Birmingham, thanks to the work of Parkes, was also the start of the film industry! But where?
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 after realising that a solid residue remained after evaporation of the solvent from photographic collodion.
Parkes patented it as a clothing waterproof for woven fabrics in the same year. Later in 1862, Parkes showcased Parkesine at the Great Exhibition in London where he was awarded a bronze medal for his efforts. The introduction of Parkesine is generally regarded as the birth of the plastics industry. Parkes mixed cellulose nitrate with camphor, producing a hard, flexible, and transparent material. Cellulose nitrate was dissolved in a small measure of solvent, this was then heated and rolled on a purpose-built machine which extracted a proportion of the solvent. Finally, the use of pressure or dyes completed the manufacturing process. In 1866, Parkes tried again with his invention, and he created a company to manufacture and market Parkesine, but this failed in 1868 after trying to cut costs to enable further manufacture.
In the 1860s, an American by the name of John Wesley Hyatt acquired Parkes' patent and began experimenting with cellulose nitrate with the intention of manufacturing billiard balls, which until that time were made from ivory. He used cloth, ivory dust, and shellac and in 1869 patented a method of covering billiard balls with the addition of collodion, and formed the Albany Billiard Ball Company in Albany, New York, to manufacture the product. In 1870, John, and his brother Isaiah, patented a process of making a "horn-like material" with the inclusion of cellulose nitrate and camphor. Alexander Parkes and Spill listed camphor during their earlier experiments, but it was the Hyatt brothers who recognized the value of camphor and its use as a plasticizer for cellulose nitrate. Isaiah dubbed the commercially viable material “celluloid” in 1872 as a specifically Hyatt product.
English inventor Daniel Spill took exception to the Hyatts' claim and pursued the brothers in a number of court cases between 1877 and 1884. The outcome was that Spill held no claim to the Hyatts' patents and that the true inventor of celluloid was in fact Alexander Parkes, due to his mentioning of camphor in his earlier experiments and patents. The judge ruled that all manufacturing of celluloid could continue, including the Hyatts' Celluloid Manufacturing Company. Celluloid was later used as the base for photographic film.
The name Celluloid actually began as a trademark of the Celluloid Manufacturing Company first of Albany, NY, and later of Newark, New Jersey, which manufactured the celluloids patented by John Wesley Hyatt. Hyatt used heat and pressure to simplify the manufacture of these compounds. The name was registered in 1870, but after a long court battle between Spill and the Hyatt brothers a judge later ruled that the true inventor of celluloid (by process, not name) was Alexander Parkes.
Celluloid was extremely useful for creating cheaper jewelry, jewelry boxes, hair accessories and many items that would earlier have been manufactured from ivory, horn or other expensive animal products. It was therefore often referred to as "Ivorine" or "French Ivory". It was also used for dressing table sets (usually called Xylonite in Britain), dolls, picture frames, charms, hat pins, buttons, buckles, stringed instrument parts, cutlery handles and kitchen items. The main disadvantage that the material had was that it was flammable and fragile (as film restoration teams the world over will attest). Items made in Celluloid are collectible today and increasingly rare in good condition. It was soon taken over by the more robust Bakelite and Catalin.
