Alexander Parkes

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Alexander Parkes (December 29, 1813 - June 29, 1890) was a metallurgist and inventor from Birmingham, England. He created Parkesine, the first man-made plastic.

The son of a brass lock manufacturer, Parkes was apprenticed to a brass founder at Messenger and Sons before going to work for George and Henry Elkington, who patented the electroplating process. Parkes was put in charge of the casting department, and his attention soon began to focus on electroplating, a recently discovered process. Parkes took out his first patent (No. 8005) in 1841 on a process for electroplating delicate works of art. His improved method for electroplating fine and fragile objects, such as flowers, was granted a patent in 1841. In total he held 66 patents on processes and products related to electroplating and plastic development.

His patent involved electroplating an object in a solution of phosphorus contained in bisulfide of carbon, and then placed it in nitrate of silver.

In 1850 he developed and patented the Parkes process for economically desilvering lead, also patenting refinements to the process in 1851 and 1852.

In 1856 he developed Parkesine - the first thermoplastic - a celluloid based on nitrocellulose with ethanol solvent. This material, exhibited at the 1862 London International Exhibition, anticipated many of the modern aesthetic and utility uses of plastics.

In 1866 he set up The Parkesine Company at Hackney Wick, London, for bulk low-cost production. It was not, however, a commercial success as Parkesine was expensive to produce, prone to cracking and highly flammable. The business was wound up in 1868.

Parkes' material was developed later in improved form as Xylonite by his associate Daniel Spill, who brought a patent infringement lawsuit — ultimately unsuccessful — against John Wesley Hyatt, developer of celluloid in the U.S. In 1870, however, the judge ruled that it was in fact Parkes who was the true inventor due to his original experiments.

Blue plaque on the old Birmingham Science Museum

Parkes is remembered in several locations: the Plastics Historical Society placed a blue plastic plaque on his home in Dulwich, London, in 2002. The Birmingham Civic Society erected a Blue Plaque commemorating him in 2004 on the original Elkington Silver Electroplating Works (The old Science Museum), Newhall Street, Birmingham[1]. Parkes is buried in West Norwood Cemetery although his memorial was removed in the 1970s.