Gutta Percha Company
| Industry | Manufacturing |
|---|---|
| Founded | 4 February 1845 in Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company |
| Successors |
|
| Headquarters | Islington, London , United Kingdom |
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The Gutta Percha Company was an English company formed in 1845 to make a variety of products from the recently introduced natural rubber gutta-percha. Unlike other natural rubbers, this material was thermoplastic allowing it to be easily moulded. Nothing else like it was available to manufacturing until well into the twentieth century when synthetic plastics were developed.[1]
Gutta-percha proved to be an ideal
Gutta-percha
In 1844, Montgomerie left samples with Charles Mackintosh's raincoat company. A partner in the company, Thomas Hancock, passed samples to his brother Charles who was trying to invent a new bottle stopper made from cemented ground cork. Hancock then abandoned his original idea and took out a patent for bottle stoppers made from gutta-percha.[5]
Company history
The company was formed on 4 February 1845 by partners Charles Hancock and Henry Bewley, a Dublin chemist making
Bewley was also a lead pipe maker. He had designed a machine for extruding lead pipes and on the formation of the Gutta Percha Company, he used this machine for extruding gutta-percha tubing. The company did not at first use this machine for insulating electrical cable. The method initially used was to apply strips of gutta-percha to copper wire. The resulting seam in the insulation was to prove problematic for underwater cables as it provided a route for the ingress of water.[9]
Submarine cables
Gutta-percha made possible practical
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On hearing of this possible application for gutta-percha, Hancock designed a machine for applying it to a conductor seamlessly. Hancock's machine was an adaptation of Bewley's tube extruding machine. However, Hancock denied Bewley the right to use the machine. The dispute resulted in Hancock leaving and setting up the rival West Ham Gutta Percha Company. Hancock lost the dispute in court and his company went bankrupt.
This trial was followed in 1849 by an order for 25 nautical miles (46 km) of cable from the Submarine Telegraph Company to lay a cable from Dover to Calais. This cable, laid in 1850, soon failed, largely because the Submarine Telegraph Company failed to have it armoured. Undeterred, the company placed a new order in 1850, but this time the cable was to be sent to a wire rope manufacturer for armouring before laying. This order was four times[14] as large as the 1849 order since the new cable was to have four gutta-percha insulated cores. This cable was a success, and became the first working oceanic submarine cable.[15]
Although the Gutta Percha Company were the first to make a cable for crossing an ocean, they were not the first to make a gutta-percha insulated underwater cable. Faraday published his suggestion in 1848, but had previously privately recommended gutta-percha to
Gutta-percha insulated core rapidly became the chief product of the company.
Gutta-percha quality
The quality of gutta-percha, as supplied by the Gutta Percha Company,
Gutta-percha from different regions contains different amounts of resin, resulting in variations in quality. For electrical cables, the resin content needs to be minimal. The best gutta-percha came from
Highly purified gutta-percha is almost entirely resistant to chemical attack and ingress of water. However, obtaining this level of purity was not economical for submarine cables. Impure gutta-percha oxidises and becomes brittle. The rate of deterioration is very slow for cable permanently in the water, but cable crossing the landing zone is exposed to frequent changes in temperature and cycles of exposure and submerging. This environment could cause the insulation to crumble and expose the conductor.
Additives to the gutta-percha could greatly affect quality. The material supplied for the Siemens cables by the Gutta Percha Company had a high sulphur content. This, together with poor joints and poor manufacturing by Siemens, caused many of the early Siemens cables to quickly fail.[33]
See also
References
- ^ Ash, p. 29
- ^ Bright, p. 11
- ^ Thompson, D. (2008) Telegraph Construction & Maintenance Co., 1864-1959 in Museums Victoria Collections. Accessed 27 March 2022
- ^
- Haigh, p. 26
- Buckley, p. 404
- ^ Haigh, p. 26
- ^ Haigh, p. 26
- ^ Scott
- ^ Haigh, p. 26
- ^ Bright, pp. 250, 301
- ^ Haigh, p. 26
- ^ Bright, pp. 2–4
- ^ Haigh, p.26
- ^ Haigh, pp. 26–27
- ^ Scott
- ^ Haigh, pp. 27, 192
- ^ Haigh, p. 26
- ^ Bright, pp. 249–250
- ^ Bright, p. 251
- ^ Bright, pp. 251–252
- ^ Bright, p. 251
- ^ Haigh, p. 27
- ^ Haigh, p. 27
- ^ Huurdeman, pp. 132, 136
- ^ Bright, p. 156
- ^ Bright, pp. 263–269
- ^ Fari, p. 109
- ^ Hearn, p. 81
- ^ Bright, p. 265
- ^ Bright, p. 263
- ^ Bright, p. 267
- ^ Bright, p. 262
- ^ Bright, pp. 265–266
- ^ Bright, p. 250
Bibliography
- Ash, Stewart, "The development of submarine cables", ch. 1 in, Burnett, Douglas R. (ed); Beckman, Robert (ed); Davenport, Tara M. (ed), Submarine Cables: The Handbook of Law and Policy, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2013 ISBN 9004260331.
- Bright, Charles, Submarine Telegraphs, London: Crosby Lockwood, 1898 OCLC 776529627.
- Buckley, Charles Burton, An Anecdotal History of Old Times in Singapore, vol. 1, Singapore: Fraser & Neave, 1902 OCLC 220728943.
- Fari, Simone, Victorian Telegraphy Before Nationalization, Springer, 2015 ISBN 1137406526.
- Haigh, Kenneth Richardson, Cableships and Submarine Cables, Adlard Coles, 1968 OCLC 497380538.
- Hearn, Chester G., Circuits in the Sea: The Men, the Ships, and the Atlantic Cable, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004 ISBN 0275982319.
- Huurdeman, Anton A., The Worldwide History of Telecommunications, Wiley, 2003 ISBN 0471205052.
- Scott, Jesup W., "1851: Precipice in time", introduction in, Wilson, Ben (ed), Heyday: Britain and the Birth of the Modern World, Hachette UK, 2016 ISBN 0297864114.
