Plastic Parkesine Bakelite products

[Radiorails]

As will be seen from their web site it is at Williton, Somerset.
https://www.bakelitemuseum.net/about.html

 

[Pedrocut]

In the BBC programme Hidden Killers of the Victorian Home, (by Doctor Susannah Lipscomb and first shown in 2013) Birmingham and MR. A Parkes, inventor of Parkesine and the “father of plastics” gets a mention.

Birmingham is referred to as the "City of a Thousand Inventions."

BBC Four - Hidden Killers, New Hidden Killers of the Victorian Home

Suzannah Lipscomb reveals the killers that lurked in every room of the Victorian home.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Morturn]

Here is a podcase about Alexandra Parkes the inventor of Parkesine and the father of plastics

 

[A Sparks]

I now live in the Hackney borough of London where Parkes had his factory in Hackney Wick and it's sometimes quoted that it was here where plastic was invented - of course, being a Brummie first and foremost, it makes me quite cross!

Produced yes, invented no

 

[Pedrocut]

Hackney Wick the site of the dog and speedway track !

 

[A Sparks]

Hackney Wick the site of the dog and speedway track !

No longer I'm afraid - it all got swept away for the 2012 Olympic complex
Hackney Wick is getting to be a hugely redeveloped area now, lots of new flats.
There are still some of the old Victorian factories around, many of them used as artists workspaces.
I loved old Hackney Wick, I think because it reminded me of Brum, with the little factories and the canals

This was a great exhibition on plastics I went to last year at Bow Arts.

Nunnery Gallery - Bow Arts

The Nunnery Gallery is a not-for-profit, free, contemporary art space. It hosts thought-provoking exhibitions and events.

bowarts.org

 

[Bob Davis]

The BHF is a great source of learning, came across this forum and stopped and readit and learnt all about bakelie and other man made materials and then came across the word Xylonite and remembered the number of times at Cannings that I had crossed Gt Hampton Street with a Xylonite gear wheel from a plating tank or similar from the offices to engineering works to get it identified for replacement, often as it happens for another forum set of posts Ionic plating. and suddenly the smell of chemicals was in the air as I thought about it, strange what memory can do. Cannings were great users of man made materials for cogs, gear wheels and etc.

Bob

 

[mw0njm.]

The old bulb holders used to stink of fish.when they got very hot.

Toxic Plastics: Bakelite, the Silent Killer| Natural Health

Molded Bakelite forms in a condensation reaction of phenol and formaldehyde, with wood flour or asbestos fiber as a filler, under high pressure and heat in a time frame of a few minutes of curing. The result is a hard plastic material.
Inventor: Leo Baekeland.