The Notebooks of Alexander Parkes
Colin Williamson

Among the collection of Parkesine items held by the Plastics and Rubber Institute are Alexander Parkes' notebooks which give a fascinating insight into the mind of the 'father of the plastics industry'. They cover many years spent working on metals and plastics and include gems such as an 1838 list of the 68 fruit trees planted by A. Parkes in grounds near Harbourne near the church.

His first mention of a plastics composition is in August 1849 when he comments on Thomas Charles Clarkson combining 'certain vegetable substances with leather. India rubber . . . . in the manufacture of certain waterproof articles'.

Several of the notebooks run from front to back and back to front at the same time, so this entry is followed by one for June 7th concerning Edward Payne 'vessels for treating & dissolving of certain gums'. Payne worked on egg white, gelatine, stearine and gutta percha to make compositions for casting.

The notebooks then jump to 1861 where he mentions Charles Hancock of rubber and gutta percha fame, and William Silver with his patent for 'certain compounds and substances for electrical insulation'. Closer still to plastics is Thomas Ghoulson Ghisling and his patent on 'substitutes for whalebone, horn and India rubber, etc.'. Parkes does not mention it, but this same Ghisling also patented the use of seaweed and peat as raw materials for composites!

By 1867, Parkes had sent Parkesine samples to India to determine their resistance to the Indian climate, but surprisingly there is no mention of Parkes' presence at the 1862 International Exhibition. What a notebook that would be!

In the early 1870s Parkes was working mainly on iron and other alloys, including phosphor bronze for which he was granted patents in 1871. In 1876 his notebook gives recipes for 12 colour blends. These are almost certainly colours for cellulose nitrate, and the use of lead chromate and molybdate orange may well be the reason why many Parkesine pieces have darkened where they have been exposed to daylight.

Up to 1880 his books concentrate again again on metals but in 1881 he returns to the problem of nitrating cellulose. He lists the acid mixture used by Hardwicke, Remy, Bickles and by the Parkesine Co. These first three may well be suppliers of the acid, but he also mentions 'America for paper' with their acid mixture.

Perhaps Parkes' most interesting entry for 1881 is made in September when, following another recipe for solvents and camphor he writes, 'by this addition the bulk is increased to 7 gallons when camphor goes in to increase the bulk of this celluloid by weight'. So by 1881 the inventor of Parkesine, the first plastic, cellulose nitrate, was referring to it as 'Celluloid', the American tradename.

His last notebook is dated 1885 when he was quite clearly taking an active part in work on cellulose nitrate, but the style had changed from the earlier books. He frequently prefaces a comment with 'I must . . . ', perhaps evidence that he had, like so many of us, found it necessary to write reminders to himself, quite understandable as he was by then over 70. Or, perhaps it was the result of the long, drawn out legal battle between Spill and Hyatt, a battle which may have finished differently had Parkes clearly recorded all his work with camphor as a plasticiser for cellulose nitrate.