Alexander Parkes

Alexander Parkes (29 December 1813 – 29 June 1890) was a

• In 1846, he patented the cold cure process for vulcanizing rubber, called by Thomas Hancock "one of the most valuable and extraordinary discoveries of the age".^[2]
• He pioneered the addition of small quantities of phosphorus to metals and alloys, and developed phosphor-bronze (patent 12325 of 1848, taken out jointly with his brother Henry Parkes).^[3]
• In 1850, he developed and patented the Parkes process for economically desilvering lead, also patenting refinements to the process in 1851 and 1852.^[4]
• In 1856, he patented
  Parkesine – the first thermoplastic – a celluloid based on nitrocellulose treated with a variety of solvents.^[5]
  This material, exhibited at the 1862 London International Exhibition, anticipated many of the modern aesthetic and utility uses of plastics.
• In 1866, he set up The Parkesine Company at Hackney Wick, London, for bulk low-cost production. It was not commercially successful, however, for Parkesine was expensive to produce, prone to cracking and highly flammable. The business closed in 1868.
• Parkes' material was developed later in improved form as
  Xylonite by his associate Daniel Spill, who brought a patent infringement lawsuit – ultimately unsuccessful – against John Wesley Hyatt, developer of celluloid
  in the US. In 1870, however, the judge ruled that Parkes was the true inventor, owing to his original experiments.

Parkes' younger brother Henry (1824–1909), a trained chemist, who was married to Fanny Roderick (1837–97), a sister of Alexander's second wife, assisted him in many of his experiments during a collaboration lasting more than fifty years.[8]

It is believed that the Parkes family descends from the Rev. Michael Parkes, Vicar of Penkridge, Staffordshire (died 1617), and had close connections with the metal-working towns of Wednesbury and Wolverhampton in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.^[9]

Legacy

Parkes is remembered in several locations:

• The Plastics Historical Society placed a blue plaque on his home in Dulwich, London, in 2002;
• Science Museum), Newhall Street, Birmingham;^[10]
• There is also a plaque on the wall of the site of the Parkesine Works.[11]

In September 2005, Parkes was posthumously inducted into the American Plastics Academy's Hall of Fame.^[12] He is buried in West Norwood Cemetery, London, although his memorial was removed in the 1970s.

References