Author: Purple Brolly

The motivation behind the first plastic was to conserve natural resources, such as rubber and timber, and reduce the exploitation of animal parts, such as ivory and tortoiseshell. So it was that in 1862 Alexander Parkes (1813-90) and his brother Henry (1824-1909) from Birmingham used their knowledge of chemistry to formulate a heat-softened gunge that was the first celluloid plastic. They named it ‘Parkesine‘ (“park-seen”).

It was not totally synthetic ~ that came later with ‘Bakelite’ in the USA ~ but its recipe of nitric and sulphuric acids, nitrocellulose, castor oil and organic solvents went some way to providing a man-made material to satisfy growing consumer demand. It was used to manufacture items such as combs, brushes, buttons, cutlery handles, fishing rod components, pens and billiard balls.

The Science Museum holds many examples of these but over the years they have become extremely fragile. Indeed, even in the Parkesine Company’s short-lived existence in 1866-8 there were complaints of items becoming misshapen or even catching fire. This is thought to have been due to Alexander Parkes’s drive to cut costs. After the company closed, an employee, Daniel Spill (1832-87) took on the assets and relaunched the product as Xylonite. Spill improved the quality, resulting in more durable products.

(Image: pixnio.com / Public domain)

When the British Museum asked their local building contractor, Rawlings Brothers, to attach electrical fittings to the walls with minimal damage to the masonry, they cannot have imagined the revolutionary invention this would produce. The iconic Museum building was the first to benefit from the ingenious yet simple rawlplug, a small, expandable insert which tightly grips an embedded screw and can support incredible weight.

London-born John Joseph Rawlings (1860-1942) filed the patent in 1911. Previously, builders would chisel a hole and pack it with wood, so the time-saving, compact, ready-made rawlplug was an immediate success. The first version was made of brass strips but this was soon changed to fibre, a material ideally suited to the task. The business was re-named Rawlplug Co. Ltd. in 1919. The plastic rawlplug was introduced in the 1960s and its design was developed to include anti-rotation lugs.

Rawlplug Co. Ltd. now manufactures various types of fixings, including the rawlbolt for heavy-duty construction purposes. The massive do-it-yourself market has made a pack of rawlplugs an essential part of every toolkit. It is inestimable how many rawlplugs there are in our homes today. From securing a bookshelf to fitting a kitchen, rawlplugs are an indispensable aid.

(Image: pxhere.com / CC0)