DISCOVERY OF VULCANIZATION (1840s) TO ABOUT 1905
(BRAZILIAN RUBBER BOOM)

Vulcanization

Unvulcanized rubber suffers from softening at high ambient temperatures and hardening at low temperatures: anyone who has owned crepe-soled footwear will be aware of this. Ways were sought to overcome this by treating the rubber with all sorts of chemicals, eventually (in 1839) Charles Goodyear found vulcanization by accidentally heating sulphur-coated rubber which he observed became firm and was stable under heating and cooling. The reader may wish to digress to learn more about the importance of Goodyear.

Accelerators of vulcanization

Goodyear found that metallic oxides and carbonates speeded vulcanization, but lead accelerators discoloured vulcanizates. Rowley patented use of ammonia in vulcanization, but it is doubtful if significance was noted. Gummiwerke Wundt using red oil (crude aniline) by 1902 and acting as an accelerator. Much of this emprical work was highly hazardous and appears to have consisted of taking the by-products from coal distillation (for town gas), using them to soften the rubber and finding that they accelerated vulcanization and led to longer product life (and presumably lessened the life of the workforce).

Rubber processing industry

The twin developments of mastication by Hancock and vulcanization by Goodyear enabled the birth of the modern rubber industry. By the 1850s rubber was being used in used in springs for railway rolling stock and the pneumatic tyre had been invented by R.W. Thomson in 1845, but had failed to be exploited. This had to await another Scot: Dunlop.

Wild trees fail to meet demand for rubber

The demand for rubber was growing and supplies were dependent upon the collection of rubber from wild trees (Hevea brasiliensis) growing in the Amazon Basin and to a limited extent upon Funtumia elastica growing in the Congo region. There was no control of the raw material as it was collected and processed under primitive conditions (many of the trees were damaged and the labourers were abused). Furthermore, it was anticipated that the supply would eventually fail to meet the growing demand. There was pressure from the early industrialists, including Thomas Hancock, to establish more reliable supplies, as well as from the geographer Clements Markam.

Clements Markham

Because Sir Clements Markham was a Civil Servant, there has been a tendancy to consider him his as little more than a bureaucrat and to underplay his contribution to the rubber story. The digression places Markam's full contribution within its rightful context. It is Markham who arranged the expeditions to the Amazon to collect seeds and seedlings for transfer to South Asia (and eventually to South East Asia). Wickham usually receives most of the credit, but other were involved, notably Collins and Cross (who has probably received too little attention).

Brazilian Seeds

Henry Wickham successfully gathered 70,000 seeds in the Amazon region and shipped them back to Britain where they were germinated at Kew where some 2700 germinated. Seedlings were shipped to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and to Singapore and so into the Malayan Peninsular. The movement of these materials by steam boat and steam train was a magnificent achievement. Some commentators imply that the seeds were "stolen" (and the local guides in Manaus state this), but it would appear that the seeds were removed in an official way, but that the implications of this transfer failed to be appreciated until estate production in South East Asia actually began - a long time after the seeds were gathered.

Henry Wickhem

Plantation industry

The plantation industry was slow to establish itself, although Hevea had flowered in Kuala Kangsar (Malaysia) in 1880 and a Ficus elasica plantation had been established in Indonesia in 1861. Investment in plantations had to await the demand created by pneumatic tyres and motoring. Henry Ridley, who did much to refine tapping methology, attempted to encourage the establishment of plantations. There are tales that Ridley used to carry rubber seeds in his pockets for distribution to potential planters in what was then Malaya. Small scale plantings were made in several West African countries during the 1890s.

Henry Ridley

Outlets for rubber

By the middle of the nineteenth century there were many, and varied, outlets for natural rubber. These included seals for sewers; conveyor and transmission belting; flooring; many items associated with clothing; inflatable boats and, perhaps most interesting of all, the use of natural rubber as a spring material in railway and road vehicles. The illustrations show some early examples. The ever-eager Hancock published a book which lists many of the Victorian innovations, including some of those made from ebonite (many of which to be exhibited at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851).

Pneumatic tyres

The story of the Scottish vet (John Boyd Dunlop) who assisted with his wee lad's tricycling by inventing the pneumatic tyre in 1888 is well-known. It is less well-known that the innovative activity took place in Belfast (it was the Irish stone setts which hurt the boy), and not in Ayrshire (Dunlop was born in the village of Dreghorn, between Kilmarnock and Ardrossan). This created a new demand for rubber as cycling became popular, but the real demand came from motoring which developed during the 1890s and becoming fully viable in the next period.

The Michelin brothers were the major entrepreneurs as they encouraged the use of pneumatic tyres for early racing vehicles, notably in the 1895 Paris to Bordeaux race. Progress in Britain was inhibited by the need for a man with a red flag to walk in front of road motor vehicles.

New industrialists

Seiberling founded Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co in Akron in 1898 (the company is based on the name of the inventor, and is not related to the inventor) and in 1899 Harvey Firestone created the Firestone Tire & Rubber Co.: the latter was eventually to be acquired by the Japanese Bridgestone Corporation. The United States Rubber Co had been established in 1892 (it is a now a part of Continental). Even earlier (1872) B.F. Goodrich had been founded: it became a major tyre company, but now concentrates upon the supply of synthetic rubber and other chemicals.

Rapid growth in demand

The use of motor transport grew rapidly especially in the USA. Early tyres had a very short life. Demand for rubber grew and the price went sky high. This encouraged the rapid growth of rubber plantations in Ceylon, Malaya, the Dutch East Indies and French Indochina (Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam and Cambodia). It should be remebered that early motor vehicles (horseless carriages) were intended for a rich elite and the costs involved were regarded as being trivial.

Smallholders

Many of the indigenous inhabitants of these areas had been farming for generations. These farmers were perfectly capable of perceiving a good idea and rapidly took up rubber cultivation on a smaller scale. Eventually, such activity was ruthlessly discouraged by the estate companies (most of whom were based in the great financial centres, such as London and Paris), with the assistance of the colonial administrators once prices fell during the subsequent Inter-War period (1920s and 1930s).

Rubber War & Brazilian rubber boom

Serier recorded the "rubber war" between Bolivia and Brazil. At the end of the nineteenth century the Acre region of the upper Amazon was a part of Bolivia. The inhabitants of the Acre region attempted to obtain independence and this led to conflict between Brazil and Bolivia. The Treaty of Petropolis ceded the Acre region to Brazil in return for a payment and the construction of a railway into the region. Before the plantation industry got under way there was a rapid increase in demand which was partially met by a ruthless exploitation of the wild Hevea stands in the Amazon Basin. There was a ruthless exploitation of labour and of the trees. The magnificent opera house in Manaus is a relic of this period.

Guayule

In 1901 William Lawrence discovered how to extract from guayule. This desert shrub grows in Northern Mexico and the neighbouring regions of the USA. Until the full impact of plantation rubber from Asia became evident in the market place guayule was able to compete due to the high rubber prices prevailing before then.

Summary (so far)

The above very brief history of the rubber industry up to early twentieth century is intended to show that demand was a key factor in the development of the industry.

>Part 3