Df.ce.mber i, 1909.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



69 



Mr. du Cros and the Dunlop Company. 



THE PNEUMATIC TIKE IS OF AGE. 



AN event of more than passing interest to the tire and motor 

 trades was the banquet tendered to Mr. Harvey du Cros 

 at the Hotel Cecil, in London, on the evening of Novem- 

 ber 19, to celebrate the "majority" of the commercial application 

 of the pneumatic tire. In other words, it is just 21 years since 

 the issuance of the first of the patents which formed the basis 

 of the great Dunlop tire company, with which Mr. du Cros has 

 been identified in so important a degree. 



It is true that a patent was granted to Thomson for a pneu- 

 matic tire as early as 1844, but his tire never met a practical 

 application. John Boyd Dunlop, who obtained a patent in 188S. 

 so far as is known, developed his invention without being aware 

 of the work of Thomson, and though his tire was of a more 

 practical character than Thomson's it was soon recognized that 

 the earlier inventor had anticipated Dunlop's idea to an extent 

 which rendered a patent on the latter of doubtful validity . 



The company formed to manufacture the 

 Dunlop tire were fortunate in securing 

 other important patents which were brought 

 out soon after the practicability of the 

 pneumatic tire was assured, and these were 

 the real foundation of the Dunlop Pneu- 

 matic Tyre Co., Limited, which attained so 

 much success under the management of 

 Mr. du Cros. Some very prominent cycle 

 and motor traders participated in the cele- 

 bration at the Cecil, where accommodations 

 were arranged for 450 persons. The chair 

 was taken by H. S. H. Prince Francis of 

 Teck, chairman of the Royal Automobile 

 Club. Mr. du Cros was presented with a 

 solid silver gilt casket and a signed ad- 

 dress of congratulation. 



This banquet recalls to mind another at 

 the Hotel Cecil. On the evening of Sep- 

 tember 16, 1904, a company numbering over 

 400 assembled on the invitation of the Dun- 

 lop company "in honor of the expiring of 

 the Welch patent" — one of the most im- 

 portant owned by them. Mr. Harvey du 

 Cros, the chairman of the company, pre- 

 sided at that dinner. At midnight the 

 patent was silently consigned to the flames, 

 and Mr. du Cros asserted that it was with 

 great satisfaction, since the company were 

 annoyed by having to protect the patent. 



MR. HARVEY DU CROS. 



Everybody knows the Dunlop tire and that, of course, sug- 

 gests Harvey du Cros, or as our English friends write it, 

 "Harvey du Cros, Squire of Howbery Park, Wallingford, and 

 Member of Parliament from Hastings." What Mr. du Cros did 

 in the tire business makes him of interest to the whole rubber 

 trade — not that we want to know in detail all that the English 

 journals have published about him, or rather about his forebears 

 who were signeurs, nobles, and soldiers of the old regime of 

 France. What is really interesting is something about the pres- 

 ent Du Cros. and here it is : 



He was born in Dublin in 1846 and is part French 

 and part Irish. He was educated at the Kings Hospital, 

 Dublin, and after a short preliminary commercial experience 

 in the firm in which his father was a partner, entered 

 into business relations with a Scotch firm of paper manufacturers 

 and soon became the head of a large wholesale business in Ire- 



Marvev du Cros, j.p., m.p. 



I Managing Director of the Dunlop Pneumatic 

 Tyre Co., Limited.] 



no longer to be 



land. He made money and made it fast, for at 43 he retired 

 from business, and being an athlete spent his time training his 

 six sons, all of whom are experts in boxing, fencing, and general 

 outdoor sports. It was through their cycling interest that Mr. 

 du Cros became interested in tires and in the rubber business. 



The story of how he secured the Dunlop rights, how the 

 small factory in Dublin grew to a business of great dimensions, 

 and how he established in Coventry and Birmingham, and in 

 France and Germany, great rubber works, are all a matter of 

 history. Our interest, of course, centers in Mr. du Cros's rubber 

 triumphs, but he has also helped build the automobile industry, 

 and is a large stockholder in some very profitable motor com- 

 panies. Besides he is interested in extensive mines in Spain 

 which are worked by his own capital. 



Personally, Mr. du Cros is below middle height, compactly 



built, rather quiet, but very alert. He has shown wonderful 



capacity for detail, and is an excellent judge of character, wdiich 



perhaps was why he dodged the writer of 



this sketch and turned him over to a 



polite and courteous secretary. 



THE GREAT DUNLOP COMPANIES. 



The history of the Dunlop Pneumatic 

 Tyre Co., Limited, is written too fully in 

 the pages of The India Rubber World to 

 make it necessary to recall the details at 

 this time. It is worth mentioning, how- 

 ever, that at the last annual meeting of the 

 company, on December 17, 1908, Mr. du 

 Cros stated that the company had paid in 

 dividends, since the organization under the 

 present name, £1,595,720 [=$7,765,571], be- 

 sides which he might have dwelt upon the 

 important business which has been based 

 upon the earnings from the original capital 

 not distributed as dividends. In other 

 words, the Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Co., 

 founded with the sole purpose of profiting 

 from the ownership of tire patents, came 

 in time to consider what should be their 

 course after the expiry of the patents, 

 when it was decided to build up a manu- 

 facturing business which should be en- 

 during, and this has been accomplished. 

 Their tire patents no longer exist, but their 

 eminence in the tire trade is still a great asset, besides which the 

 company figure in the manufacture and sale of miscellaneous 

 rubber goods to a very large extent. 



The corporation already named is only one of several em- 

 braced in the Dunlop system. Their manufacturing business is 

 carried on at Birmingham, under the name of the Dunlop Rub- 

 ber Co., Limited, which is a separate corporation, with net assets 

 stated recently at £832,000 [=$4,048,928]. The average annual 

 profits of the Dunlop Rubber Co. for three years have amounted 

 to £257,758 [=$1,254,379]. In addition to the businesses here 

 named, the Dunlop interests embrace a tire factory in France, 

 one in Germany, one in Canada, and one in Australia, and they 

 profit from the manufacture and sale of the Dunlop tire in the 

 United States, not to mention the sale of the Dunlop tire else- 

 where, in countries where it is not manufactured. Recently they 

 have been planning to establish a factory in Japan. 



It is to be kept in mind that none of these enterprises to-day 

 is based upon the holding of any patents ; they are only results 

 of the momentum gained by the Dunlop business machine when 

 it really was based upon a patent very essential to it, the validity 



