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Daniel Spill
Daniel Spill (11 February 1832 – 1887) was born in Winterbourne, Gloucestershire, England. He became a rubber and an early thermoplastics manufacturer. For over 20 years Spill had pursued the goal of making a successful business from Alexander Parkes' invention Parkesine, the first man-made plastic. Career Although he trained as a doctor he joined the business of his brother George. The firm of George Spill & Co. manufactured waterproof textiles in Stepney Green, East London by spreading rubber onto cloth. The material was much in demand for capes and groundsheets for soldiers in the wet conditions of the Crimean War. Spill became aware of Parkes' claim for the waterproof qualities of Parkesine probably at the 1862 exhibition. Negotiations led to an agreement not only to use it for waterproofing but also to develop Parkesine in the works of George Spill at Hackney Wick. A provisional patent was granted in 1863 to the Spill brothers and Thomas James Briggs concerning "improvements ...
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Winterbourne, Gloucestershire
Winterbourne is a large village in South Gloucestershire, England, situated just beyond the north fringe of Bristol.OS Explorer Map, Bristol and Bath, Keynsham & Marshfield. Scale: 1:25 000.Publisher: Ordnance Survey B4 edition (2013). The village had a population of 8,965 according to the 2011 census. This has risen to 10,250 at the 2021 Census. The Civil Parish of Winterbourne is centred on the village and includes the neighbouring communities of Winterbourne Down, Hambrook and Frenchay. To the north-east is the village of Frampton Cotterell and to the west lies the new town of Bradley Stoke. Winterbourne was recorded in the Domesday Book as ''Wintreborne'', meaning 'Winter Stream'. The village is believed to have derived its name from the nearby Bradley Brook as much of medieval Winterbourne was originally built up around St Michael's Church, which is situated near the river. The modern village is largely built on top of a hill, with woodlands and fields encompassing its ...
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Alexander Parkes
Alexander Parkes (29 December 1813 29 June 1890) was a metallurgist and inventor from Birmingham, England. He created Parkesine, the first man-made plastic. Biography The son of a manufacturer of brass locks, Parkes was apprenticed to Messenger and Sons, brass founders of Birmingham, before going to work for George and Henry Elkington, who patented the electroplating process. Parkes was put in charge of the casting department, and his attention soon began to focus on electroplating. Parkes took out his first patent (No. 8905) in 1841 on a process for electroplating delicate works of art. His improved method for electroplating fine and fragile objects, such as flowers, was granted a patent in 1843. The process involved electroplating an object previously dipped in a solution of phosphorus contained in bisulphide of carbon, and then in nitrate of silver. A spider's web, silver-plated according to this method, was presented to Prince Albert when he visited the Elkington works in 1 ...
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Parkesine
Celluloids are a class of materials produced by mixing nitrocellulose and camphor, often with added dyes and other agents. Once much more common for its use as photographic film before the advent of safer methods, celluloid's common contemporary uses are table tennis balls, musical instruments, combs, office equipment, and guitar picks. History Nitrocellulose Nitrocellulose-based plastics slightly predate celluloid. Collodion, invented in 1848 and used as a wound dressing and an emulsion for photographic plates, is dried to a celluloid like film. Alexander Parkes The first celluloid as a bulk material for forming objects was made in 1855 in Birmingham, England, by Alexander Parkes, who was never able to see his invention reach full fruition, after his firm went bankrupt due to scale-up costs. Parkes patented his discovery as Parkesine in 1862 after realising a solid residue remained after evaporation of the solvent from photographic collodion. Parkes patented it as a cloth ...
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Crimean War
The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the decline of the Ottoman Empire, the expansion of the Russian Empire in the preceding Russo-Turkish Wars, and the British and French preference to preserve the Ottoman Empire to maintain the balance of power in the Concert of Europe. The flashpoint was a disagreement over the rights of Christian minorities in Palestine, then part of the Ottoman Empire, with the French promoting the rights of Roman Catholics, and Russia promoting those of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The churches worked out their differences with the Ottomans and came to an agreement, but both the French Emperor Napoleon III and the Russian Tsar Nicholas I refused to back down. Nicholas issued an ultimatum that demanded the Orthodox subjects of the Ottoman Empire be placed ...
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Hackney Wick
Hackney Wick is a neighbourhood in east London, England. The area forms the south-eastern part of the district of Hackney, and also of the wider London Borough of Hackney. Adjacent areas of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets are sometimes also described as being part of Hackney Wick. The area lies 4.2 miles (6.8 km) northeast of Charing Cross. Geography Hackney Wick is the south-eastern part of the historic district of Hackney, and also of the wider modern London Borough of Hackney. Adjacent parts of Old Ford (including Fish Island) in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets are also sometimes described as Hackney Wick, due to similar post-industrial land uses and their proximity to Hackney Wick railway station. The boundary runs along Wallis Road and the railway. The core area lies west of the Lee Navigation, here called Hackney Cut, however the parts of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park within Hackney have often also been described as Hackney Wick, and the ''East Wick' ...
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Homerton
Homerton ( ) is an area in London, England, in the London Borough of Hackney. It is bordered to the west by Hackney Central, to the north by Lower Clapton, in the east by Hackney Wick, Leyton and by South Hackney to the south. In 2019, it had a population of 14,658 people. In terms of ethnicity it was 43.9% White, 33.0% Black, 10.9% Asian and 7.8% Mixed. It covered an area of 0.830 sq kilometres. Homerton ward on Hackney Borough Council is currently represented by three Labour councillors. There are fifty listed buildings located within the boundaries of the ward. History Origins Archaeological excavations at Link Street exposed a building dating to the 11th or 12th century suggesting that Homerton existed before it was first recorded in 1343. The hamlet of Homerton (Humberton or Hummerton, named for the farm of a woman named Hunburh) developed for about a half-mile along the road on the north side of the now buried and lost Hackney Brook, within the vale formed by the broo ...
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Xylonite (plastic)
Celluloids are a class of materials produced by mixing nitrocellulose and camphor, often with added dyes and other agents. Once much more common for its use as photographic film before the advent of safer methods, celluloid's common contemporary uses are table tennis balls, musical instruments, combs, office equipment, and guitar picks. History Nitrocellulose Nitrocellulose-based plastics slightly predate celluloid. Collodion, invented in 1848 and used as a wound dressing and an emulsion for photographic plates, is dried to a celluloid like film. Alexander Parkes The first celluloid as a bulk material for forming objects was made in 1855 in Birmingham, England, by Alexander Parkes, who was never able to see his invention reach full fruition, after his firm went bankrupt due to scale-up costs. Parkes patented his discovery as Parkesine in 1862 after realising a solid residue remained after evaporation of the solvent from photographic collodion. Parkes patented it as a clothin ...
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Brantham
Brantham is a village and civil parish in the Babergh district of Suffolk, England. It is located close to the River Stour and the border with Essex, around north of Manningtree, and around southwest of Ipswich. History The name Brantham is of Old English origin - ''Brant'' for 'hill' and ''ham'' 'village' — hence, 'village on the hill'. Another possible translation may be 'burnt village', a name given after a Viking invasion coming up from the River Stour. Evidence of the village's Saxon heritage can be found in the form of some ninety silver coins from the time of Edward the Elder (899-924) in what has become known as the Brantham Hoard, found in the village in 2003. Brantham is mentioned in the 1086 Domesday book as having 38 households and under the lordship of Aelfric of Weinhou. Until 1887 the local economy was almost entirely agricultural. This changed in 1887 when British Xylonite Ltd. purchased the Brooklands Farm and built their factory, which was later renam ...
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BX Plastics
BX Plastics was a plastics engineering and production company. The company was one of three subsidiaries of the British Xylonite Company established by 1938. BX Plastics made xylonite (also known as celluloid or ivoride) and Lactoid (also known as casein) at a plant to the south of Brantham in Suffolk, on the north bank of the River Stour across the river from Manningtree in Essex. The company was liquidated in 1999. History The British Xylonite Company was established by English inventor Daniel Spill in 1877, in collaboration with American investor Levi Parsons Merriam. It established factories at Hackney Wick and Homerton, in East London, subsequently expanding to Brooklands Farm near Brantham in 1887 and Hale End, Walthamstow in 1897. By 1938 British Xylonite had established three subsidiaries - BX Plastics, Halex and Cascelloid. Halex was based in Highams Park, Hale End, in North London and made finished goods (including table tennis balls). Cascelloid, based in Leicest ...
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John Wesley Hyatt
John Wesley Hyatt (November 28, 1837 – May 10, 1920) was an American inventor. He is mainly known for simplifying the production of celluloid. Hyatt, a Perkin Medal recipient, is included in the National Inventors Hall of Fame. He had nearly 238 patents to his credit, including improvements to sugar cane mills and water filtration devices. Biography Hyatt was born in Starkey, New York, and began working as a printer when he was 16. Later, he invented plastic, receiving several hundred patents. Among the most well-known of his inventions was that of a substitute for ivory to produce billiard balls. An award of $10,000 had been instituted by Michael Phelan in 1863 due to the cost of ivory and concerns on its shortage. Aided by his brother Isaiah, Hyatt experimented with Parkesine, a hardened form of nitrocellulose. Parkesine had been invented by the Englishman Alexander Parkes in 1862, and is considered the first true plastic, although it was not a success as a commercial or i ...
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Ancestry
An ancestor, also known as a forefather, fore-elder or a forebear, is a parent or (recursively) the parent of an antecedent (i.e., a grandparent, great-grandparent, great-great-grandparent and so forth). ''Ancestor'' is "any person from whom one is descended. In law, the person from whom an estate has been inherited." Two individuals have a genetic relationship if one is the ancestor of the other or if they share a common ancestor. In evolutionary theory, species which share an evolutionary ancestor are said to be of common descent. However, this concept of ancestry does not apply to some bacteria and other organisms capable of horizontal gene transfer. Some research suggests that the average person has twice as many female ancestors as male ancestors. This might have been due to the past prevalence of polygynous relations and female hypergamy. Assuming that all of an individual's ancestors are otherwise unrelated to each other, that individual has 2''n'' ancestors in the ...
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