s and, although they may have changed
somewhat in the last decade, they will still be realistic on a
comparative basis. They are vastly different, with natural rubber
requiring some sixteen gigajoules (GJ) per ton, BR requiring, one
hundred and eight GJ/ton, and SBR requiring, one hundred
and thirty GJ/ton. Natural rubber has a small processing penalty
when manufacturing takes place in temperate regions as it must
be kept in a warm store to prevent it from crystallising. It is
also a little more energy-demanding than the synthetics during
processing, with a total representative mixing-cycle energy
requirement having been estimated at about twenty GJ/ton. On
that basis the energy requirements to obtain the raw material,
transport it to the manufacturing facility, and manufacture a
product from natural rubber are only about one-third of those of
its competitors.
The story does not end there. Whilst BR and SBR consume oil,
natural rubber produces timber, and rubber wood is now a
valuable commercial product in its own right. Given a typical
replanting cycle of thirty years, Hevea plantations can produce a
considerable volume of timber in a relatively short time. Tropical
rain forests are being destroyed at an ever-increasing rate but are
required as sinks for carbon dioxide. It has been estimated that the
global Hevea biomass in the mid-1990s was capable of fixing ninety
million tons of carbon per annum.
The amount of BR and SBR produced today is very similar to
that of natural rubber, and the global output of natural rubber
could easily be increased by a factor of two or more in a very few
years. Unfortunately, the one great problem facing the rubber
tree owner is that of tapping the trees. The large rubber planta-
tions have been in decline for a number of years as the value of
the product has fallen relative to other crops and the smallholders
are drifting away from a rural existence towards an urban life.
Fig. 14.5 A Malaysian rubber plantation (or factory?) in 1996.

Interestingly, in 2003 the acreage under rubber in Malaysia fell
but rubber output increased; the price rose and this encouraged
smallholders to tap more trees.
It would be extremely simplistic to say that natural rubber
could, or even should, replace its synthetic ‘equivalents’, but the
grounds for moving in that direction will become more valid as
time goes by. In the extreme there is an argument for considering
whether the tropical Hevea plantations should be viewed in a
completely new light—as a carbon dioxide fixing factory for the
sustained production of timber and for the synthesis of a fuel
(rubber) which has a few years of otherwise useful life as a
vulcanised product before completing the carbon cycle.
The life of one product may be over but the life of natural
rubber will continue!
15
Timeline
Any chronology must be both subjective and selective. This can be

no more true than in the case of ‘rubber’, which is now known to
have been in use for over 3500 years. Those who have used it have
been primitive natives, lost civilisations, and those developing the
most sophisticated instruments and equipment of today. Just two
areas of application illustrate this breadth of applicability. The
same material that is used to make delicate medical devices such
as surgeons’ gloves and condoms is also used in the treads of
supersonic aircraft tyres.
This time chart below shows just some of those events which
changed the course of history, together with those which pro-
vided just one small step forward (or, some might argue, occa-
sionally backward) for mankind. Throughout the chart there are
data on the production of wild and plantation natural rubber and,
eventually, on the synthetics. Original documents inevitably
differ considerably in their ‘facts’, so these statistics should only
be treated as ‘reasonably indicative’! Also included are significant
dates in the histories of many of today’s rubber companies—with
an inevitable emphasis on the tyre.
Name Date Place Event
278
60 million bc Germany Rubber-producing plants in existence in Europe
(see 1924).
First millenium bc Mexico Ball courts/figurines holding balls.
Mokaya 1800 bc Mexico Beginnings of the Mokaya culture. The Mokaya are
believed to be the forerunners of the Olmec and Maya
cultures. Mokoya means ‘corn people’.
Mokaya/Olmec Mexico Oldest known ball court of the Mokaya/Olmecs at
Paso de la Amada, Mexico. The word ‘Olmec’ means
‘rubber people’.
Tears of the Tree

Herodotus Fourth century bc Zanzibar Claimed to have seen natives playing with balls which
bounced high in the air. They came from Lydia.
Aztecs/Maya Sixth century Mexico and Balls, dipped feet to make shoes, coated fabrics, etc.
(and earlier?) Central America Gulf of Mexico.
Toltec–Maya Tenth century Yucatan Ball courts and rubber objects at Chichen Itza—now in
Peabody Museum, Harvard University.
Columbus 1493 Haiti First European recorded to have seen rubber balls, but
second-hand observation—not recorded by Columbus himself.
H. Cortez 1519 Mexico Sees a version of the ball game being played at the court of
Montezuma.
Bartolome 1523 Spain Began writing Apologetica historia de las Indias (published 1875!)
de la Casas in which he mentions rubber balls and claims that Columbus
brought one to Seville.
H. Cortez 1528 Spain Returned to Spain with two teams of ball players (some
say this is what confused la Casas).
Peter of Anghiera 1530 Spain First mention of rubber (gummi optima) in print.
De Motolina 1536 Spain Describes Aztec religious rites involving rubber.
D’Orviedo y 1536 Spain Describes the North American Indian ball game (Batey).
Valdes Some balls light in weight—blown rubber?
A. de Mendoza 1549 Mexico Commissioned an Aztec account of Mexican history.
Mid-sixteenth Guatemala An unknown noble wrote down the myths of Mayan
century creation. Much relates to the twins Hunahpu and
Xbalanque (also known as the Sun and Venus) and
how they outwitted the ‘Lords of Earth’ by their skill at
pok-ta-pok (one name for the ball game). The book is the
Popol Vuh.
F. Hernandez 1570–1577 Mexico The first person to describe the Mexican rubber tree from
Timeline
first-hand observation.
R. Hakluyt 1587 UK Obtained Spanish version of Mendoza’s document (1549)
and Lok translated it into English. It mentions rubber balls
being paid as tribute.
A. de Herrera 1601 Spain Writes of Haitian ball game and Mexican trees which can be
Tordesillas cut to yield ‘milk’ which gives rubber.
M. Lok 1612 UK Translated Peter of Angiera’s 1530 book into English.
Torquemada 1615 Mexico Taught how to waterproof cloth and make dipped goods by
Indians. Also described the use of rubber distillate as
medicine to be taken internally.
Fr A. Vieria 1651 Amazonia Jesuits founded Santarem, 500 miles inland on the
Amazon/Tapajos confluence—home later of
279
Henry Wickham.
280
B. Cobo 1653 Spain Associated ‘Cachuc’, which in the Kechua language relates
to demon worship and magic, with rubber (liquid obtained
from a tree).
J. Tradescant 1656 UK First appearance of gutta-percha in the UK—called
‘mazer wood’. Gutta-percha is a Malay word.
Charles Marie 1735–1745 Andes Described how Indians ‘milked’ trees for liquid to
de la Condamine waterproof fabrics. The Indians called the tree ‘heva’ and
the gum from the liquid ‘cahutschu’. He used the word
‘latex’ to describe the ‘milk’ or sap from the tree.
Tears of the Tree

François Fresneau 1743–1746 French Realised the potential of the material and infected France
Guiana with enthusiasm for rubber research. The problem was that
latex could not be shipped to Europe without ‘going bad’
and solidifying.
F. Fresneau 1747 Cayenne Discovered the only ‘Hevea braziliensis’ in French Guiana,
which led to much confusion!
La Condamine 1751 France Presented his and Fresneau’s work to Paris Academy of Science.
Don José 1755 Portugal The King of Portugal sent boots to Pará to be waterproofed.
F. Fresneau 1761 France Discovered turpentine, an ideal solvent for rubber. He told
Minister Bertan, who ‘leaked’(?) information to two
professional scientists, Herrisant and Macquer.
Herrisant and 1763 France Worked and published separately on rubber solvents and
Macquer obtained perhaps undeserved credit (see 1942).
J. Banks 1768 UK First references to rubber in the UK. Purchased latex(?)
in London and sent two rubber balls to John Canton.
Macquer 1768 France Replaced turpentine with ether and cast strong films which
were not sticky. Also made tubing on wax formers and
suggested making catheters.
Macquer 1769 France Made riding boots for Frederic the Great by
multiple-dipping process.
P. Poivre 1769 Mauritius First ‘modern’ observation of ‘African’ rubber. Probably
the landolphia rubber plant.
E. Nairne 1770 UK Started to sell cubes of rubber from his artists’ shop as
pencil erasers.
Priestly 1770 UK Noted that Nairne sold a half-inch cube of material for
(of oxygen fame) erasing pencil marks for three shillings. He called it
‘India rubber’, having found from whence it came.
Timeline
M. Vaucasan 1772 France Interested in rubber—asked Minister Bertan to write to
Fresneau (now in retirement in south-west France) asking for
all the information he had on rubber. Perhaps this was the
initiation of the modern rubber industry?
Magalhaens 1775 France (Also called ‘Magellan’) ‘discovered’ the same thing
five years later.
J. C. A. Theden 1777 Germany Proposed catheters reinforced with silk-coated spirally-wound
wire, then coated with rubber from solution.
J. Ingenhousz 1779 UK Wrote of constructing rubber tubing by sticking together
freshly-cut surfaces of rubber—much stronger than
solution tubing and, without knowing it, the principle
which made Hancock’s masticator work (Fresneau was
aware of this stickiness but his comments were not published
281
until later).
282
A. Juliaans 1780 Netherlands First thesis (or book) solely on rubber (University of Utrecht).
Concludes that the various Amazonian botanists were writing
about more than just one ‘rubber’ tree. He refers to many
medical applications including catheters.
F. de St Fond 1781 France First mention of rubber coating balloon fabrics.
J. A. C. Charles 1783 France First hydrogen-filled balloon. The fabric was rubber-proofed
oiled silk.
V. Cervantes 1786 Mexico Wrote of the indigenous Mexican rubber industry and of the
‘Ule tree’ from which the latex came. Noted that acetic
Tears of the Tree

acid coagulated the latex to give a clean solid rubber.
Roberts and Dight 1790 UK First patent referring to rubber—solution for treating canvas
before oil painting.
G. Fabrioni 1791 UK Wrote of twenty years research with the new solvent
‘naphtha’ and its excellent solvent properties for rubber.
Gossart 1791 France Rediscovered Fresneau/Ingenhousz’ processes for building
‘cut’ tubing—added a ‘heat-sealing’ process.
S. Peal 1791 UK Patented waterproofing of many fabrics with rubber solution.
Suggested latex could also be used.
Fourcroy 1791 France Stabilised latex with alkali.
J. Watt 1794 UK Developed an instrument for gas inhalation using ‘Gossart’ tubing.
S. D. de la Vega 1798 Mexico Laminated two layers of chamois leather with a latex
adhesive to give bags strong enough to transport mercury
across the Atlantic.
C. Goodyear 1800 USA Charles Goodyear born.
W. Roxburgh 1801 France May have made ebonite by passing chlorine into a solution
of rubber in carbon disulphide. He obtained ‘a white
inelastic mass’.
1803 France Probably the first ‘rubber factory’ (to make elastic bands)
built near Paris.
Fourcroy and 1804 France Suggested alkali-stabilised latex could be shipped to Europe.
Nicholson
P. de Beauvais 1805 West Africa Classified a rubber-producing vine.
J. Bright 1810 UK Founded John Bright & Bros to supply cloth and fabric for
rubber belting manufacturers.
J. Reithoffer 1811 Austria Started a rubber goods factory in Vienna.
Timeline
Baron P. L. Schilling 1811 Germany Probably the first rubber-insulated cable used for underwater
telegraphy experiments.
Baron P. L. Schilling 1812 Germany He used a similar cable to explode mines underwater.
J. F. Hummel 1813 USA Gum elastic varnish—first US patent which mentions rubber.
J. Clark 1813 UK Patent for making inflatable articles from rubber
interior-coated fabrics—beds, cushions, etc.
J. Syme 1818 UK Proposed a substance from coal tar be used as a rubber
solvent—cheap and readily available with the new gas
lighting.
Weisse 1818 UK Manufactured curved catheters with excellent surface finishes.
T. Hancock 1819 UK First started using rubber solutions to coat fabrics and
manufactured articles—gloves, etc.
283
284
T. Hancock 1820 UK First patent for dry rubber; cut strips for elasticating
clothes, braces, etc. Opened a factory in London which
became ‘James Lyne Hancock’.
T. Hancock 1820 UK Invented his ‘pickling’ machine which enabled dry rubber
to be worked into a ‘dough’. Actually a masticator.
1820 USA Dipped shoes appeared in the USA, made in South America,
exported to Paris—gilded, ‘fashioned’, and returned to America.
1821 UK Bertrams Ltd established. Made machinery for linoleum,
paper, and rubber manufacture.
Tears of the Tree

T. Hancock 1821 UK Pickling machine (masticator) now horse-powered.
J. Syme 1821 UK Used naptha as rubber solvent.
By 1823 USA Direct imports from Brazil.
C. Macintosh 1823 UK Realised that, if fabric was coated with rubber solution then
had another layer of fabric applied to rubber, the three-layer
sandwich was waterproof and not sticky–‘mackintosh’.
C. Macintosh, 1823 UK Founded Chas. Macintosh and Co.
H. Hornby, and
J. Birley
T. Hancock 1824 UK Obtained the first authenticated sample of latex in the UK
and proposed using it to saturate fibres and compress to make
‘artificial leather’. First rubber belting from these materials.
1825 UK Pitch/rubber solution; provided sheets for coating ships’
bottoms, etc.
J. Hancock 1825 UK Thomas’s brother began work on rubber/fabric hoses.
T. C. Wales 1825 USA First native rubber shoes sold in the US.
M. Faraday 1826 USA Established empirical formula of natural rubber as C5H8.
T. Hancock 1826 UK Agreement with Macintosh to make rubberised fabrics and
garments at Macintosh’s factory in Manchester.
H. C. Lacy 1826 UK Patent for carriage springs made of rubber blocks.
1827 UK First recorded use of rubber hoses against a fire (in London).
T. Hancock 1827 UK Patented rubber solution spreading machine.
1828 UK Water beds containing warm water used in Wales to assist
miners with hypothermia.
J. N. Reithofer 1828 Austria Patented rubber thread wrapped with fabrics to give
Timeline
elastic-woven webs.
E. M. Chaffee 1828 USA Roxbury India Rubber Co. founded (first US rubber company).
1820–1830 USA On average, some 500 000 pairs of rubber overshoes
per annum had been imported from Pará.
T. Hancock 1830 UK Use of latex for dresses and ornaments.
1830 UK Sent a teacher to Brazil to show the natives the best way
of collecting and preserving latex.
E. F. Leuchs 1831 Germany Sulphur and hot molten rubber gave a ‘coal-like’
mass—probably ebonite.
E. M. Chaffee 1831 USA Rubber/turpentine/lampblack paint to waterproof leather.
A. Barbier and 1832 France Founded company named after themselves. Eventually
N. E. Daubrée became Michelin et Cie.
285
286
F. Lüddersdorf 1832 Germany Rubber and a little sulphur in solution—heated to give
better ageing and reduced stickiness—the first vulcanisate?
Dr Arnott 1832 UK Claimed to have invented the water bed and gives details
of manufacture and advantages.
E. M. Chaffee 1832 USA Roxbury India Rubber Co. began manufacture of rubber
footwear in the US.
W. Montgomerie 1832 Singapore First encountered gutta-percha, used by the natives to
make hatchet handles.
W. H. Barnard 1833 UK Patent for ‘cracking’ rubber to produce ‘caoutchoucine’
Tears of the Tree

and suggested its use as a rubber solvent.
N. Ruggles and 1833 USA Patent for sticking shoe and boot soles on with rubber.
S. D. Breed
T. Hancock and 1834 UK Hancock became Director of Chas D. Macintosh and Co.
C. Macintosh
A. Jones 1834 UK Proposed making ‘carpets’ of canvas, wallpaper, and rubber.
E. M. Chaffee 1834–1836 USA Invented the two-roll, two-speed mill which could be
heated/cooled. Invented the three (and more) roll mill for
calendering rubber ‘dough’. Both are still the basic
procedures and designs of today.
J. Thurston 1835 UK Introduced rubber billiard table cushions.
C. Goodyear 1834 USA Became intrigued by rubber—some say obsessed after seeing
rubber goods in New York store of the Roxbury India
Rubber Co.
A. Bouchardat 1836 France Pyrolytically decomposed rubber.
W. Hancock 1836 UK Used rubber solutions for binding books.
C. Dickens 1837 UK Wrote that Mr Pickwick’s frown vanished like the marks of
a blacklead pencil beneath the influence of India rubber.
T. Hancock 1837 UK Invented the spreader, the standard coating machine of today.
At last forced to release details of his ‘pickling’ machine or
masticator.
By 1837 USA Economic crisis. Rubber bubble bursts.
T. Hancock 1838 UK Made latex thread using a spiral groove cut in a cylinder. No
applications or interest shown.
C. Goodyear and 1838 USA The two meet.
N. Hayward
Timeline
N. Hayward 1838 USA Patented ‘solarisation’ process whereby rubber films treated
with solution of sulphur in turpentine and exposed to sunlight
develop a ‘superior surface’. Patent USP1090 granted Feb. 1839.
K. MacMillan 1839 UK Invented the first pedal-driven bicycle.
1839 USA Rubber-manufacturing industry in the US finished, but
5 000 000 pairs of unvulcanised shoes per annum still imported
from Brazil.
C. Goodyear 1839 USA Purchased rights to Hayward’s ‘solarisation’ process and began
experimenting with rubber/sulphur mixes.
C. Goodyear 1839 USA Left a mix of rubber, sulphur, and white lead on a hot stove
and he recognised that the resulting material was ‘cured’ of all
its defects. It no longer softened on heating or hardened on
287
cooling, and it had lost its stickiness.
288
1841 USA First commercial vulcanised material—rubber thread for
‘shirred’ cloth.
J. A. Fanshawe 1841 UK Patent for a masticator, with specific mention of the addition
of sulphur and lead oxide (as an opaque filler).
S. Moulton 1842 UK/USA An Englishman in America, he came to the UK as Goodyear’s
agent, with samples of his vulcanised rubber to negotiate a
deal with interested UK parties.
W. Brockedon 1842 UK Showed Hancock some of Goodyear’s cured rubber and
proposed the term ‘vulcanisation’ for the process of its
Tears of the Tree

manufacture.
1842 UK The UK began to import rubber from Singapore (from Ficus
elasticus and Urceola elastica).
J. Robinson 1842 UK Joseph Robinson & Co. founded. Rubber-manufacturing
equipment.
T. Hancock 1842/1843 UK Identified sulphur in a piece of Goodyear’s cured rubber.
Could not duplicate cure as did not know about white lead,
but effected cure with rubber/molten sulphur.
W. Montgomerie 1843 UK Introduced gutta-percha to Europe. First use was for knife
handles. Then golf balls, etc.
C. Goodyear 1843 USA First US vulcanisation patent applied for.
T. Hancock 1843 UK Produced ‘hard rubber’ (ebonite/vulcanite) by prolonged
treatment of rubber with molten sulphur.
T. Hancock 1843 UK In November he obtained UK provisional patent for
vulcanising rubber.
1843–1900 UK Over 100 rubber and rubber equipment manufacturing
companies formed in this period. Some historically interesting
ones are in the timeline.
A. Parkes 1843 UK Used carbon disulphide as solvent for rubber.
C. Goodyear 1844 UK In February UK patent application refused but US patent
granted.
T. Forster 1844 UK Suggested rubber-moulded dolls and toys.
A. Turner 1844 UK Used vulcanised wrapped rubber thread to make webbing for
‘elastic-sided’ boots.
J. Thurston 1845 UK Introduced vulcanised rubber billiard table cushions.
J. Patterson 1845 UK First gutta-percha golf ball made in Scotland.
W. Siemans 1845 UK Suggested gutta-percha as telegraph wire insulant.
Timeline
R. W. Thompson 1845 UK Patented the pneumatic tyre but no vehicles suitable to make
it a commercial success!
Lagrénée 1845 France Brought gutta-percha from China.
C. Hancock and 1845 UK The Gutta Percha Company formed.
H. Bewley
T. Hancock 1846 UK Manufactured the first solid rubber tyre. Used for
steam-powered vehicles.
C. H. Stearn 1846 USA Made a part-ebonite plate to treat cleft palates.
A. Parkes 1846 UK ‘Cold-cure’ process discovered. Using sulphur chloride, initially
in solution but then in vapour phase (see 1876). This initiated
the ‘dipped goods (thin film)’ industry.
289
W. T. G. Morton 1846 USA Advent of anaesthetics with rubber components of apparatus.
290
C. Hancock 1846 UK Patented a vulcanised sponge rubber—suggested use in
cushions.
Alexander, Cabriol, 1846 UK First gutta-percha patent—for a laminate consisting of three
and Duclos layers: gutta–fabric–gutta.
W. Brockedon 1847 UK Used ammonium carbonate as blowing agent—still used today.
1847 USA Vulcanised rubber shoes and overshoes manufactured
again—many for UK market.
J. G. Ingram 1847 UK Began manufacture of vulcanised rubber balloons.
W. H. Barlow and 1847 UK Patent for the making of telegraph cables with gutta-percha.
Tears of the Tree

T. Forster
J. J. Craven 1847 UK Insulated undersea cables with gutta-percha.
C. C. Page 1847 USA Noted the close similarity of the thermal decomposition
products of natural rubber and gutta-percha.
S. Moulton 1848 UK Moulton founded his rubber goods company at
Bradford-on-Avon.
1848 UK Byrne India Rubber Co. founded; later sold to Dunlop
Pneumatic Tyre Co.
1848 Finland Nokian Tyres founded.
W. Burke 1849 UK Used golden antimony sulphide instead of sulphur to produce
red thread (20% of thread market by 1914).
1849 UK First recorded use of gutta-percha as a telegraph cable insulant
(in London).
R. and J. Dick 1850 UK Founded R & J Dick Ltd, gutta-percha and balata
manufacturers.
T. L. Wilson 1850 West Africa Drew attention of rubber traders to the rubber-producing vines
and their possible commercial value.
J. Brett and J. W. Brett 1850 UK Failed in first attempt to lay gutta-percha-insulated cable from
Dover to Calais.
J. Brett 1851 UK Second attempt failed but then completed.
C. Goodyear 1851 USA Proposed ebonite as a bonding layer—rubber to metal.
N. Goodyear 1851 USA Charles’s brother, Nelson, patented manufacture of ebonite.
1851 UK Great Exhibition in London full of rubber and ebonite articles.
1851 USA Vulcanised rubber shoes being manufactured at a rate of over
5 000 000 pairs per annum.
Timeline
1853 Amazonia The first ‘serious’ rubber traders moved up the Amazon with
the coming of steamers.
S. W. Silver 1852 UK Founded what was to become the India Rubber, Gutta Percha
and Telegraph Works in London.
W. R. Forster and 1852 UK Founded Forster & Williams (submarine and India rubber
T. J. Williams manufacturers) which joined with C. E. Heinke & Co. in 1902.
1853 Amazonia Three tons of rubber exported.
W. Johnson 1853 UK Suggested ammonia as suitable stabiliser for latex.
1853 UK First imports of latex to UK.
1853 USA Rubber sole with leather edging (to sew to uppers) appeared.
W. Johnson 1854 UK Patented the use of a press for vulcanising shaped products.
291
292
C. Goodyear 1855 USA Discusses various ‘fillers’ or bulking agents—including
lampblack and various earths.
1855 France Exposition Universelle in Paris. As with London (1851), full of
rubber and ebonite products. Goodyear’s book Gum elastic
present, printed on rubber pages and with carved ebonite covers.
J. H. Johnson 1855 UK Patented ebonite components in spinning/weaving machinery
and also proposed ebonite-coated metal components.
C. Goodyear Junior 1855 USA Patented use of ebonite for dental plates.
H. Lee Norris and 1856 Scotland UK manufacture of vulcanised rubber shoes began in Scotland
Tears of the Tree

S. T. Parmelee to avoid Hancock’s English patent. The North British
Rubber Co. founded.
1856 Germany Harburger-Gummi-Kamm-Co formed to make ebonite combs.
T. Hancock 1857 UK Published his Narrative, with much practical information on
rubber products and their manufacture.
C. W. Field 1858 USA/UK First transatlantic cable (insulated/coated with gutta-percha)
laid by the cable ship The Faraday.
A. F. E. Robert 1858 UK Manufactured the first hollow rubber dolls.
G. A. Engelhard 1859 UK First prepared chlorinated rubber.
and H. H. Day
W. Hooper 1859 UK Introduced the first rubber-insulated/coated cables.
1859 UK New Liverpool Rubber Co. founded—later to become
Dunlop Rubber Co.
1860 USSR Rubber footwear manufactured in St Petersburg.
G. Williams 1860 UK Decomposed natural rubber and isolated isoprene (C5H8).
Gave it that name.
W. Clissold 1860 UK Rubberised ‘V’ belting patented.
J. T. Pitman 1860 UK Used steam-heated platens in his vulcanising press.
1860 Brazil Rubber prices at all time high—cost more than silver.
1860 World Worldwide production of natural rubber around 1500 tons.
Scottish 1861 UK First British company dedicated to ebonite—The Scottish
Vulcanite Co. Vulcanite Co.—formed. Later joined with North British
Rubber Co.
F. Hofmann 1861 Showed that degraded gutta-percha had oxidised.
F. Shaw 1861 UK Developed the first screw extruder for rubber production.
Timeline
J. Quinn 1862 UK Founded Brookland Rubber Co., later Leyland and Birmingham
Rubber Co.
J. Leighton 1862 USA Invented the ubiquitous rubber stamp.
S. C. Barnum 1862 USA Dental dam introduced.
Sanderson 1862 UK Proposed brass as a bonding interface between steel and rubber.
1862 UK The invention of the inflatable rubber bladder (and the pump to
inflate it) gave the modern football.
J. K. Wright 1864 USA Carbon black first produced commercially to use with rubber
vulcanisates.
Nokian Tyres 1865 Finland The Finnish tyre company founded.
N. Hayward 1865 USA Died. Tombstone in Colchester, CT describes him as the
293
inventor of ‘hard rubber’ (ebonite).
294
C. W. Field 1866 Atlantic Atlantic cable laid from Heart’s Content (Newfoundland) to
Valentia (Ireland) by the Great Eastern.
Dom Pedro II 1867 Amazonia Opened the Amazon and its tributaries to foreign trade. Ocean
liners could now reach as far as Iquitos (2300 miles from the
Atlantic coast).
R. W. Thomson 1867 UK Patented first commercial solid vulcanised tyres for steam
engines and bicycles.
1868 USA A shoe was produced with a vulcanised rubber sole fused to a
canvas upper. Reputedly known as the ‘felonies’ and also
Tears of the Tree

‘brothel creepers’, they must have been very quiet! In the UK
they were eventually called plimsolls by Philip Lace (1876).
M. Berthellot 1869 France Polymerised styrene—not an elastomer but mentioned here
because of its importance in SBR, SBS, etc.
B. F. Goodrich 1870 USA Founded rubber factory in Akron.
Murphy 1870 USA Recognised ‘oxidation’ as cause of deterioration in rubber.
CKGP Co. 1871 Germany Continental Kautschuk und Gutta Percha Co. established in
Hanover.
A. Stephen and 1871 Founded Northern Rubber Co.
F. Pegler
J. Collins 1872 UK Commissioned to report on rubber in Brazil.
G. B. Pirelli 1872 Italy Forms G. B. Pirelli & Co., UK-registered company, in 1909.
H. Wickham 1873 Brazil Commissioned by Kew to collect seeds of ‘Hevea braziliensis’.
1875 World Worldwide production of natural rubber approached 10 000 tons.
G. Bouchardet 1875 France Suggested that isoprene was the primary unit of rubber and
obtained a ‘rubber’ by heating it with fuming hydrochloric acid.
The first synthetic rubber?
H. Wickham 1876 Brazil Dispatched about 70 000 Hevea seeds to Kew; 2397 germinated.
1876 Singapore Fifty seedlings arrived from Kew. Died due to neglect.
R. Cross 1876 Brazil Brought Hevea seedlings to Kew.
King Leopold II 1876 Belgium Leopold II of Belgium opened an International African
Conference which gave birth to the Association Internationale
Africaine (AIA).
H. M. Stanley 1877 Belgium He completed his three-year journey from the east coast of
Congo Africa to the west coast, following the River Congo.
R. Cross or 1877 Singapore Twenty-two, seedlings arrived and survived. Ridley said,
Timeline
H. Wickham? ‘Basis of virtually all Asian trees today.’
W. Curie 1877 UK Patented rubber golf balls.
1878 West Africa Rubber exports totalled 220 tons.
1877–1878 Ceara A great drought; half a million died, the rest fled—many to the
Amazon basin to provide the tappers so desperately needed.
W. Abbott 1878 UK Invented the sulphur chloride vapour cure process for curing
thin films—balloons, medical gloves, etc.
G. Bouchardat 1879 France Repolymerised isoprene to ‘rubber’.
I. Adams 1881 USA Developed electrolytic deposition of copper or silver to provide
interface between metal and rubber.
V. Kreussler 1881 First patent for barrier protection of rubber vulcanisates.
and E. Budde
295
296
H. Trimen 1882 Sri Lanka Sent trial samples of rubber to the UK for evaluation.
H. Low 1883 Malaysia Arguably sent the first Malaysian rubber to the UK.
C. A. Burghardt 1883 Noted that copper accelerated degradation of vulcanised
rubber.
F. Shaw 1883 UK Founded Francis Shaw (rubber engineers). He started as an
engineer with C. Macintosh.
G. Daimler 1884 Germany Produced a lightweight four-stroke petrol engine which would
fit in a ‘horseless carriage’.
P. Lacollonge 1884 France Patented ebonite tank linings to hold corrosive liquids.
Tears of the Tree

C. Macintosh 1884 UK Invented a ‘cushion tyre’ for bicycles.
L. E. Waterman 1884 USA Patented ebonite fountain pens.
1884 USA The ‘State’ of the Congo which Leopold had created and
controlled through a series of confusingly-named companies
was recognised by the USA.
1884 UK The India Rubber Journal (IRJ) first published.
Daimler and Benz 1885 Germany Manufactured the first vehicle designed as a motor car.
R. Dick 1885 UK Proposed gutta-percha for power transmission belting.
E. G. W. Browne and 1885 UK Founded Avon Rubber. Tyre division taken over by
J. C. Margetson Coopers in 1997.
1885 Belgium Exported first African wild rubber.
Congo
1886 UK Southern Rubber Co. founded.
Moseley 1887 UK Patented ‘Flexifort’, a tyre cord with 98% warp and 2%
weft which eliminated the abrasive degradation problems
associated with conventional fabric-reinforced tyres. Used by
Dunlop in his 1888 tyres. Nevertheless, fabric reinforcement
lasted through to the end of the First World War.)
1887 Belgium Thirty tons of rubber exported.
Congo
J. Swann 1887 UK Left Leyland Rubber to start the British Rubber Co.
J. Iddon 1887 UK He also left Leyland Rubber to start Iddon Bros Ltd, machinery
manufacturers.
H. N. Ridley 1888 Singapore Took over Botanical Gardens and began a one-man crusade to
develop rubber plantations.
Timeline
J. B. Dunlop 1888 UK ‘Reinvented’ the pneumatic tyre, but now bicycles and vehicles
were available to use it.
Michelin 1889 France Groupe Michelin formed.
H. Du Cros and 1889 UK Launched Pneumatic Tyre Co. Later to form Dunlop
J. B. Dunlop Rubber Co.
W. S. Halstead 1889 USA First use of rubber gloves in the operating theatre (made by
Goodyear Rubber Co.).
H. C. Pearson 1889 USA Founded the journal India Rubber World in New York.
A. Smith 1890 UK Founded the Scottish India Rubber Co.
1890 Amazonia 20 000 tons exported out of world production of 30 000 tons.
1890 Belgium 130 tons exported.
Congo
297
298
W. E. Bartlett 1890 UK Developed tyre rim designs essentially similar to today’s.
The Bartlett Clincher developed.
J. K. Korzeniowski 1890 Belgium Korzeniowski ( Joseph Conrad) gathered enough experience in
Congo six months to write the semi-autobiographical Heart of darkness
and An outpost of progress.
J. W. Williams 1890 Belgium In an open letter to President Harrison he coined the phrase
Congo ‘A crime against humanity’ in describing what was happening in
the Congo.
J. G. Araujo, Late 1800s Amazonia The three great overlords, all three specialising in torture,
Tears of the Tree

J. C. Arana, to 1920 maiming, and murder to amass their millions (Araujo in the
and the Suarez ‘Manaus’ region; Suarez, 16 000 000 acres in Bolivia centred at
brothers Cachuela Esperanza; Arana, 14 000 000 acres in Colombia and
Peru). Arana is the most documented because of the ‘Putumayo
atrocities’ (see below).
Leopold II 1891 Belgium Issued a secret decree banning natives from selling rubber
and ivory, and demanding action from his agents to secure
them for the State (i.e. himself ).
Edouard and 1891 France Patented detachable cycle tyre—won the Paris–Brest–Paris race.
Andre Michelin
Leopold II 1892 Belgium He split the Congo into three, one part for himself, a second
for his cronies (and by 1898, 50% for himself ), and a third for
Colonel North (financed by Leopold).
W. Tilden 1892 UK Synthesised ‘rubber’ from synthetic isoprene.
T. Robins 1892 USA Developed heavy-duty rubber belting for moving iron ore.
J. F. Palmer 1892 USA B. F. Goodrich made pneumatic cycle tyre with cord
construction.
US Rubber 1892 USA US Rubber Co. formed. Later to become Uniroyal and
eventually part of Michelin North America Co.
L. J. McNutt 1892 USA Discovered how to make channel black.
Silvertown Co. 1893 UK Manufacturing of cord tyres in the UK.
G. L. Porter 1894 UK Harborough Rubber Co. specialising in boot and shoe soles,
heels, etc.
G. L. Hille 1894 UK New Eccles Rubber and Cycle Co. launched to make rubber
balls.
T. Rowley and 1895 UK British Recovered Rubber Co. Ltd founded. Possibly the first
Timeline
H. Grimshaw limited company for reclaiming waste rubber.
H. M. Stanley 1895 Belgium 200 miles of railway completed from the east coast to Stanley
Congo Pool. Five years in the building and several thousand lives.
Tan C. Y. 1895 Malaysia Made the first true commercial plantings of Hevea in Malacca.
Michelin 1895 France Introduced the first pneumatic motor car tyre which was fitted
to a specially designed Daimler. The car took part in the
Paris–Bordeaux–Paris race of that year and finished ninth out
of forty-two entrants.
1895 Malaysia First practicable rubber estate.
R. Henriques 1895 Germany First person to record that solvent extraction of rubber resulted
in poorer ageing properties.
Goodrich 1896 USA Introduced the first pneumatic motor car tyre in the US.
299
300
H. J. Doughty 1896 UK Patented the first ‘whole tyre’ curing process (Dunlop Rubber Co.).
H. N. Ridley 1897 Malaysia Advocated the Hevea tree above all others for rubber
production in Malaysia.
H. N. Ridley 1897 Malaysia Developed and promoted a tapping method very similar to
that used today. Gave much improved yields and extended the
useful tree life.
L. J. McNutt 1897 USA Commercial production of channel black.
B. W. Richardson 1897 UK Adapted the idea of a rubber-bulbed scent spray to spray
anaesthetics—also used by Lister for antiseptics.
Tears of the Tree

W. H. Cox 1897 Patented a machine for making hollow rubber balls.
W. McKinley 1897 USA President McKinley proposed rubber cultivation in appropriate
US possessions—American ‘rubber gold’ rush. By 1910 planting
abandoned and by 1920 virtually nothing left.
C. Haskell 1898 USA Patent for golf ball made of a core wound with stretched
rubber thread and coated with gutta-percha applied for.
Schrader 1898 USA Patented the Schrader valve.
F. Seiberling and 1898 USA Goodyear Tyre and Rubber Co. formed.
C. Seiberling
Michelin 1898 France The ‘Michelin man’ or ‘Bibendum’ appeared for the first
time. Conceived by Edouard Michelin, commissioned by
Andre Michelin, and drawn by Marius Rossillon (aka O’Galop).
J. Perkins 1899 Malaysia Used acid coagulation to make sheets of rubber suitable for
drying/smoking and transporting.
1899 Sri Lanka First plantation rubber shipped from Sri Lanka.
J. C. Arana 1899 Started rubber trading in the Putumayo region of
north-west Amazonia.
1899 UK The first ‘sterling capital’ company launched for rubber
cultivation in Malaysia (the Selangor Rubber Co. Ltd).
By 1900 Ebonite had many uses because of its corrosion resistance,
pumps and battery cases being two major industrial applications.
1900 World production of natural rubbers approaches 50 000 tons.
R. Casement 1900 Belgium Set up the British Consular Service in the Congo, travelled in
Congo the bush, and reported on the atrocities he had seen.
Michelin 1900 France Michelin introduced grooved tyre treads.
Timeline
J. Kondakov 1900 Germany Synthesised polydimethylbutadiene (methyl rubber).
H. Firestone 1900 USA Established Firestone Tyre and Rubber Company.
E. D. Morel 1901 UK Morel, an employee of the shipping line which was used by
Leopold II, became so sickened by what he had discovered
that he resigned and set out to destroy him.
Goodyear and Ford 1901 USA Goodyear enters motor racing with Henry Ford.
Sir C. Dilkes 1903 UK Raised E. D. Morel’s findings in the Houses of Parliament and
Leopold was savaged by Parliament.
P. W. Litchfield 1903 US Working for the Goodyear Tyre Company, made first
tubeless tyre.
1903 Tyre sizes standardised to allow interchangeability.
301
302
H. W. Brett 1903 Malaysia Harrison & Crosfield got involved in rubber as agents to and
shareholders in the Petaling Rubber Estates Syndicate.
S. C. Moke 1904 UK Discovered the ‘reinforcing’ properties of carbon black in
giving extra strength to a vulcanisate.
E. D. Morel and 1904 UK Set up The Congo Reform Society.
R. Casement
Goodyear Co. 1904 USA Separately developed straight-sided wire-bead tyre to replace
Firestone Co. the ‘clincher’.
Continental 1904 EU Launched ‘flat tread’ tyres. (Continental also launched a
Tears of the Tree

Michelin patterned tread and a studded anti-skid tyre.)
R. Ditmar 1905 UK The first appreciation of zinc oxide as a ‘reinforcing’ filler.
1905 south-east 2500 tons shipped out of Malaysia and Sri Lanka (world
Asia output 56 000 tons). 100 000 acres planted to rubber. By 1915
close to 3 000 000 acres had been planted in this region.
1905 UK Guthries became involved with rubber as agents for Linggi
Plantations Ltd.
E. D. Morel 1906 UK Published his damning indictment of Leopold—‘Red Rubber’
Leopold was in retreat.
G. Oenslager 1906 USA First chemical to ‘accelerate’ vulcanisation (aniline, then
diphenylthiourea (DPU)).
Diamond Rubber Co. 1906 USA Used Oenslager’s accelerators to make tyres and realised they
had improved ageing characteristics.
T. W. Miller 1906 USA Patented the moulded-rubber hot-water bottle.
S. C. Mote 1906 UK First practical use of carbon black as a rubber filler.
1907 UK The Rubber Growers’ Association was launched in London by
prominent representatives of plantations in Sri Lanka and
Malaysia.
J. C. Arana 1907 UK Peruvian Amazon Co. formed in London, with control of
800 000 acres in the Putumayo region.
1908 Belgium Government passed an act ‘freeing’ the Congo, and also
‘bought out’ Leopold for £2 000 000 and took over many of
his debts (since he had hidden most of his assets).
W. O. Ostwald and 1908 Germany Patented aniline and similar chemicals as antioxidants.
W. Ostwald
Timeline
1909 US After months of rumour The Truth detailed many of Arana’s
company’s atrocities.
Leopold II 1909 Belgium Died with a known estate of some £5 000 000. He had spent
millions more and perhaps 10 000 000–15 000 000 natives died
to produce 75 000 tons of rubber under his regime.
F. Hofmann 1909 Germany Patents process for making synthetic polyisoprene.
Goodyear Co. 1909 USA Introduced first pneumatic aircraft tyre.
Continental 1909 Germany Introduced the first dedicated ‘winter tyre’.
Pickles 1910 UK Suggested that natural rubber might consist of very long chains
of isoprene units.
1910 Congo Belgian Congo/French Congo and Angola produced about
50% of all African rubber over the first decade of the
303
century.
304
1910 World Wild rubber production around 85 000 tons (50% Amazonian,
25% African, much of the rest from Mexico) and 11 000 tons
of plantation rubber.
R. Casement 1910 Bolivia Enquired on behalf of the UK into the Putumayo atrocities and
confirmed them.
C. Harries 1910 UK Prepared cyclised rubber.
S. V. Lebedev 1910 USSR Polymerised 1,3-butadiene to give a rubbery material (BR).
1910 World Wild rubber peaks at about 90 000 tons per annum. Plantation
rubber (Malaysia/Sri Lanka) passes 10 000 tons per annum.
Tears of the Tree

Collins 1911 UK Patented a process for polymerising styrene.
1911 Malaysia Many Chinese immigrants arrive to ease labour shortage in the
plantations.
Continental 1911 Germany Introduced the first pneumatic truck tyre, but little take-up
until after the First World War.
R. Paredes 1911 Peru An investigating judge, he confirmed that the rumours
concerning Arana were true and, indeed, the real situation was
even worse.
E. Fickendly 1911 Noted that certain phenolics could prevent rubber
oxidation—forty years before introduction of ‘phenolic
antioxidants’.
1912 UK Government published the Casement papers relating to the
Putumayo atrocities.
Diamond Rubber Co. 1912 USA Began commercial use of black, to reinforce tyres (now
and Goodrich tyres black, not white from zinc oxide).
Goodyear 1912 USA Goodyear built the first US airship.
Ostwald 1913 UK Deduced that rubber degradation was autoxidation.
1912/1913 UK The House of Commons found the UK directors ‘culpably
negligent in the ‘‘Putumayo affair’’ ’. The company was wound
up, but Arana could not be prosecuted in the UK and continued
much as before. It is estimated that between 1900 and 1910 the
Putumayo yielded 4000 tons of rubber at a minimum cost
of 30 000 native lives.
1913 UK and The Belgian courts finished untangling Leopold’s legacy and the
Belgium Congo Reform Association disbanded.
Timeline
C. H. Gray and 1913 UK The India Rubber, Gutta Percha and Telegraph Works Co.
T. Sloper patented the radial tyre, but never commercialised it.
1913/1914 World Crossover point! Plantation output of natural rubber exceeds
that of wild (circa 55 000/75 000 tons plantation to
66 000/49 000 tons of wild).
1914–1918 Germany Methyl rubber was used to make vehicle tyres and also
converted to synthetic ‘hard rubber’ for battery boxes and
other ‘ebonite’ applications.
W. L. Utermark 1914 UK Patented latex concentration by centrifugation.
P. Schidrowitz and 1914 UK Patented manufacture of foams from latex as apposed to
H. A. Goldsborough dry rubber.
General Tyre 1915 USA General Tyre & Rubber Co. formed. Later to become
305
Gencorp Inc.
306
I. Ostromislenski 1915 USSR First organic vulcanisation systems without sulphur;
nitrobenzene and peroxides used (At about this time the
importance of zinc oxide in accelerated cures was appreciated.)
S. J. Peachy 1915 UK The first practical patent for chlorinated rubber. Solutions as
varnishes and corrosion-resistant paint.
D. C. Brownlee and 1916 USA Patented production of thermal blacks from natural gas.
K. R. Uhlinger
F. H. Banbury 1916 USA Introduced the first rubber ‘internal mixer’.
1917 Japan Yokohama Rubber Co. founded.
Tears of the Tree

1917 Japan Sumitomo Rubber Incorporated.
J. Gates 1917 USA Invented the ‘V’ belt.
B. F. Goodrich 1918 USA Invented ‘Vulcalock’ for bonding natural rubber to metal.
G. D. Kratz 1920 Discovered the effect of diphenylguanidine (DPG).
1920 World production of natural rubber 350 000 tons.
P. Schidrowitz 1920 UK Pre-vulcanisation of latex and its use to manufacture dipped
goods.
1920 World Natural rubber production 350 000 tons, only 37 000 tons wild.
S. M. Cadwell 1920 Developed aldehyde-amine antidegradants.
I. J. Cooper 1920 USA Formed Cooper Corp., later Cooper Tyre & Rubber Co.
P. Schidrowitz 1920 UK Discovered the pre-vulcanisation of latex.
G. Bruni and 1921 Italy USA Mercaptobenzthiazole (MBT) discovered, independently.
C. W. Bedford
Stephenson 1922 UK Stephenson Reduction Plan introduced to cut output and force
up the price of natural rubber. A disaster and soon withdrawn.
B. E. Lorentz 1922 USA Thiurams introduced.
S. M. Cadwell 1922 USA Xanthates introduced.
R. H. Marriott 1922 UK Suggested making rubber thread by extruding latex through a
jet into a coagulating bath.
Coloumbian Carbon 1922 USA Coloumbian Carbon introduced a range of furnace blacks.
Goodyear 1923 USA Introduced cotton tyre cord.
W. A. Gibbons 1923 USA Patented modern process—extrusion of compounded latex
through multiple glass jets into coagulating bath with
continuous draw-off of threads for drying/curing.
E. Hopkinson and 1923 Italy Zinc dithiocarbamates introduced.
Timeline
G. Bruni
W. F. Russell 1923 USA Patented organic fatty acid/zinc oxide use in vulcanisation.
Revertex 1923 Malaysia Revertex formed in Malaysia to produce latex concentrate by
a heat process.
1924 Germany Fossilised rubber 60 000 000 years old found.
M. Cadwell, 1924 USA Cadwell and Gray/Winklemann independently develop the first
H. Gray, and commercially feasible antioxidants.
H. A. Winklemann
1925 Germany Serious work began on the synthesis of synthetic polybutadiene
(Buna).
H. L. Fisher 1925 USA The first commercial use of cyclised rubber as metal–rubber
307
bond interface.
308
1925 First commercial antioxidants (amines) introduced—staining.
1925/1926 Malaysia Rubber Research Institute of Malaysia formed under
Dr G. Bryce. Took over research labs of the Rubber Growers,
Association.
Rosenbaum 1926 UK Quote: ‘Synthetic rubber is dead’.
H. L. Fisher 1927 USA Working for B. F. Goodrich, put cyclised rubber on a
commercial footing. Materials ranged from gutta-percha-like
to shellac-like thermoplastic resins. Used in ‘Vulcalock’
process to bond vulcanised rubber to most surfaces for
Tears of the Tree

chemical protection.
Henry Ford 1927 Brazil He began to build ‘Fordlandia’—a complete town in the jungle
with (eventually) a plantation of over a million rubber trees.
J. C. Patrick 1928 USA Patented ‘Thiokol’—first commercial synthetic rubber. Note
that this is not a sulphur cure, just metal oxides and possibly
quinones.
W. Semon 1930 USA Suggested diffusion after vulcanisation of protective agents into
rubbers to extend life.
1930 World World production of natural rubber 850 000 tons.
E. Tschunker 1930 Germany Buna N and Buna NN discovered (nitrile rubbers of 25% ACN
and 35% ACN).
1930s Introduction of amine derivative antioxidants (but still staining).
Carothers, Williams, 1931 USA DuPont invented Duprene. Became polychloroprene (Neoprene).
Collins, and Kirby
S. Ishibashi 1931 Japan Forms Bridgestone Co. Ltd.
I. G. Farben 1932 Germany Discovered sulphenamides—adducts of MBT with amines.
C. Dufraisse and 1931 France Observed that rubber extract can be added to rubber to improve
Drisch its ageing.
1932 USSR Russia manufactured SKA, followed by SKB (polybutadiene
rubbers).
1933 World Synthetic rubbers first featured in statistics at 2000 tons.
N. Christensen 1933 USA Invented the ‘simple’ ‘O’ ring seal.
E. Tschunker 1933/1934 Germany Buna S patented and produced (styrene butadiene copolymer).
1934 Brazil Tropical leaf blight wiped out the plantation of ‘Fordlandia’.
Fordlandia 2 begun but again wiped out. The end of Brazil’s
dream of rubber plantations.
Timeline
Goodyear 1935 USA Bought the Kelly–Springfield tyre company.
1935 USSR Sovprene; equivalent to neoprene.
Firestone 1935 USA Introduced the pneumatic tractor tyre.
Goodyear 1936 USA Introduced ‘Pliofilm’ (rubber hydrochloride) as a thin transparent
packaging film, although patented a couple of years or so earlier.
IG, etc. 1936 Germany IG and Metallgesellschaft both used chlorinated rubber to bond
steel and nitrile rubber or polychloroprene.
1936 France Institut Francais du Caoutchouc set up in Paris.
1936 Netherlands Rubber Stichting (foundation) established.
O. Bayer 1937 Germany Developed urethane rubbers.
R. M. Thomas 1937 USA Butyl rubber.
309
310
1938 UK British Rubber Producers Research Association created. Later
Malaysian Rubber Producers Research Association (MRPRA)
then Tun Abdul Razak Research Centre (TARRC).
Goodyear 1938 USA Introduced rayon tyre cord.
Michelin 1938 France Introduced the steel cord bias ply truck tyre.
T. R. Dawson 1939 UK Claimed the word ‘latex’ was in use as early as 1662.
Union Carbide and 1939 USA First use of plasticised PVC as cable sheath.
Goodrich
1939 USA Nitrile rubber produced in the States.
Tears of the Tree

1940 USSR SKI—polymerised isoprene (synthetic natural rubber).
1940 World Natural rubber production 1 500 000 tons, synthetics 150 000 tons.
W. P. Cousino 1941 USA Took out the first patent for injection-moulding rubber articles.
1941 Korea Hankook Tyre Co. founded.
1943 USA GR-S production started (now known as SBR). Government
rubber-styrene becomes styrene butadiene rubber (cf. Buna S).
Continental 1943 Germany Patented tubeless tyres.
Pintin 1943 Germany First patent relating to urethane rubbers.
1940–1945 Germany Nitrile rubber lattices used for many dipped goods. Use of PVME
to heat coagulate and thus make thick films with a single dip also
found (by accident).
1940–1945 Germany Triisocyanate triphenyl methane developed as a rubber–metal
bonding agent. Known today as Desmodur R.
Dow Corning and 1945 USA Silicone rubber. Not a sulphur cure; peroxides used.
General Electric
Michelin 1946 France Patented the steel-braced radial tyre.
B. F. Goodrich 1947 USA Tubeless tyres introduced in the US.
Goodyear 1947 USA Introduced nylon tyre cord.
Michelin 1948 France Michelin introduced the radial tyre (the cords run bead-to-bead
at 90 to the wheel direction).
DuPont 1948 USA DuPont develops fluoropolymers.
Goodrich 1949 USA Acetate rubbers developed.
1950 World Natural rubber production 1 900 000 tons, synthetics
800 000 tons.
Timeline
1950s Introduction of phenolic antioxidants (some non-staining).
1950s Brazil Last wild rubber exported.
Pirelli 1951 Italy Pirelli launches its steel-belted radial, the ‘Cinturato’.
Dunlop 1953 UK First British tubeless tyre.
Ma Chi San 1954 Taiwan Founded Tayfeng Rubber Industries—later Tayfeng Tyre Co.
Goodrich 1954 USA Announced high-cis synthetic ‘natural rubber’ based on
Ziegler/Natta catalysts.
1954 USA Introduction of substituted para-phenylenediamine antiozonants
(still staining).
Pirelli 1955 Italy Introduced the first radial farm tractor drive tyre.
Firestone 1955 USA Low-cis synthetic ‘natural rubber’.
311
Michelin 1956 USA Michelin imports first radials into USA.
312
R. and J. Newton 1957 USA Formed Hoosier initially to make racing tyres by retreading road
tyres (see 1979).
DuPont 1958 USA Introduced fluoroelastomers.
1959 World Natural rubber production overtaken by the synthetics.
2 500 000 tons.
Park Incheon 1960 Korea Samyang Tyre Co. Ltd founded in Yang-Dong. Later to become
Kumho Tyres.
Goodyear 1962 USA Introduced polyester tyre cord.
Tears of the Tree

1964 UK Albany Court built in London above St James, Underground
station. The first building to rest solely on natural rubber
anti-vibration mounts.
B. F. Gooodrich 1965 USA Manufactured the first US radials.
Toyo Tyre and 1968 USA First Japanese company to establish overseas sales company.
Rubber Co.
1969 USA Yokohama Rubber Co. begins manufacture in the US.
MRPRA 1970 UK Urethane crosslinking of natural rubber discovered.
5 750 000 tons.
Dunlop 1972 UK Dunlop introduced the run-flat tyre (Denovo).
Dunlop 1972 UK Dunlop introduced the tubeless tyre.
1972 World Thermoplastic rubbers which have the properties of a
vulcanisate at ‘room temperature’, but can be moulded
and remoulded at high temperatures, start to become
important.
Michelin 1978 France Radial tyres entered Grand Prix racing.
D. S. Campbell, 1979 UK Introduced thermoplastic natural rubber.
D. J. Elliott,
and M. A. Wheelans
R. and J. Newton 1979 USA Formed R. & J. Mfg Corp. specifically to make racing tyres.
1980 World natural rubber production 3 850 000 tons, synthetics
8 250 000 tons.
1984 USA The Law and Justice Centre in San Bernadino County was
Timeline
the first building to be supported on high-damping
(earthquake-resisting) natural rubber bearings.
Sumitomo 1984 UK Bought Dunlop’s European tyre business to create SP Tyres.
1987 Malaysia Epoxidised natural rubber became commercially available
(for a short while)—chemically modified to move into
areas unique to the synthetics (oil resistant and high
damping).
Tayfeng Tyre Co. 1978 Taiwan Changed name to Federal Corporation.
9 300 000 tons.
1990 World Perhaps five billion plantation Hevea braziliensis trees
producing rubber worldwide.
313
314
Michelin 1992 Launched its ‘green’ radial tyre with silica as a rubber
reinforcing agent, the ‘Green X’.
Samyang Tyre 1996 Korea Company name changed to KUMHO Tyre Co., Ltd.
Co. Ltd
1997 World natural rubber production 6 500 000 tons, synthetics
8 700 000 tons.
Goodyear 1999 Goodyear joined forces with SP Tyres/Sumitomo to create
one of the largest global tyre companies.
Tears of the Tree

Bibliography
Journals
India Rubber Journal, first published in the UK in 1884, later to become the
Rubber Journal and now the European Rubber Journal.
India Rubber World, first published in the US in 1889.
Rubber Age.
Books
Akers, C. E. (1914). The rubber industry of Brazil and the Orient. Methuen &
Co, London.
Ascherson, N. (1999). The King Incorporated (Leopold II and the Congo).
Granta Books, London.
Barron, H. (1942). Modern synthetic rubbers. Chapman & Hall Ltd., London.
—— (1947). Modern rubber chemistry. Hutchinson’s, London.
Bateman, L. (ed.) (1963). The chemistry and physics of rubber-like substances.
Maclaren & Sons Ltd., London.
Baum, V. (1947). The weeping wood. Michael Joseph, London.
Brown, H. (1914). Rubber, its sources, cultivation and preparation. John
Murray, London.
Browne, E. (1912). Rubber. Adam & Charles Black, London.
Buder, A. and Langer, M. (1998). Latex in art of the 20th C—problems and
conservation. Diploma thesis in German.
Buist, J. M. (1955). The ageing and weathering of rubber. W. Heffer & Sons
Ltd., Cambridge.
Coates, A. (1987). The commerce in rubber: the first 250 years. Oxford
University Press, Singapore.
Collier, R. (1968). The river that God forgot. Collins, London.
Conrad, J. (1902). Heart of Darkness. Penguin (1999), London.
Cook, J. G. (1963). Rubber. Frederick Muller Ltd., London.
316 Bibliography
Cook, P. G. (1956). Latex, natural and synthetic. Chapman & Hall Ltd.,
New York.
Davis, C. J. and Blake, J. T. (eds) (1937). The chemistry & technology of
rubber. Reinhold Pub. Corp., New York.
De Chasseloup Laubat, F. (1942). François Fresneau, père du caoutchouc. Les
Petits-Fils De Plon Et Nourrit, Paris. (In French.)
Dean, W. (1987). Brazil and the struggle for rubber. Cambridge Univ. Press,
London.
Del Veccio, R. J. (ed.) (2003). Fundamentals of rubber technology. Rubber
Div. A.C.S., Akron.
Drabble, J. H. (1973). Rubber in Malaya 1876–1922. Oxford University
Press, Kuala Lumpur.
Ghosh, H. H. (1928). The realm of rubber. Draymond, Calcutta.
Giersch, U. and Kubisch, U. (1995). Gummi—die Elastische Faszination.
Nicolai, Berlin. (In German.)
Goodyear, C. (1937). Gum elastic. Maclaren & Sons Ltd., London. (IRJ
reprint.)
Gratton, D. W. (ed.) (1993). Saving the 20th C: the conservation of modern
materials. Canadian Conservation Institute, Ottawa. (Full Conference
Proceedings.)
Hancock, T. (1853). Specification of fourteen patents for the treatment of India
rubber. Printed privately, London.
—— (1856). Origin and progress of the caoutchouc or India-rubber manufacture
in England. Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans and Roberts, London.
Hardenburg, W. E. (1912). The putumayo—the Devil’s paradise. T. Fisher
Unwin, London.
Hauser, E. A. (1930). Latex; its occurrence, collection, properties and
technical applications. (trans. W. J. Kelly). Chemical Catalog Co.,
New York.
Hochschild, A. (1998). King Leopold’s ghost—a story of greed, terror and
heroism in Central Africa. Macmillan, London.
Langer, M. (1999). The latex sculptures of Eva Hesse (Diploma Thesis in
German).
Loadman, M. J. R. (1998). Analysis of rubber and rubber-like polymers
(4th edn). Kluwer Academic Pub., Dordrecht.
Mason, P. (1979). Cauchu: the weeping wood: a history of rubber. Australian
Broadcasting Commission, Sydney.
Bibliography 317
Mathyoo, A. T. (1960). The rubber manufacturing industry. Assoc. of Rubber
Manufacturers in India, Calcutta.
Morel, E. D. (1906). Red rubber. T. Fisher Unwin, London.
Naughton, W. S. (1937). Synthetic rubber. Macmillan & Co. Ltd., London.
Pearson, H. C. (1911). The rubber country of the Amazon. India Rubber
World, New York.
Porrit, B. D. (1931). The early history of the rubber industry. R.G.A., London.
Potts, H. E. (1920). The chemistry of the rubber industry. Constable & Co.
Ltd., London.
Roberts, A. D. (ed.) (1988). Natural rubber science and technology. Oxford
University Press, Oxford.
Rosenbaum, J. L. (trans.) (1927). Gottlobs technology of rubber 1915, 1925.
Maclaren & Sons Ltd., Edinburgh.
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (1906). Selected papers from the Kew bulletin;
III–Rubber. H.M.S.O., London.
Rubber Growers’ Association (1928). Latex. R.G.A., London.
Schidrowitz, P. (1911). Rubber. Methuen & Co. Ltd., London.
—— and Dawson, T. R. (1952). History of the rubber industry. W. Heffer &
Sons, Cambridge.
Schotz, S. P. (1927). Synthetic rubber. Ernest Benn Ltd., London.
Scott, J. R. (1958). Ebonite. Maclaren & Sons, London.
Seeligmann, T., Lamy Torrilhon, G., and Falconnet, H. (1903). India-
rubber and gutta percha. (trans. J. D. Mcintosh). Scott Greenwood & Co.,
London.
Slack, C. (2002). Noble obsession. Hyperion, New York.
Spence, D. (ed.) (1909). Lectures on India-rubber. International Rubber &
Allied Trades Exhibition, Ltd., London.
Stanfield, M.E. (1998). Red rubber bleeding trees. NW Amazonia 1850–1933.
Univ. New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.
Stern, H. J. (1955). Practical latex work. Blackfriars Press, Leicester.
Stevens, H. P. and Beadle, C. (1915). Rubber production and utilisation of the
raw product (2nd edn). Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons Ltd., London.
Storrs, Sir R. (1946). Dunlop in war and peace. Hutchinson & Co. Ltd.,
London.
Tedlock, D. (trans.) (1996). Popul Vuh (the Mayan book of Council). Simon &
Schuster, New York.
318 Bibliography
Terry, H. L. (1907). India-rubber and its manufacture. Archibald Constable &
Co. Ltd., London.
Weber, L. E. (1926). The chemistry of rubber manufacture. Charles Griffin &
Co. Ltd., London.
Wicherley, W. (1911). The whole art of rubber growing. The West Strand
Pub. Co., London.
Wickham, H. A. (1908). On the plantation, cultivation and curing of pará
Indian rubber. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. Ltd., London.
Wolf, H. and Wolf, R. (1936). Rubber, a story of glory and greed. Covici.
Friede, New York.
Woodruff, W. (1958). Rise of the British rubber industry during the 19th C.
Liverpool University Press, Liverpool.
Index
A crime against humanity 130 Ameripol 175
ABIR 133 see also Anglo-Belgian Amine antioxidants 174
India-Rubber Co. Ammonia in vulcanisation 209
ABR 184, 185, 186 see also Amputated body parts 128,
butakon 130–131, 135, 153
Abrasion resistance 213, 229 Anderson, William 96
Abrasive rubber 223 Anglo-Belgian India-Rubber Co. 125
Abrasive wear 270, 273 Aniline in vulcanisation 209
Académie Royale des Sciences 15 Antidegradants 242, 249
Academy of Science, Paris 19, 20, 24 Antioxidants 174, 239–243
Accelerators 208–215, 253, 254, 261 mode of operation 242
Accelerene, see nitrosodimethylaniline Antiozonants 240–241, 254, 257
Acetylene black 225–7 mode of operation 242
ACN 185 see also nitrile rubber Anti-slavery and Aborigines Protection
Adams, Roger 178, 180 Soc. 156, 157
African rubber industry—common Antonio de Herrera Tordesillas 12
thread with South Anversoise 125, 133
American 145 Apocynaceae 24
Ageing processes (illustration and Arana, Julio César 148–163
types) 245, 247–250 after 1920 162
Agglomerates 227 see also carbon American politics in the
black—variations in Putumayo 157
properties death 162
Aggregates 227 see also carbon defence to UK Committee 161
black—variations in early life 148
properties first rubber estate 149
AIA 113, 114, 119–123 hat salesman 148
AIC 121–123 in the Putumayo 150
Alarco, Abel 150 operating structure 150–151
Alberta 137 reason for UK company 150
Alice Pike 117, 119 rubber bug 69, 149
Almeida, Dr 47 S. American murmurings against 157
Amazon xviii, 10, 16, 17, 25, 26, 81, self-justification 158
82, 84, 86, 93, 103, 145, 146, 148, Arana, Lizardo 150
150, 153, 158, 160, 162 Araújo, J. G. 146
Amazonas, see SS Amazonas Arburg 203
Amazons 17 Artificial reefs from used tyres 266
American shoe trade 74 Asphalte 223
320 Index
Association Internationale Africaine, Baum, Vicki 15, 26
see AIA Bayer 21, 168, 174
Association Internationale du Beer’s law 248
Congo 121 Belém (Pará) 81, 84, 86
Athletic tracks from recycled rubber Belgian Parliament 136–138
crumb 271 Belichick, Meg 258
Atmospheric ageing 247 Belterra 103
effect of trace metals 249 Beni River 146
mechanism 249 Bennett, James Gordon 116–118
Atmospheric pollution 243 Berlin Botanical Gardens 25
AU 187 see also polyester urethanes Berlin Conference 123
Aublet, J. C. F. 24, 25 Bertin, M. 19, 20
Auleytner 1 Betsy & Eliza 143
Austin/Morris 74 Bewley, H. 47, 201
Automotive tyres 173, 174, 175 BIIR 185 see also brominated IIR
Auxochromes 244 Bill of entry, see SS Amazonas
Avon Rubber Co. 73 Biosynthesis 187
Aztecs 4, 10, 11, 13, 25 Birley, Henry 43, 66
Birley, Herbert 66
Bacteriological devulcanisation 273 Birley, Hugh Hornby 56
Baer 170 Birley, Richard 66
Balata 28 Birley, Thomas H. 66
Ball courts 2, 3, 6, 7, 9 Blend morphology 229–231
and graveyards 9 Blending 216, 231, 232
positions 4 Blends and tyre composition 229
rings 5 Blood Moon 8
shape 2 Blooms
teams 4 different types, causes and
victors 6 mechanisms 250–257
Yagul 2, 3 inorganic fillers 249
Ball game 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 27 Blown sponge 66
decapitation 7 Bolivian rubber 153
extent 2 Bonded materials 53, 270
religious significance 6, 7 Botanic Gardens of Buitenzorg 95
Balls (soft rubber) 204 Botanic Gardens at Kew 77, 83, 84,
Banbury 198 85, 88, 92–99, 103
principle of operation 198 Bouchardat, A. 168
Banbury, Fernley 198 Boyle, Robert 164
Barclay, James 72 BR 166, 169, 184, 274, 275 see also
Barrère, Pierre 24 Butadiene rubber, buna and
Barrier technique for protecting polybutadiene
vulcanisates 250 Bradford-on Avon 43, 68, 70
Barytes 224 Brandis, Dietrich 84
Batch process 200 Brazil 25, 28, 77, 81, 86, 89, 92, 101,
Batey, see ball game 148, 149, 158, 162
Index 321
Brazil nuts 90 Caoutchouc ivory 234 see also ebonite
Bridge, David 190 Caoutchouc springs 48
Brighteners 223, 228, 243 Caoutchouc whalebone 234 see also
British Parliament 147, 163 ebonite
Brockedon, William 56, 62, 63, 66, Cap Ferat 137
68, 207 Caquetá river 162
gives us the name ‘vulcanisation’ 65 Carbon black xxv, 220, 261, 273
Brownian motion 165 and Chinese 224
Brownlee 225 and Egyptians 224
BTR Industries 48 general history 224
Buffalo Bill 171 indicative micrograph 227
Buna 174 see also butadiene rubber loadings 228
Buna S. 174 see also styrene butadiene types and sources 225
rubber variations in properties 225–227
Busse 165 Carbon dioxide 187, 204, 275, 276
Butadiene 175, 176, 181, 184, 185 Cariflex 185 see also IR
Butadiene acrylonitrile rubber 174 see Carioca, Manoel 146
also also nitrile rubber Carothers, Wallace 177–180
Butadiene rubber 166, 169, 229, 274 death 180
energy requirements 274 first commercially successful
Butakon 184 synthetic elastomer 179
Butyl latex 250 first successful synthetic fibres 179
Butyl rubber 176, 181, 231, 250 marriage to Helen Sweetman 180
phial of cyanide 178
Cahuchu 15 Carter, W. H. J. 86
Calcium carbonate 257 Casement, Sir Roger 134–136, 141,
Calcutta Botanical Gardens 84 156–163
Calender 190–195 report of Arana 157
shearing 192, 195 report to UK Committee 159
three roll 192 Castilloa elastica 16, 23, 24, 27, 97
Cameron, Lovatt 112, 117, 119 origin of the name 25
Candy 97 Castilloa seedlings 93, 97
Canisius, Edward 133 Catheters 50
Cantly, N. 99 Catholic church 126
Caoutchouc 15, 22, 23, 48, 53, 59, Cauchuc 26 see also caouthouc
60, 72, 222 Ceará 149
origin and meaning 15, 26 Ceará seedlings 93, 97
origin and meaning (Kechuan Cement industry and scrap
Indians) 26 tyres 272
origin and meaning (Cobo, B.) 27 Cervantes, Vincente 25
origin and meaning Ceylon (Sri Lanka) xxviii, 83, 84, 93,
(Holguin, D. G.) 27 95, 96, 99
origin and meaning (Maı̈nas Chaffee, Edwin 190, 194, 220, 222
Indians) 26 Chalk 223, 228
origin and meaning (Tupi Indians) 26 Chalking 249
322 Index
Channel black 224, 226 see also Competing reaction 242, 248
Carbon black—general history Compte de Chassloup Loubat xxvii,
Chapman, William 93 14, 21
Charles Macintosh & Co. 43, 56, Condoms xxv, xxviii, 277
60–62, 66, 67, 68, 74 Congo xxviii, 108–142, 145, 153,
Chávez, Ricardo 84 155, 156, 157, 162
Chemical devulcanisation 260 Congo Free State 121, 123, 130, 136,
Chichen Itza 3, 6, 9 138
Chicle 187 Congo Reform Association 135, 138
Chinese and carbon black 224 Conquistadors 2
Chloroprene—synthesis of 178 Conrad, Joseph 128, 134
Chlorinated IIR 184 Copper, see Trace metals—effects on
Chloroprene 167, 184 see also vulcanisates
polychloroprene Corn People 2
Chlorosulphonated polyethylene 183 Cortez, Hernando 6, 11, 12
Choate, Rufus 40, 41 Council Book 6, 7 see also
Chrome salts 222 Popol Vuh
Chromium, see Trace Spanish translation 8
metals—effects on vulcanisates Count Savorgnan de Brazza 121
Chromophores 244 CR 167, 177, 184 see also
CIIR 184 see chlorinated IIR polychloroprene
Cinchona tree 18, 83, 85 Craig, see Semon, Sloan & Craig
Cis-polyisoprene 187, 254 see also Cramer, P. J. S. 95
natural rubber and synthetic natural Crazing 249
rubber Cross, Robert 83–85, 93–97, 107
Clay 13, 223, 257 Crosslink density 211–213, 217, 218,
CO 183 223
Coal tar naphtha 53 Crosslink distribution in blends
Cobalt, see trace metals—effects on 216–217
vulcanisates CSM 183 see also chlorosulphonated
Cobo, B. 27 polyethylene
describes latex stockings 13 Cure 65, 66, 189, 204, 207, 235,
Co-continuous phase 229 253, 271 see also vulcanisation
Coffee 92, 97, 101, 103 Curing 207 see also vulcanising
Cold cure process 214 Curing and vulcanisation xxvii, 207,
Collins, James 84, 92 213, 214
gets first hevea seeds in UK 84 Curing related to smoking 214
Collins, Arnold 178 Custer, General G. A. 170
Colorants 222, 223, 224, 228, Cutler, Horace 36, 37
257
Columbus, Christopher 12 Daily Tribune 41
Comité d’Etudes du Dandelion 22
haut-Congo 120–124 Dawson 1
Compagine du Kasai 131 Day, Horace 36–43, 76
Compatibiliser 218, 219 Decapitation 6, 128, 155
Index 323
Deformation 164, 165 Hancock’s documented
DeForest, William 29, 38 products 234–235
Degradation xxvi, 190, 224, 239, illustrated products 236–237
240, 243, 247–250, 255, Nathaniel Hayward 38
256, 263, 269, 272, 277 origins and history 232
by abrasion 246 products 233
by chemical attack 246 synthetic 235
by continuing vulcanization use for making moulds 233
chemistry 247 Ebonite rooms 40
by oxidation 239–241, 255 Ebonite skin 233
sunlight induced 239, 246 Efficient vulcanisate (EV) 212, 213
Del Castillo, Juan Deigo 25 Egyptians and carbon black 224
Devulcanisation 260, 261, 273 El Encanto 154
Dickens Charles 23 El Tajin 3, 6
Differential solubility of chemicals Elastic xxix, 22, 33, 35, 49, 164, 167,
in rubber blends 216–217 168, 216, 225, 232, 260
Diffusion theory in limiting Elastic bands 164, 165, 260
degradation 243 Elastic properties 164, 169, 170, 207,
Dilkes, Sir Charles. M. P. 134 228
Diphenylguanidine 208 Elastomeric 164, 186, 229, 263
Dipped latex products 204, 205 Elder-Dempster Shipping Line 131,
Discolouration 243, 244, 251, 256, 132, 135
257 Eli, William 34–36
Discrete phase—see blend morphology Elizabeth Lyne 48
Dock fenders from used tyres 266 Ellis, Wynne 58
Domaine de la Couronne 137, 139 Emulsion phase polymerisation 181
Domaine Privée 124 Enema syringes 16
Double textured fabric 53, 58, 59 Enema tree 24
Dough waterproofing 51, 60 Energy requirements for
DPG, see diphenylguanidine recycling 264
DPNR 185 see also NR Engineering industry—lack of 190
Drisch, see Dufraisse, C. ENR 185 see also NR
Drummand Hay, James 86 EOT 185
Dufraisse, C. 240 EPM 181, 182, 231 see also Nordel
Dumping 258, 260 EPDM 181, 182 see also ethylene
Dunlop 204, 224, 225 propylene rubber
Dunlop Standard Aerospace Etat Indépendant du Congo 123
Group 48 Ethylene 181, 182
Dunlop, John Boyd 66, 73, 144 Ethylene norbornene 181
DuPont 177–181 Ethylene propylene rubber 181, 216,
Dyera Costulata 28 231
EU 186, 263, 266, 272 see also
Eagle Rubber Co. 31 polyether urethanes
Ebonite 38, 66, 232, 247 Everington and Ellis, see Ellis,
Goodyear 40, 42 Wynne
324 Index
Experiments with elastic bands 165 marriage 18
Extending oils 220, 228 second marriage 19
Extrudate 201 syringes 16, 19, 24
the Marquese d’Ambres 17
Fanshawe’s Improved waterproof fabrics 20
Rubber Cloth 58 widowed 19
Fatigue cracking 213 with Charles Marie de la
Fatty acids 208, 209 Condamine 17–18
Federal Highway Administration 272 Frosting 251
Feeney, Mary 156 Fuel 243, 272, 273, 274, 276
Ferris, Charles 84 Fuel economy 229
Ficus elastica 27, 28, 83, 97 Funtumia elastica 28
Fillers—general purpose xxix, 220, Furnace blacks 225–227
221
Firestone 224 Galloway, P. D. 253
First World War 162, 225, 238 Galoshes 10, 261
see also Great War Gandee & Steele 38
Flash 201 Gas phase polymerisation 175, 181
Flex cracking 270 General Gordon and Khartoum
Fluorel 183 see also Viton 121–122
Fluorocarbons 262 General purpose elastomers 187
Fondation de la Couronne 137, 138 General purpose rubbers 167,
Fondation of Niederfulbach 140 187
Force Publique, see Genus Globosa 28
Leopold—private army Geon Corp. 176
Ford, Henry 102, 103 Getting rich in the Congo 109
Fordlandia 102, 103 Gielgud, Henry 159–160
Formers 13, 189, 204 Golden rod 22
Foxton, R. N. 253 Golf balls 28
FPM 183 see also Viton Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo 12
Francisco de Melo Palheta 92 Goodrich, B. F. 173–176, 224
Francisco Inocêncio de Souza Goodyear, Amasa 29
Coutinho 92 Goodyear, Charles xxvii, 29–45,
Frank and Marckwald 225 62–69, 71–77, 168, 188,
Free sulphur 253, 257, 260 207, 208, 209, 212, 222,
French Guiana 17, 23, 24 224, 228, 233, 253, 260
Fresneau, Francois 13, 17–21, 24, books 41
25, 50, 168 death 44
‘memoire’ 19 death of Clarissa 42
and Bertin, Hérrisant and different stories about
Macquer 20, 21 discovery of vulcanisation
early life 17 33–36
in the new world 18 and Horace Day 39
La Gataudiére 17, 18, 19, 21 and Horace Day in court
M. Duplessis 17 40–41
Index 325
and Nathaniel Hayward 31–32 Hancock, Fanny 46
discovers vulcanisation 32–33 Hancock, Harriet 46
early life 29–30 Hancock, James 45, 48
French decorations 43 Hancock, James Lyne 48, 60–62, 75
jail 29, 30, 37, 43 Hancock, John 45, 46, 56, 59
marriage to Clarissa 29 Hancock, Maria 46
marriage to Fanny Hancock, Thomas xxvii, 37, 38, 40,
Wardell 42 43, 45–80, 82, 84, 168, 188, 189,
visits Marlborough 220, 222, 224, 231, 233, 253
Cottage(?) 66 against Stephen Moulton 72–73
Goodyear, Harriet 29 death 79
Goodyear’s Vulcanite Court 40 early experiments 48
Goswell Road 55, 57, 60 in court against American shoe
Gough-Joule effect importers 74
Government Rubber (GR) 170, 174, Kensal Green cemetery 79
175, 176 letters to Hayward & Day 76
GPO 183 see Parel Letter to Sir W. J. Hooker 77
GR-A (government ‘magnum opus’ 74
rubber—acrylonitrile) medallion 71, 78
175 see also nitrile rubber ‘Narrative’ 52, 62, 66, 70, 76, 77
Grasshopper 57 retirement 65
Great exhibition 40, 42, 46, 70, rubber products 71
81, 233 rubber tube controversy 60
Great War 140, 141, 169 see also First sees Goodyear’s vulcanised
World War rubber 62
Green, Charles 58 vulcanisation 62
Greenhouse gas 187 vulcanisation patent 63–64
GR-P, see thiokols vulcanising patent 222
GR-S (government Hancock, Walter 46, 55
rubber—styrene) 174, 176 Hancock, William 46
see also styrene butadiene Harburger-Gummi-Kamm-Co. 235
rubber Hard rubber 38, 66, 232
Guatemala 6, 7 see also ebonite
Guayule 28, 187 Hardenburg, Walter Ernest
Gubbins, John 157, 160 153–162
Guiana 17, 18, 19, 23, 24, 28 documentary evidence against
Guibal, see Rattier Arana 155
Gum Elastic 41, 233 evidence to UK Committee 161
Gummi optima 12 ‘framed’ by Arana 161
Gunn, Marjorie 172 in Iquitos 154
Gutta percha 28, 45, 46, 47, 201, 231 marriage 157
on the Putumayo 153–154
HALS, see Hindered amine light publishes ‘The Putumayo’ 161
stabilizers stories of atrocities 153–5
Hancock, Charles 46, 47 to London 156
326 Index
Harris, John H., Revd 156 Içana river 146
Hayward Rubber Co. 38, 68 IG Farbenindustrie 170, 174, 176,
Hayward, Nathaniel 31, 32, 34, 38, 181
68, 69, 74, 76, 233 IIR 176, 181, 184, 185 see also butyl
tombstone 38, 39 rubber
Haze 256 IM 176, 182 see also
Healy, George 42 polyisobutylene
Heart of Darkness 128, 134 Impact modified plastics 231
Heat ageing, mechanism of 248 Incas 10, 15, 26
Heinzerling, C. 223 Incompatibility 216
Heneratgoda Gardens 93, 97 India Office 83, 87, 92, 93
Henriques, R. 239 India Rubber, Gutta Percha and
Herclor 183 see also epichlorohydrin Telegraph Works Co. 47,
Hernandez, Fernando 23 225, 235
Herodotus 1 India rubber 22, 23, 33, 51, 58,
Hevea 26, 81, 88, 93, 96, 97, 99, 60, 76
107, 275, 276 Industrial revolution 188, 189
Hevea biomas 275 Injection moulding 201–204
Hevea braziliensis 22, 24, 25, 27, 28 Inorganic fillers and blooming 256
location in Amazonia 25 Intermix 197
origin of the name 25 Internal combustion engine xxviii,
Hevea guianensis 24 144
Hevea peruviana 24 Internal mixers 197
Hevea plantations 275, 276 Internal stresses and blooms
Hevea seedlings 81, 93, 97 255–256
to India 93 International Commission of
to Sri Lanka 93, 95 Enquiry into the Congo
to Singapore 94, 95 136
Hevea seeds and ideas for Iquitos 148, 149, 150, 151,
cultivation 84 154, 155
Hevea trees 88 IR—synthetic natural rubber 185
Hill, Julian 179 Iron Duke 192, 194
Hindered amine light stabilizers 248 ISO 1629 182
Hoffer, R. 223 Isobutylene 181, 184
Holguin, D. G. 15, 27 Isoprene 168, 176, 181, 184, 186
Holy Grail 239 Izapa 6
homo-polymers 181
Hooker, Sir Joseph 84, 87, 88, 103 JC Arana & Hermanos 150
Hooker, Sir William J. 77, 85 Joao Martins da Silva
Huallaga river 149 Coutinho 92
Huitito native 11, 153 Jonson, Ben 12
Hunahpu 8 Johnson, W. H. 26
Hypalon 183 see Jones, Fordyce 16, 106
also—chlorosulphonated Jones, Sir Alfred 132
polyethylene Juliaans, Arnoud 25
Index 327
Kaiser Wilhelm II 168 Lead 257, 258
Katz 165 Leopold II 108–142, 145, 150, 156,
Kautschuk 15 162
Keir, James 21 and Africa 111
Kew Bulletin III 95, 96 Brussels Conference 112
Kik 26 buildings in Belgium 137–138
Kindersleys, the 101 Catholic church camps 126
King Leopold II, see Leopold II caught out in the Belgian
King, Guy 154 Parliament 136
Kingston House 70 death 138
Kingston Mill 70 early years 110
Kondakoff, I. 168 focuses on the Congo 112
Koroseal 174 see also PVC fooling the Belgians 123–124
Korzeniowski, Jóseph Konrad 134 see fooling the US and Europe
also Conrad, Joseph 121–122
Krynac 185 see also nitrile rubber King Edward VII 138
Kuala Kangsar 101 latex collection protocol 127
first plantings of Hevea 99 meets Stanley 120
one remaining tree (photo) 99 policy raised in UK parliament 134
Kuba people of the Congo 130–1 plans to ‘take over’ the Congo 112
private army 126, 127
La Condamine, Charles Marie de sets out Stanley’s role 120–121
xxvi, xxvii, 13–19, 24, 26, 164, walls of defence 137
168 Leuchs, E. F. 232
his early life 13–16 Liberty tyres 175
with Francois Fresneau 17–18 Life rafts 180
with Godin and Bouguer 15 Light catalysed degradation—
La Gataudiére xxvii, 17–21 mechanism 248
La Neuville, Father AJ de 23, 24 Light scattering 256
La Rochelle 21 Light stiffening 249
Lamp black 224, 225 see also Lime 222
Carbon black—general history Linseed oil 223
Landfill 260, 262, 263 Lister-Kaye, Sir John, Bart 151, 160
Landolphia 24, 27, 28, 127 Little ash girl 258, 259
Lane, Edward 106 Liverpool 87, 88, 89, 90, 131, 132,
Latex xxv, 11, 13, 15, 16, 19, 22, 57, 150
58, 97, 101, 127, 188, 204, 271 Livingstone, Dr David 111, 114,
collection in the Congo 27, 129 117
foam 204 Loayza, Miguel 154
pre-vulcanisation 204, 214–215 Low, Seth 143
post-vulcanisation 215 Low, Sir Hugh 99
sterilising 11 Ludersdorff, F. 233
stockings described by Cobo 13 Lunar Society of Birmingham 21
toys 206 Lunatics 21
Latex products—dipped xxvi, 204 M group rubbers 182
328 Index
MA Hannah Co. 176 Mayan doll xxvi
Macintosh, Charles 53–63, 71, 77, MBT, see mercaptobenzthiazole
189, 190 McNutt 224
death 63 Medical gloves xxvii, 205
Macintosh, George 66 Medical tubing 213
Macquer—‘Dictionnaire de Mercaptobenzthiazole 208
Chymie’ 21 and blooms 208
Macushi Indians 28 Mesoamerica 25
Madiera river 153 Mesoamerican civilizations
Magnesia 30, 31, 222 xxv–xxviii, 1–11
Magnesium oxide 223, 228 Mesoamericans 220
Magnesium silicate 222 Methyl rubber 168, 169, 235
Malaysia xxvii, 28, 94, 95, 96, 97, Mexica, see Aztecs
98, 102, 105, 276 Meyer, Adolph 235
Malaysian plantation industry Meyer, von Susich & Valco 165
early problems 99 MFQ 184
first plantings 99 MGF sports car 74
latex profitability established 101 Micelle 256
Malacca 101 Michelin 224
Perak 99, 101 Microscopical techniques in blend
Ridley suggests large scale analysis 217
planting 99 Microwave devulcanisation 273
Selangor 99, 101 Migration—preferential of additives in
Malaysian Rubber Producers blends 229
Research Association 210 Mill intermixer 201
see also TARRC Mill sizes 195–197
Mamoré river 153 Miller 171
Manaus 81, 86, 88, 89, 90, 146, 147, Mini 74
148, 150, 151, 153, 160 Mitchell, Chapman 260
Manganese, see Trace Mixers 190
metals—effects on vulcanisates Mixing mills 195, 196, 220
Manihot glaziovil 28 Moakes, R. C. W. 256
Marañon river 148, 149 Modified blooms, see
Marennes xxvii, 19, 21 blooms—different types,
Markham, Sir Clements 18, 82–85, causes and mechanisms
87, 92, 93 Mokaya 2, 6
Marks 261 Moke, S. C. 225
Marlborough 45 Monomers 169, 174, 178, 181, 190,
Marlborough Cottage 46, 47, 62, 66 210, 211
Mastication 56, 57, 190 Montezuma 10–12
Masticator 37, 51, 52, 59, 60, 64, Montgomerie, Dr 47
191, 220 Morel, E. D. 131–135, 138, 139
Matadi 123, 124, 125 early awarness of Congo
Mattson, Morriss 34 atrocities 132
Mayan civilization 1–9, 26 West African Mail 133
Index 329
Morphology of blends 229 NBR 167, 175, 185 see also nitrile
Moseley, J. 224 rubber
Motor cars xxviii, 75, 223 Negro river 85, 146
first 144 Neoprene 178, 184 see also
first designed for pneumatic polychloroprene
tyres 145 Nickel, see Trace metals—effects
Moulding 197–201 on vulcanisates
compression 201 Nieuwland, Father Julius 178, 179
injection 201 Nitrile rubbers 167, 217, 218, 262
transfer 201 Nitrosodimethylaniline 208
Moulton bicycle 73 Non-staining antioxidants 242
Moulton, Dr Alex 73 Non-tyre rubbers in cars—problems
Moulton, Stephen 37, 43, 60, 62, with recyling 262, 263
65, 68 Nordel 182
equipment problems 193–194 North British Rubber Co. 77
in the US 69 North, Colonel 125
life 68–73 NOX’s 243–244
marriage 69 NR 185 see also natural rubber
MPQ 183 Nuclear Magnetic resonance
MPVQ 184 spectroscopy 217
MQ 183 see also Nunn, John Hancock 48, 62
polydimethoxysiloxane Nylon 66 179
Murphy, E. A. 204, 242 Nylon and World War 2 180
Murray, Captain George S. 87–89 Nylon stockings 179–180
Murton, H. J. 93, 96, 99
O group rubbers 183
Nah, S. H. 251 Obedos 90
Nairne’s of London 22 OENR 185 see also NR
National Bureau of Standards 171 Oil 13, 183, 184, 185, 187, 216,
Natsyn 185 see also IR 220, 224, 228, 232, 262, 263,
Natta, Guilio 181 273, 274
Natural proteins 208 Oli lacquer 250
Natural rubber xxv–xxx, 2, 4, 8, 12, Olli 26, 27
19, 21, 22, 28, 46, 56, 95, 108, Olmecs 2, 9
164, 165, 166, 168, 173, 174, 175, One Hunahpu 8
178, 181, 185, 187, 188, 190, 207, Orella, Francisco de 17
208, 210, 214, 216, 217, 218, 219, Ostromislenski, I. 209
229, 231, 232, 240, 247, 254, 271, Ostwald, W. 210
274, 275, 276, 277 OT 185
blood of sacrifice 9 Otero, Germino Garrido y 146
chemically modified 232 Overshoes 31, 36, 143, 188 see also
energy requirements 274 galoshes
Popol Vuh significance 8 Oxidative degradation, see
production in the 20th C 144 rubber—understanding of
Naugatuck Rubber Co. 38 degradation
330 Index
PA 185 see also NR Pitman 200
PAC 156–158 see also Peruvian Pizarro 17
Amazon Co. Plantation industry xxix, 85, 96, 97,
response to UK Committee 98, 99, 104, 143
159–160 Plantation rubber 99, 101, 102, 140,
wound up 157 158, 166
Pahl, W., see Heinzerling Planters from used tyres 267
Pará 81, 84, 86, 87, 89, 90, 92, 143, Plasticised PVC 262 see also PVC
144, 148, 150, 161, 166, 188 Plasticisers 182, 220, 228, 277
Pará nuts 90 general purpose 220
Pará rubber 81 see also Hevea Plasticon 174
braziliensis Plastics, see thermoplastic elastomers
Parachute canopies 180 Plastics Historical Society 52, 80
Paraphenylene antiozonants and Playground pads 265
blooms 254 Pneumatic tyres xxviii, 66, 73, 144,
Paraphenylenediamines 241, 242 145, 224
Paredos, Judge Rómulo 158 Pocock, Frank 118
Parel 183 Pok-ta-pok, see ball game
Paris Exhibition 41, 42, 233 Poly(epichlorohydrin) 183
Parkes cold cure process 65, 189, 214 Polyamides 179
Parkes, Alexander 65, 66, 77, 189, Polybutadiene 175, 181, 216, 229 see
214, 260 also butadiene rubber
Parthenium argentatum 187 high cis 1–4 181, 184
Particle size 225–226 see also Polychloroprene 167, 177, 178, 182,
Carbon black—variations 184, 216, 228, 262
in properties Polydimethylsiloxane 183
Paternoster, Sydney 156 Polyester 179
Patrick, Dr Joseph 170 Polyester urethanes 186
Patriotic Junta 162 Polyether urethanes 186
Peachy, S. J. 208 Polyisobutylene 176, 182, 231
Pelles 82, 152 Polymerisation xxix, 174, 175, 181
Peradeniya (Botanic Gardens) 97 Polymers 169, 173, 177, 181, 186,
Perak 96, 99, 101 207
Peroxide curing 214 Polyolefinic elastomers 207
Personal Narrative, see Hancock, PolyOne Corp. 176
Thomas Polypropylene 231, 232
Persoon 25 Polystyrene 186
Peruvian Amazon Co. 151 Polyvinylchloride 173 see also PVC
Peruvian Amazon Rubber Co. 151 Pope Pius X 150
Phase compatibilisation 218 Popol Vuh 6, 9 see also Council Book
Phase separation 219 Poppenhusen and Koenig 235
Phenolic antioxidants 242, 243, 244 Poppenhusen, Conrad 235
Pickle 37, 50, 52, 189 Post-vulcanisation
Pietro, Martire d’Anghiera 12 mechanism 215–216
Piperidine in vulcanisation 208 Power driven machinery 190
Index 331
PPD, see paraphenylenediamines alkali process 261
Prain, David 95 demand 261
President Roosevelt 136 Recycling xxix, 181, 231, 258
Pre-vulcanisation 214–215 cost benefit 260
advantages over ‘dry’ economics 263
vulcanisation 216 energy requirements 273–275
mechanism 215–216 environmental damage 260
Prevulcanised latex 204 market for end product 263–4
Price 261 non-tyre rubbers 262–3
Priestly, Joseph 22 possible rubber products 265–272
Processing 46, 47, 190, 274 processes for making rubber
Product characteristics 245 chips and crumb 268–269
Proofer’s Song, The 241 tyre rubber 263–272
Propylene 181, 182 Recycling and rubber—a
PS 186 see also polystyrene definition 260
Pseudo blooms, see Red Rubber 136
blooms—different types, Regrooving 265
causes and mechanisms Reinforcement of rubber 224, 228,
Purús river 146 261, 273
Putumayo 11, 150, 152, 153, 154, Remolino 153
155, 156, 158, 160, 161, 162, 163 REP 203
local politics 157–158 Resilience 213
location 148 Retreading 264–265
Putumayo Affair 147, 158, 162 Retro protection of vulcanisates 245,
PVC 170, 173 see also polyvinyl 249–250
chloride Rheometer 211, 212
applications 173–176, 182, 186, 262 Rider Brothers 69, 70
Pyrolysis 272, 273 Ridley, Sir Henry N. 94, 95, 97,
scrap rubber 263 99, 101, 102, 143, 168
Rioja 148
Q group rubbers 183 River Kasai 125, 130
Queen Victoria 40, 104 River Negro 85, 146
and the Congo 119 Robber barons 108
Quiché Maya 7, 8, 9 Roberts, Charles, M. P. 159
Quinine 18, 83 Rocca, Benjamin Saldaña 154–156
Quinones 244 Rolling resistance 229
Roosevelt, President 136
R group rubbers 181, 184 Rot-proof cords 180
Radiation curing 214 Rowlands, John 115
Random co-polymers 181, 185 Rowley 208
Rattier & Guibal 55, 56 Roxburgh, W. 232
Read, Henry 151, 160–161 Roxbury Rubber Co. 30, 31
Recapping 264, 265 Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew 77,
Reclaimed rubber 83, 84, 85, 87, 88, 92,
acid process 261 93–97, 99, 103
332 Index
Royal Geographic Society 117 Rubber waste 50, 258, 272
Rubber xxvii, 98 Rubber wood 274
Amazonian history 145 Rubberised asphalt 270, 271
and devil worship 13 Rubberised carpet backing 228
as a fuel 276 Rubberised fabric 34, 73, 189
oldest 1 Rubberised road surfaces—cost
product reuse 265–266 considerations 271
understanding of degradation
239–257 Sacrifice xxvi, 6, 9, 26, 27
Rubber balls 204 Santarem 84, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 92,
Rubber barons 145, 147, 150 103
Rubber bottles 13, 16, 49, 50, 188, SBR 166–167 see also styrene
258, 260 Butadiene rubber
Rubber buffings 265 Schidrowitz, Philip 1, 204, 214
Rubber chips—procedures 268 Scholz, Waldemar 147
Rubber compound 35, 197, 200, 201 Science Museum, London 52
Rubber compounding 197 Scottish Vulcanite Co. 235
Rubber crumb 260, 268–272 Scrap rubber—reuse by
Rubber doll, The 259 grinding 260
Rubber elasticity 165 Second World War xxix, 166, 175,
Rubber impregnated fabric 192 180, 238
Rubber items—sacrificial items 3 Semi-efficient vulcanisate 213
Rubber manufacturing equipment 46, Semon, Sloan & Craig 249
189 Semon, Waldo 170–177, 249
Rubber People 2 death 176
Rubber plantations 77, 83, 84, 85, early life 170–172
97, 98, 99, 101, 102, 104, 105, Kent State University 176
124, 140, 143, 169, 275, 276 Seringa tree 16
Rubber products 13, 16, 38, 67, Sequential reactions 248
69, 74, 173, 220, 222, 226, 231, Seringal 16
256, 260 Seringueiros 16, 151, 152
19th C 188 Serrano, David 154
Amazonian natives xxvi, 10 Set 247
Thomas Hancock 53 Seven Hunahpu 8
Rubber Research Institute of Shaw, Francis 190, 197, 201
Malaysia 95 Shearing action 192, 195, 197
Rubber seedlings (summary of travel Shearing calender 192
facts) 95–96 Shelf ageing 247, 249
Rubber seeds (Brazilian export Sheppard, William Henry 130–131
laws) 92 Shiibashi, T. 217
Rubber surface degradation 255 Shoe heels—PVC 174
Rubber technology 25, 52, 239 Shoe soles from used tyres 266
Rubber tree 24, 36, 77, 81, 85, 90, Shoes xxv, 10, 31, 38, 74, 143, 188
104, 275 see also Hevea braziliensis, Shoes—joke 11
Syringe tree, Seringa tree Silica 223
Index 333
Silicone oil 256 areas under early cultivation in
Silicone rubbers 182, 183 Sri Lanka 99
Silva Gomes, Luis de 146 Congolese population
Silvertown 225 1880–1930 140–141
Silvertown Rubber Co. 48 early land usage in Malaysia 102
Singapore Botanical Gardens 93, 94 energy requirements to synthesise
first plantings of Hevea 99 and process natural & synthetic
Siphonia elastica 25 rubbers 274
SKI3 185 see also IR Hancock’s early statistics 75
Skid resistance 274 Leopold’s income & fortune 139
Slavery 154, 156 natural rubber production
in the Congo 112–130 20th C 166
Slaves 81, 143, 154, 155, 156 Putumayo deaths 158
Slippage 247 Putumayo, lives vs rubber 163
Sloan, see Semon, Sloan & Craig rubber ex Pará 1836–72 144
Smoking related to curing 214, 215 rubber from the Congo 139
Solarisation 32, 233 rubber vs life in the Congo 141
Solvent swelling 167, 213, 219, 250 scrap tyres 262
South American rubber industry, synthetic rubber production
its common thread with 20th C 166
African 145 US rubber production
SP 185 see also NR 1939–45 175–176
Specimen 66—see nylon 66 Staudinger, Hermann 165
Spencer, George 73 Steam carriages 46
Spencer-Moulton 73 Steam-heated platens 200
Spiller, J. 239 Stearine 223
Spreading machine 55, 59, 189 Steel 269, 273
Spruce Richard 81, 82 Stephenson Reduction Plan 169, 174,
Sri Lanka 83, 93–97, 99, 107 see also 175
Ceylon Stereo-regular emulsion phase
SS Amazonas 87, 88, 92 polymerisation 181
bill of Entry, Liverpool 90 Structure 230–232 see also
crew records 89 Carbon black—variations
voyages in 1885–6 89 in properties
Staining 243, 256 Styrene butadiene rubber 166–167,
Standard Oil 174, 176, 181 174, 229
Stanley Falls 118, 124 energy requirements for
Stanley Pool 118, 121, 125 synthesis/processing 274
Stanley, Henry M. 114–129, 131 Suárez, Nicolás 146, 153
early years 115–116 Submarine telegraph cables 47, 207
how to deal with natives 118 Sulphur 32, 33, 34, 38, 62, 64, 69,
Lady Alice and Alice Pike 117–119 71, 72, 73, 185, 207, 208, 209,
meets Leopold II 120 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 222, 231,
railway 120, 123–126, 134 232, 233, 247, 252, 253, 257, 260,
Statistics 261, 273
334 Index
Sulphur bloom 252 Thermoplastic elastomers 181, 186,
Sulphur chloride 189, 214 231–232
Sulphuric acid 247 Thermoplastic rubbers 263
Surface contamination 252, 256 Thiokols 170, 185
see also blooms—different types, Thiurams 209
causes and mechanisms Thomas, A. G. 251
Surgeons’ gloves xxv, 277 Thomas, James 69
SW Silver & Co. 47 Thompson, R. W. 66, 144
Sweetman, Helen 180 Through the Dark Continent 118
Swettenham, Sir Frank 99, 143 Tiber 66—see nylon 66
Synthetic ebonite 235 Tilden, W. A. 168
Synthetic elastomers 23, 164, 170, Titanium dioxide 223, 228
174, 176, 182, 187, 190, 229 Tlachtil 2 see also ball game
Synthetic fibres 179 TNT manufacture 172
Synthetic rubber xxix, 163–188 Toltecs 9
Synthetic rubber production in Top dressings from recycled rubber
the 20th C 144 crumb 270
Syringe tree 16, 24, 25 Torquemada 12, 13
Syringe wood 16 Total energy audit 264
Syringes—Fresneau, Francois 19 Toys xxvi, 71, 176, 177, 204
Trace metals
T group rubbers 185 discolouration/staining 257
Talalay, Leon 204 effect on ageing 243, 249
Talc 30, 222, 223, 228 see also effects on vulcanisates 223
magnesium silicate Tread wear 225, 229
Tan Chay Yan 101 Trimen, Dr H. 96, 97, 101
Tapajos river 86, 88 True blooms, see blooms—different
Tappers 16, 77, 81, 82, 98, 145 types, causes and mechanisms
life in the Congo 126–128, 135, 141 Trumbull, Dr 173
the Putumayo 151–160 Truth—the newspaper 156
the view of Henry Gielgud 159–160 Tun Abdul Razak Research
TARRC, see Tun Abdul Razak Centre 210
Research Centre Turpentine 20, 32, 48, 53, 54, 59
Tea 97, 98 Two roll mill 201
Teats xxv, 213 Tyre reclaim demand 261
Technoflon 183 see also Viton Tyre wear 274
Tenochca, see Aztecs Tyres xxv, 173, 174, 175, 179, 223,
Teotihuacan 9–10 225–226, 240, 260, 262, 266–272
The Mechanics Magazine 79 Tyres—recyling problems 263
The Times 130
Thermal aging 213, 246–247 U group rubbers 186
Thermal blacks 225–227 Uhlinger 225
Thermal degradation UK Parliament and the Putumayo
scrap rubber 263, 269, 272 investigation 159–162
Thermal movement 165–166 report into Arana 162
Index 335
Ultrasonic devulcanisation 273 Wet traction 229
United States Rubber Co. 38 White lead 34, 222
Upton, James 143 Wicherley, W. 95
UV absorbers 248 Wickham, Harriette Jane 85, 86
Wickham, John 85
Valcácel, Judge Carlos 157, 158 Wickham, Sir Henry 84, 92, 93, 94,
Valco, see Meyer, von Susich & Valco 97, 98, 105
Van Kerckhoven 128 acquires Hevea seeds 88
Vaucanson 19 book of 1908 87
Vicki Baum, see Baum, Vicki Brazilian official view of the ‘seed
Villa des Cèdres 137 snatch’ 92
Vistanex 182 see also Polyisobutylene character assessments 105
Viton 183 family deaths in Brazil 87
Voltaire 14 his story dismantled 88–92
Von Susich, see Meyer, von Susich & in British Honduras 103
Valco in Papua New Guinea 104
Vulcalok 173 in Queensland 103
Vulcanite 38, 66, 232 see also ebonite life after 1876 103–107
Vulcanisation 45, 200, 222, 239 life to 1876 85–87
and curing 207, 214 marriage 86
chemical process 210–211 parents 85
chemistry 165, 208 return to England 104
effect of different systems on Willdenhow 25
properties 213 Williams, G. 168
history xxix, 207 Williams, James Washington 129,
new chemicals 208 137
sulphur/accelerator levels 210–213 ‘A crime against Humanity’ 130
theory of develops 210, 212 letter to King Leopold II 129
Vulcanised rubber articles 258 letter to President Harrison
Vulcanising ingredients; differential (USA) 129
solubility in blends 217 premature death 130
Vulcanising system 209 Willis, J. C. 98
Witchcraft 4, 27
Waste management 231 Woburn 31, 32
Waxes 257 Woodcock, Alonso 56
purpose of blooms 253 Woodcock, Edward 55
Weber, CO 210
Webster, Daniel 40–41 Xanthates 209
Weiditz 6 Xbalanque 8
Welsh, C. K. 145 Xinénez, Francisco 8
Werner Pfleiderer 197 Xmucane 7, 8
West African Mail 133 Xpiyacoc 7, 8
West Ham Gutta Percha Co. 47
West Indians 151 Yellowing—reasons and
Arana’s mistake 156 mechanisms 243–245
336 Index
Yucatan peninsular 6, 9, 26 Zinc mercaptobenzimidazole and
Yurimaguas 148, 149 blooms 253
Zinc oxide 209, 213, 214, 223, 254,
Ziegler, Karl 181 256, 257, 273
Zinc dialkyldithiocarbamates 209 Zinc stearate and blooms 254
Zinc dithiocarbamates and Zumaeta, Eleonora 148, 157
blooms 253 Zumaeta, Pablo 149, 150, 157

Tears of The Tree - The Story of Rubber - Loadman

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

Tears of The Tree - The Story of Rubber - Loadman

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Tears of The Tree - The Story of Rubber - Loadman

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

This page intentionally left blank

1. The Mesoamericans and the ‘all-American

1. The Mesoamericans and the ‘All-American

2. Europe goes West

4. The Battles of the Giants—Charles Goodyear

5. The Battles of the Giants—Thomas Hancock

10. The Heavy Mob

11. Chemicals and Curatives

12. Padding or Performance Enhancer?

13. The Rot Sets in

14. Death and Destruction

Fig. 0.1 Mayan doll made from

ways of collecting it and forming it into a wide variety of objects

The oldest known sample of rubber was reputed to have been

Fig. 1.1 Classical design of a ball court at Yagul.

Fig. 1.2 Mayan ball players.

Fig. 1.3 Ball court at Uxmal. Close-up of the ring.

Fig. 1.4 Severed head inside a Mayan ball.

The prehistory of rubber took many years to deduce and resulted

Fig. 2.1 Charles Marie de la Condamine.

Fresneau (unfortunately, the biographer of François Fresneau,

They [the natives on the banks of the Amazon] make bottles of it in

Fig. 2.2 La Gataudière.

At this point it is appropriate to consider what plants provide us

In 1723, Father A. J. de la Neuville wrote of the peculiar gum

The ﬁrst of our giants is Charles Goodyear who was born at

He had made what today we call vulcanised rubber. But now he

right to sell elsewhere licences to any patent which the company

Fig. 4.2 Charles Goodyear.

Fig. 4.3 Charles Goodyear’s tombstone.

with the death of Arthur. A year later Fanny gave birth to a

The second giant in the story of rubber vulcanisation is Thomas

Fig. 5.1 Marlborough Cottage.

same chemical composition as rubber but with a different spatial

Fig. 5.2 Hancock’s pickle.

so he immediately designed a larger one, this time made of cast

. . . in the course of half-an-hour, more or less, according to the

Fig. 5.3 Hancock’s ﬁrst metal pickle.

Rubber technology had arrived in the shape of the highly secret

Fig. 5.4 Charles Macintosh.

naphtha and oil of turpentine, was much superior to that of

Fig. 5.5 The Hancock factory, Goswell Road, 1850.

Fig. 5.6 The ‘Grasshopper’, built by Easton & Amos, 1822.

and the other in Manchester), and so knew exactly what he was

Fig. 5.8 William Brockedon.

sometimes he had managed to effect what he called ‘the change’

There were, however, still legal battles to be fought. In 1847

Fig. 5.10 Stephen Moulton.

One wonders why Hancock chose to write to Hayward in this

Fig. 5.13 Thomas Hancock: (a) an ebonite medallion, and (b) a

Fig. 5.14 (a) Hancock’s memorial in Kensal Green Cemetery, and

Fig. 5.15 Plaque erected on the site of Marlborough Cottage, 2003.

history until 8 January 1945 when a German V2 rocket exploded

It is probably useful to note at the beginning of this chapter the

One has to wonder at his enthusiasm when his notes tell of

Unfortunately, the story just does not gel.