EVOLUTION OF RUBBER TYRES

NZ Truth, Issue 1301, 20 November 1930, Page 18

EVOLUTION OF RUBBER TYRES

FOUNDATIONS OF GREAT INDUSTRY MOWADAYS, when rubber goods of every description are •••■a commonplace,. and half the world., seems to travel on rubber, an existence without this most valuable of commodities appears almost impossible. . } But, actually it is less' than a hundred ye.ars ago since the pneumatic tyre was patented by an Englishman, R. W. Thompson, and . also less than one hundred years ago. since the patent for the first solid rubber tyre was applied for. . . By , the beginning of the 18th century, rubber was a known commodity, but its commercial value was quite unappreciated. In fact it was not until 1770 that it * •was even suggested that it might be used for the humble pencil eraser. , Nearly sixty years later, however; a Manchester man discovered that rubber would ;■ dissolve m Benzine, arid, employing this discovery, he commenced the manufacture of waterproof fabrics. . American enterprise then took a hand, and m 1832 the Roxbury Rubber Company was formed m Massochusetts to take up the work pioneered m Manchester. .' One of the employees m this ■firm was Charles Goodyear, who, m the year 1835 discovered the process no^v known as vulcanising, ft was m this same year that a' Frenchman named Dietz . patented a rubber cushion- to be applied to the rims of wheels and so eventuated the first tyre.