First started using rubber solutions to coat fabrics and manufactured articles – gloves, etc.

First patent for dry rubber; cut strips for elasticating clothes, braces etc. Opened a factory in London which became ‘James Lyne Hancock’.

Invented his “Pickling” machine which enabled dry rubber to be worked into a “dough”. Actually a masticator.

Dipped shoes appeared in the USA, made in S America, exported to Paris – gilded, “fashioned” and returned to America.

Bertrams Ltd established. Made machinery for linoleum, paper and rubber manufacture.

Pickling machine (masticator) now horse powered!

Used Naptha for rubber solvent.

Direct imports from Brazil.

Realised that if fabric coated with rubber solution then had another layer of fabric applied to rubber, the three layer sandwich was waterproof and not sticky –“MACINTOSH”.

Founded Chas Macintosh and Co.

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.

Pitch/rubber solution -> sheets for coating ships’ bottoms etc.

Thomas’ brother  began work on rubber/fabric hoses.

First native rubber shoes sold in the US.

Established empirical formula of natural rubber as C5H8.

Agreement with Macintosh to make rubberised fabrics and garments at latter’s factory in Manchester.

Patent for carriage springs made of rubber blocks.

First recorded use of rubber hoses used against a fire (in London).

Patented rubber solution spreading machine.

Water beds containing warm water used in Wales to assist miners with hypothermia.

Patented rubber thread wrapped with fabrics to give elastic woven webs.

Roxbury India Rubber Co. founded (1st US rubber Co.).

On average, some 500,000 pairs of rubber overshoes per annum had been imported from Para.

Use of latex for dresses and ornaments.

Sent a teacher to Brazil to show the natives the best way of collecting and preserving latex.

Sulphur and hot molten rubber gave a ‘coal-like’ mass – probably ebonite.

Rubber/turps/lampblack paint to waterproof leather.

Founded company named after themselves. Eventually became Michelin et Cie.

Rubber and a little sulphur in solution – heated to give better ageing and reduced stickiness – The first vulcanizate?

Claimed to have invented the water bed and gives details of manufacture and advantages.

Roxbury India Rubber Co. began manufacture of rubber footwear in the US.

First encountered gutta percha, used by the natives to make hatchet handles.

Patent for ‘cracking’ rubber to produce ‘caoutchoucine’ and suggested its use as a rubber solvent.

Patent for sticking shoe and boot soles on with rubber.

Hancock became director of Chas Macintosh and Co.

Proposed making ‘carpets’ of canvas, wallpaper and rubber.

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.

Introduced rubber billiard table cushions.

Became intrigued by rubber – some say obsessed after seeing rubber goods in New York store of the Roxbury India Rubber Co.

Pyrolytically decomposed rubber.

Used rubber solutions for binding books.

Wrote that Mr Pickwick’s frown vanished like the marks of a blacklead pencil beneath the influence of India rubber.

Invented the spreader, the standard coating machine of today. At last forced to release details of his ‘pickling’ machine or masticator.

Economic crisis. Rubber bubble burst.

Made latex thread using a spiral grove cut in a cylinder. No applications or interest shown.

The two meet.

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.

Rubber manufacturing industry in the US finished but 5,000,000 pairs of unvulcanized shoes p/a still imported from Brazil.

Purchased rights to Hayward’s “solarisation” process and began experimenting with rubber/sulphur mixes.

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/hardened on cooling and it had lost its stickiness.

First commercial vulcanized material – rubber thread for “shirred” cloth.

Patent for a masticator with specific mention of the addition of sulphur and lead oxide (as an opaque filler).

An Englishman in America, he came to the UK as Goodyear’s agent, with samples of his vulcanized rubber to negotiate a deal with interested UK parties.

Showed Hancock some of Goodyear’s cured rubber and proposed the term ‘vulcanization’ for the process of its manufacture.

The UK began to import rubber from Singapore (from ficus elasticus and urceola elastica).

Joseph Robinson & Co. founded. Rubber manufacturing equipment.

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.

Introduced gutta percha to Europe. First use was for knife handles. Then golf balls etc.

1st US vulcanization patent applied for.

Produced “Hard rubber” (Ebonite / vulcanite) by prolonged treatment of rubber with molten sulphur.

In November he obtained UK provisional patent. For vulcanizing rubber.

Over 100 rubber and rubber equipment manufacturing companies formed in this period. Some historically interesting ones are in the timeline.

Used carbon disulphide as solvent for rubber.

In February UK patent application refused but US patent granted.

Suggested rubber-moulded dolls and toys.

Used vulcanized wrapped rubber thread to make webbing for ‘elastic sided’ boots.

Introduced vulcanized rubber billiard table cushions.

First gutta percha golf ball made in Scotland.

Suggested gutta percha as telegraph wire insulant.

Patented the pneumatic tyre but no vehicles suitable to make it a commercial success!

Brought gutta percha from China.

Made a part-ebonite plate to treat cleft palates.

The Gutta Percha Company formed.

“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.

Advent of anaesthetics with rubber components of apparatus.

Patented a vulcanized sponge rubber – suggested use in Cushions.

First gutta percha patent – for a laminate consisting of three layers: gutta-fabric-gutta.

Used ammonium carbonate as blowing agent – still used today.

Vulcanized rubber shoes and overshoes manufactured again– many for UK market.

Began manufacture of vulcanized rubber balloons.

Patent for the making of telegraph cables with gutta percha.

Insulated undersea cables with gutta percha.

Noted the close similarity of the thermal decomposition products of natural rubber and gutta percha.

Moulton founded his rubber goods company at Bradford-on-Avon.

Byrne India-Rubber Co. founded later sold to Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Co.

Used golden antimony sulphide instead of sulphur to produce red thread (20% of thread market by 1914).

First recorded use of gutta percha as a telegraph cable insulant (in London).

Founded R & J Dick Ltd., gutta percha and balata manufacturers.

Drew attention of rubber traders to the rubber-producing vines and their possible commercial value.

Failed in first attempt to lay gutta percha insulated cable from Dover to Calais.

Second attempt failed but then completed.

Proposed ebonite as a bonding layer – rubber to metal.

Charles’ brother, Nelson, patented manufacture of ebonite.

Great Exhibition in London full of rubber and ebonite articles.

Vulcanized rubber shoes being manufactured at a rate of over 5,000,000 pairs p/a.

The first ‘serious’ rubber traders moved up the Amazon with the coming of steamers.

Founded what was to become the “India-Rubber, Gutta Percha and Telegraph Works” in London.

Founded Forster & Williams (submarine and India-Rubber manufacturers) which joined with CE Heinke & Co in 1902.

3 tons of rubber exported.

Suggested ammonia as suitable stabiliser for latex.

First imports of latex to UK.

Rubber sole with leather edging (to sew to uppers) appeared.

Patented the use of a press for vulcanising shaped products.

Discusses various ‘fillers’ or buking agents – including lamp black and various earths.

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.

Patented ebonite components in spinning/weaving machinery and also proposed ebonite-coated metal components.

Patented use of ebonite for dental plates.

UK manufacture of vulcanized rubber shoes began in Scotland to avoid Hancock’s English patent. The North British Rubber Co.

Harburger Gummi-Kamm-Co formed to make ebonite combs.

Published his “Personal Narrative” with much practical information on rubber products and their manufacture.

First transatlantic cable (insulated/coated with gutta percha) laid by the cable ship ‘The Faraday’.

Manufactured the first hollow rubber dolls.

First prepared chlorinated rubber.

Introduced the first rubber insulated/coated cables.

New Liverpool Rubber Co founded – later to become Dunlop Rubber Co.

Decomposed natural rubber and isolated isoprene (C5H8). Gave it that name.

Rubberised ‘V’ belting patented.

Used steam-heated platens in his vulcanising press.

Rubber prices at all time high – cost more than silver.

World wide production of natural rubber around 1,500 tons.

First British company dedicated to ebonite – The Scottish Vulcanite Co. – formed. Later joined with N British Rubber Co.

Showed that degraded gutta percha had oxidised.

Developed the first screw extruder for rubber production.

Founded Brookland Rubber Co., later Leyland and Birmingham Rubber Co.

Invented the ubiquitous rubber stamp.

Dental dam introduced

Proposed brass as a bonding interface between steel and rubber.

The invention of the inflatable rubber bladder (and the pump to inflate it) gave the modern football.

Carbon black first produced commercially to use with rubber vulcanizates.

Died. Tombstone in Colchester CT describes him as the inventor of “hard rubber” (ebonite).

Atlantic cable laid from Heart’s Content (Newfoundland) to Valentia (Ireland) by the ‘Great Eastern’.

Opened the Amazon and its tributaries to foreign trade. Ocean liners could now reach as far as Iquitos (2,300 miles from the Atlantic coast).

Patented first commercial solid vulcanized tyres for steam engines.

A shoe was produced with a vulcanized rubber sole fused to a canvas upper. Reputedly known as the ‘felonies’ and also ‘brothel creepers’ they must have been very quiet! In the UK they were eventually called Plimsols by Philip Lace (1876).

Polymerised styrene – not an elastomers but mentioned here because of its importance in SBR, SBS etc.

Founded rubber factory in Akron.

Recognised “oxidation” as cause of deterioration in rubber.

Continental Kautschuk und Gutta Percha Co. established in Hanover.

Founded Northern Rubber Co.

Commissioned to report on Rubber in Brazil.

Forms GB Pirelli & Co. UK registered company in 1909.

Commissioned by Kew to collect seeds of “hevea braziliensis”.

World wide production of natural rubber approached 10,000 tons.

Suggested that isoprene was the primary unit of rubber and obtained a ‘rubber’ by heating it with fuming hydrochloric acid. The first synthetic rubber?