INVENTED TINSEL

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20036, 7 September 1939, Page 14

INVENTED TINSEL

LONDON’S OLDEST MAN DEATH AT .102 YEARS London’s oldest man, Mr. William Henry Harris, of Algernon road, Lewisham, the inventor of tinsel, has died at the age of 102, states the News-Chronicle. He was born when William IV. w T as on the Throne—his father was the strong man of Woolwich —and went to work when only six years old. For working 12 hours a day as a child, from 6 a.m. until 6 p.m., he received half-a-crown a week, But he rose to be chief engineer of a Lewisham silk mill—now demolisheed. It was while working there that he “invented" tinsel, which revolutionised decoration at parties. His boss wanted to produce a thread that sparkled, but it was not until Mr. Harris picked up a thread with metal shavings adhering to it that the idea became a practical possibility. Tinsel was born. The industry gave employment to between 200 and 300 operators in the one mill alone. Another of Mr. Harris’ inventions was a tube for tracheotomy—the operation on the windpipe necessary sometimes in treatment for diphtheria. He always claimed that one of his tubes was used to treat the German Emperor—father of ex-Kaiser Wilhelm ll.—who died of an affection of the throat. When he was in his sixties he made his own bicycle, which sold for £2B. At the age of 84 he went up in an aeroplane, which he called a “balloon."

He was married on Christmas Day, 1859, and both his sons (inclUding“my boy, young Willie”—aged 78) also married on December 25.