Fifth PHS Plaque

On 22 June 2004 John Ratcliffe, President of the PHS, unveiled a plaque in honour of Morris Kaufman's life and work at his home in North London, where thirty-six guests and local press met to pay their respects. Guests included Roy Manns, a major PHS benefactor, who had flown in from the USA, and Peter Ransley, the first editor of Plastics and Rubber Weekly, now an award-winning TV, film and theatre writer. Morris Kaufman was a distinguished plastics historian and educator whose slim but significant volume The First Century of Plastics: Celluloid and Its Sequel, written and edited by Morris in 1963, is still a key text on the origins of the plastics industry. Simon Parkes, great great nephew of Alexander Parkes, inventor of Parkesine, wrote recently to Jen Cruse: 'At the time when The First Century of Plastics was published Alexander Parkes was pretty largely a forgotten figure, and it was due to that book that (he) was rescued from his undeserved oblivion.' Morris's expertise lay primarily in education and polymer technology and he was also the Plastics Institute's industrial archaeologist, a Science Museum Fellow and a founder member and committee member of the PHS. At the time of his death he was working on a new history of plastics, and fortunately part of his research has been edited by Sue Mossman and John Lissen and published in Early Plastics: Perspectives, 1850 - 1950, edited by Sue Mossman in 2000. Morris's many publications include Giant Molecules (1968), A History of P VC (1969) and countless reports and articles. Born in the East End of London of Central European origins, Morris understood the importance of education and training, and he later he became Principal Lecturer and a governor at the Polytechnic of North London, now known as London Metropolitan University, which houses the historical School of Polymer Technology. He was also Chief Training Advisor to the former Rubber and Plastics Processing Industrial Training Board and he sadly regretted its closure. His passion for working with young people resulted in The Kaufman Award which was set up to help students whose education would be curtailed through financial difficulties. "He was an inspired teacher" said John Ratcliffe, who confessed that Morris had once enrolled him on the Poly's famous introductory course on plastics. "He reckoned that I was a born bureaucrat and since I was taking on the job of Secretary of the Plastics Institute, I needed some sound basic knowledge about plastics so that I would be able to spell words such as 'polyethylene'. The unveiling was as much a family affair as an event celebrating Morris's achievements and the Society is most grateful to Morris's wife Rene for allowing the party to invade her home and for offering excellent refreshments.