Thomas Hancock (inventor)

Infobox Engineer


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name = Thomas Hancock
nationality = English
birth_date = 8 May 1786
birth_place = Marlborough, England
death_date = 26 March 1865
death_place = London
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significant_projects = Mechanical processing of raw rubber
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Thomas Hancock (8 May 1786 - 26 March 1865), elder brother of inventor Walter Hancock, was an English inventor who founded the British rubber industry. He invented the masticator, a machine that shredded rubber scraps and which allowed rubber to be recycled after being formed into blocks or sheets.

Early life

Born in 1786 in Marlborough, Wiltshire, little is known about Hancock's early life apart from the fact that his father was a cabinet maker and it is possible that he was trained in the same trade because in 1815 he is recorded as being in partnership with his brother Walter in London, as a coach builder.

Career

Hancock's interest in rubber seems to have sprung from a desire to make waterproof fabrics to protect the passengers on his coaches and by 1819 he had began to experiment with making rubber solutions. In 1820 he patented elastic fastenings for gloves, suspenders, shoes and stockings; in the process of creating these early elastic fabrics, Hancock found himself wasting large amounts of rubber and invented a machine to shred the waste rubber, his "Pickling machine" (or masticator as it is now known). He called it by the deceptive name of "Pickling" because he initially chose not to patent it, instead preferring to rely on secrecy.

In 1820 Hancock rented a factory in Goswell Road, London, where he worked raw rubber with the machines he had invented. His machines produced a warm mass of homogenous rubber which could then he shaped, mixed with other materials, and was more easily dissolved than raw rubber. The prototype of his masticator was operated by one man and could only hold convert|3|oz|abbr=on; it was a wooden machine with a hollow cylinder studded with metal "teeth", with an inner studded core that was hand cranked. By 1821 he had produced a two-man machine which held convert|1|lb|abbr=on, and by 1841 a machine which could process up to convert|200|lb|abbr=on of rubber at a time.

Hancock experimented with rubber solutions and in 1825 patented a process of making artificial leather using rubber solution and a variety of fibres. His choice of solvents, coal oil and turpentine, was probably influenced by Charles Mackintosh’s 1823 patent. In the same year he began working with Mackintosh to manufacture of his "double textured" fabric.

By 1830 it was obvious to everyone concerned that Hancock’s solution, prepared with his masticated rubber, was better than that Mackintosh's, and so the two began more fully cooperating, including the construction of an automatic spreading machine to replace the paint brushes previously used by Mackintosh.

In 1834 Hancock’s London factory was burnt down and Mackintosh had already closed his Glasgow factory, so the work was moved to Manchester where, in 1838, another fire destroyed that factory. A new one was soon built and business continued as before even though Macintosh’s 1823 patent had expired in 1837. It was only in 1837 that Hancock finally patented both his masticator and spreader (UK patent 7,344).

Vulcanisation

On 21st November 1843, Hancock took out a patent for the vulcanisation of rubber using sulphur, 8 weeks before Charles Goodyear in the US (30 January 1844). He mentioned in his "Personal Narrative" mentions that his friend William Brockendon invented the word vulcanisation from the God Vulcan of Roman mythology. Hancock did not credit himself with discovering the reaction of sulphur with rubber; he instead said that in 1842 Brockendon had showed him some American rubber samples which had been treated with sulphur.

Brockendon later said in an affidavit that he never heard or knew of Hancock analysing the Goodyear samples and Hancock verifies that in his "Personal Narrative", claiming that he had been experimenting with sulphur for many years himself. A number of chemists also swore that even if he had analysed Goodyear’s material, this would not have given him enough information to duplicate the process. Alexander Parkes, inventor of the "cold cure" process (vulcanization of fabrics in a using sulphur chloride in carbon disulphide solution), claimed that both Hancock and Brockendon admitted to him that their experiments on the Goodyear samples had enabled them to understand what he had done.

The firm had large display stands at the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London and at the 1855 Exposition Universelle in Paris. In 1857 Hancock published the story of his life’s work as "The Origin and Progress of the Caoutchouc or India-Rubber Industry in England". He continued to work until his death in 1865.

References

*cite book | last = Hancock | first = Thomas | authorlink = Thomas Hancock | coauthors = | title = Personal Narrative of the Origin and Progress of the Caoutchouc Or India-Rubber Manufacture in England | publisher = Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, & Roberts | date = 1857 | location = London | pages = | url = http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Sd1IAAAAMAAJ | doi = | id = | isbn =