Another Taste Of Big Mac

Having patented his new waterproof fabric, Charles Macintosh initially just produced the cloth, leaving tailors in Glasgow and then London to fashion it into garments. Initial reactions were mixed. Tailors found the material difficult to work with. Customers found that while the coats were undeniably waterproof, they became stiff in the cold, tended to become sticky in the heat, and gave off a strong, unpleasant smell. The rubber layer would leak through stitching holes and would deteriorate rapidly when it met the natural oils of wool. Nevertheless, Charles scored some notable early successes, including equipping the crew of Sir John Franklin’s 1824 Arctic expedition with waterproof garments.

Thanks to Thomas Hancock, Macintosh was able to solve the problem of the material’s unpleasant odour and sensitivity to temperature. A pioneer of rubber technology, Hancock had invented a “masticator” in 1819 which transformed scraps of rubber into blocks or sheets and, in 1825, a process to produce artificial leather with masticated rubber.

The acknowledged superiority of the fabric produced by Hancock’s process led to the two men agreeing to collaborate by 1830, merging their businesses, and opening a factory in Manchester where garments were made. They also developed an automatic spreading machine which replaced Macintosh’s paint brushes. It was only in 1837 when Macintosh’s patent had expired that Hancock patented his masticator and spreader (no 7344).

Perhaps Macintosh’s greatest early commercial success came in 1841 when the British army placed an order to equip all its troops with waterproof clothing. So functional and hard wearing was it that it soon became standard army issue.

The company’s fortunes temporarily dipped after Macintosh’s death in 1843, curiously in part due to the boom in rail travel. Enclosed railway carriages instead of exposed horse-drawn coaches meant that the hardy traveller barely had to protect themselves against the weather. It was just a temporary blip, a successful appearance at the Great Exhibition of 1851 rejuvenating the fortunes of Macintosh’s material to such an extent that his name became the portmanteau word for all rainwear, even if the insensitive Sassenachs had inserted an unwanted k into it.

James Syme (1799-1870), As a boy Syme was a chemical enthusiast. At 18 he discovered and published a method of waterproofing cloth by rubberizing. A Glasgow chemist, Charles Mackintosh, patented the technique, gave his name to it and made a fortune.

Macintosh, though, was not the first to recognise that a rubber solution could repel water. Fellow Scot, surgeon and chemist, James Syme had noted, as he described in a letter written on March 5, 1818, and published in Thomson’s Annals of Philosophy, that “as coal tar in every respect bears the strongest resemblance to petroleum, it occurred to me that by distilling it a fluid might be procured which, like naphtha, should have the property of dissolving caoutchouc [natural rubber]”. His account detailed his success in producing “a valuable substance which may be obtained from coal tar” and concluded by hoping that his discovery would extend “its use to the many purposes for which it is so peculiarly well adapted”.

A surgeon at heart, Syme did not pursue the idea further, but his process was identical to that which Macintosh patented five years later, leading to suggestions that Macintosh had familiarised himself with Syme’s work before conducting his own experiments. There was once crucial difference though; Syme had not considered the concept of sandwiching a layer of rubber between two layers of fabric.

Even that was not unique to Macintosh. The Aztecs had used natural latex to waterproof fabrics, an idea adopted by Spanish scientists who used a rubber lining to leak-proof containers used to store mercury. The eminent British balloonist, Charles Green, had made a balloon envelope that was waterproofed with a rubber inner in 1821, a variation on the French practice of making the fabric of their balloons gas tight by impregnating it with rubber dissolved in turpentine.

Macintosh’s genius was to pull together these various strands, making a fabric that was not only truly waterproof but also easy to fashion and to wear and exploiting it commercially for all he was worth. That macs are still part of our wardrobe after two centuries is worthy of celebration.