April i, 1909.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



239 



pneumatic tires for bicycles and motors. The first detachable 

 pneumatic tire was the "chncher," of which all others are in 

 principle only imitations. 



The company has branches in London, Liverpool, Man- 

 chester, Leeds, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Edinburgh, Glasgow, 

 and Brussels, and agencies in Paris, Hamburg, Constan- 

 tinople, etc. 



The company has been a great boon to the industrial 

 classes of Edinburgh, giving employment directly to about 

 2,5CO operatives ahd to many more indirectly. It has a 

 trained fire brigade that drills fortnightly with a portable fire 

 engine and two fire pumps, with Which ten nozzles can be 

 supplied with abundance of water taken from a canal form- 

 ing the boundry of one side of the works. 



The 5^-acre park is now completely covered with build- 

 ings carrying on operations, and the company recently pur- 

 chased an adjoining park on which meantime buildings for 

 storage purposes alone have been so far erected, but which 

 is available for further expansion. The company is presently 

 in charge of Mr. R. G. Stewart and a board of five directors. 



Under Mr. Williamson's management the Scottish Vul- 

 canite Co. was started to develop or work some patent or 

 patents held by Mr. Judson and still exists. Its works ad- 

 join those of the North British Rubber Co. and it now 

 produces celluloid as well as vulcanite. 



PRESENT CONDITIONS. 

 It will be seen from what has preceded that the North P.ritish 

 company have figured largely in the histon,- of the rubber in- 

 dustry. To mention tires alone, their Mr. William' Erskinc 

 Bartlett could well lay claim to the invention of what is tlie 

 accepted type of automobile tire to-day, though the same prin- 

 ciple was involved in the American invention covered bv the 

 "G. & J." patents. What happened was that the North British 

 company could not do business in America, and the "G. & J." 

 people could not do business in Great Britain. But Michelin, in 

 France, where the automobile was developed, was hampered by 

 neither patent, and did very much business. Similarly the so- 

 called "Dunlop"' tire was developed simultaneously on both con- 

 tinents, so that the existing British Dunlop tire company were 

 obliged to buy up identical American and English patents to 

 control in the world's trade the type of tire which made them 

 famous. But more than that they were obliged to buy up Rart- 

 lett's patent — the product of a young American engtiged in the 

 tea trade in New York at $1,500 a year until his brother-in-law, 

 Mr. Norris, invited him to Edinburgh. It is no secret that the 



Dunlop company paid $973,300 to the North British Rubber 

 Co. for the Bartlett patent, leaving them the right to make and 

 sell tires under the same patent. How many "Dunlop" and how 

 many "Bartlett" (clincher) tires, respectively, have been sold 

 by the Dunlop 'company never will be known. 



There are a few points in Mr. Firth's statement which require 

 comment at this time, but on the whole it is suflicient to recall 

 that it was written some years ago. The Scottish Vulcanite 

 Co., Limited, have been liquidated [see The India Rlbber 

 World, December i, 1907 — page 75], but this was not an integral 

 part of the North British Rubber Co. Mr. Ramsey G. Stewart — 

 a Scotchman — retired recently from the management, after a 

 successful career. There are now no Americans in charge of de- 

 partments, but some of those named in Mr. Firth's account were 

 in time important in the Amefican rubber industry. The heirs of 

 more than one of the American founders still hold and prize 

 shares in the North British coiupany. There still lives in New 

 York, in his eighty-fifth year, John Murphy, who began rubber 

 work at the age of 21, and who went to Edinburgh to get the 

 Scottish Vulcanite Co. going. The original plant had been used 

 in New York, but was put out of business by an adverse decision 

 in a patent suit. 



■AMERICAN FOUNDERS' OF THE NORTH BRITISH RUBBER CO. 



Henry Lee Norris, born in 1813 at Salem, Massachusetts, tlien 

 an important shipping port, received a business training in New 

 York city, and at the age of 23 was in charge of a warehouse of 

 the Roxbury India Rubber Co., pioneers in the rubber industry 

 in .America — several years before vulcanization was known. In 

 1842 he went to Brazil for a short time, returning later as resi- 

 dent partner at Para of Bishop, Norris & Co. He remained 

 there for some years, serving for awhile as United States consul, 

 and made a thorough study of the rubber situation. It was on 

 account of the market for rubber at New York becoming glutted 

 that he decided to open a new market abroad, and this led to his 

 going to Edinburgh, where he took some machinery and a few 

 operatives from a rubber factory in which he was interested at 

 New Brunsw^ick, New Jersey. Mr. Norris resided in Edinburgh 

 at various times while in charge of the affairs of the North 

 British Rubber Co., and died in the United States in 1881. 



Spencer Thomas Parmelee, born 1805 ; with L. Candee & Co., 

 rubber shoe manufacturers, 1848; with Ford and Meyer, rubber 

 manufacturers, 1851 ; at Edinburgh 1835-58; died in America 

 1875. Ilis son, Henry S. Parmelee, became a successful rail- 

 road man. 



William Judson profited largely through his connection with 



Christopher Meyer. Henry Lee Norris. John Ross Ford. 



THREE PRINCIIWL FOUNDERS Ol-^ THE NORTH BRITISH RUBBER CO., LIMITED. 



