100TH BIRTHDAY OF RUBBER

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 295, 7 September 1920, Page 5

100 TH BIRTHDAY OF RUBBER

ROMANCE OF A LITTLE HOUSE IN LONDON. Tho hundredth birthday of rubber t>a an article of commerce has just been, celebrated, says the "l>aily Mail." in the spring of 1820 rough lumps of "caoutcnouc '(as rubber was then known) werti constantly arriving in England, but solely as curios. That same spring Thomas Hancock, a man of 31, who had up till then lived at Stoke Newington, London, took over a small house in Goswcll Road, Islington, N.W. Convinced 'that there was soino commercial- future before these "'caoutcliouc" curios, he began experimenting--his laboratory a small whitewashed room and his apparatus a boiler and it few bottles of chemicals. It was tho ,6tran>«) ejastio quality of the raw rubber that unprefsou Thomas Hancock mofit. Ho was amazed, he said, that a substanco possessing such peculiar properties should only be used for rubbing out pencil marks. His first object was to fashion ,the elastic rubber into tinn stripe-tar tho purpose, ho said, of keeping gloves nnd stockings in position, nnd tor keeping pockets from being picked. into first early success came on June 13, &<« — Inindred years a»«. , ' . .. He found plenty of obstacles in his path. The rubber springs, tor instance, had to be attached by needle and thread, and the rubber split at each necd.loliole. When he started (in company wiffi the more famous Macintosh) to "watprproot "loth, he found that lailors insisted on sewing on the ruWbcr, m> that the noedlchoks let in water, and his trade suffered. Doctors, too, argued that tiieso waterproofs' were unhealthy—though previously they hiul condemned tho danger o»' getting wot through on a rainy day. Later enme triumph, anil the factory ;u Goswetl Road grew until ovory conco£•nr. rul>hor article—from a tiny }»•■•<= to huge floats for raising sunken shipswas being turned out without a Haw. When Thomas Hancock died the rubber works wero large and flourishing'. Thov nre there to-day in tho Goswell Road, but grown out of all knowledge, and with an output Hint would have amazed tho founder. The whole staff celebrated tho centenary bv an excursion _ to the south coast in motor coaches—with rubber tyres.