Passengers travelling east along Whitechapel Road and Mile End Road on the Number 25 or 205 today will eventually cross the Regents Canal. The thoroughfare rises steadily before reaching the canal bridge, which is where the double-decker will pass close to 357 Mile End Road and a pub once called the New Globe. These buildings already existed when Walter Hancock’s Infant began to provide a steam carriage service between Stratford and London in 1831.
Walter Hancock must have passed over the bridge and by the buildings many times as his business began to thrive, perhaps generating optimism that his Stratford manufactured steamers would make the kind of fortune being accumulated in the rubber industry by his elder brother, Thomas. Unfortunately for Walter the era of the steam powered omnibus was relatively short lived and led to his bankruptcy in 1844. However, Walter’s talents as a designer and engineer stood him in good stead and his prospects were revived when, along with his younger brother, Charles, he developed an interest in gutta percha. Only a year after his bankruptcy the Gutta Percha Company was formed and both he and Charles were involved from the start although the key figure behind the creation of the new enterprise was Henry Bewley, a businessman with a finger in many pies and an associate of Samuel Gurney, a city financier.
Although the Gutta Percha Company maintained a base in Stratford the main factory was to be located in Islington. Consequently, when passing through Mile End, Walter may well have come to see the canal, on which increasing quantities of solidified gum were being carried up from the docks, as a link to a brighter future. The factory where the forest products of South-East Asia would be processed was adjacent to Wenlock Basin a little less than three miles, as the cormorant flies over water, from the bridge.
Walter’s role in the development of the Gutta Percha Company was linked to his mechanical skills and it appears he not only looked after machines installed at Wenlock Basin but was also responsible for those in Stratford. Machines were valuable both as tools and scrap metal and the temptation of one machine at Stratford, which had evidently been unused for some time, brought disaster to a man who succumbed. In the autumn of 1848 John Angworth stole a part which belonged to, as the court papers said, ‘Henry Bewley and others’ and tried to sell it as scrap at a local marine store. When apprehended by a policeman Angworth initially offered resistance but was taken into custody after being subdued. His struggle, coupled with a previous conviction for which he had served six months in prison, led to him being sentenced to transportation at the Old Bailey. His wife, who was on trial with him, was found not guilty but she then faced the consequences of being separated from her husband for at least seven years.
Implementation of laws for theft were often harsh in early Victorian England and the perceived necessity for tough attitudes was reflected in the implacable position taken towards perfectly law abiding employees in both industrial and rural environments. Refusal to negotiate with workers over what might seem today to be reasonable demands may well have been justified by employers as the only way to keep solvent in the very ‘dog eat dog’ atmosphere of laissez faire capitalism. Not everyone was as fortunate as Walter Hancock in having a talent that would almost guarantee work after bankruptcy nor a brother like Charles who quickly obtained suitable employment for him as an ‘experimental manager’ at Wenlock Basin. Nonetheless, it may not have been long before Walter changed his view of the canal as he passed over the bridge at Mile End, for a dispute with Bewley meant the waterway no longer offered a route to riches.
At first glance Henry Bewley might seem to have been just a stereotypical Dickensian capitalist, knowing how to write a contract to ensure he kept the upper hand in any dispute and holding to the maxim there is ‘no sentiment in business’. Charles Hancock certainly seems to have been very bitter about the way he and his brother had been treated by Bewley over the use of the telegraph wire coating machine. This machine was based on one initially devised by Bewley but had been developed by the Hancocks - in fact, mainly by Walter.
After the termination of their business relationship with Bewley the Hancocks set up an enterprise of their own to supply gutta percha products and they were quite successful. The West Ham Gutta Percha Company was established in June 1850 and the public was soon informed that it was manufacturing a variety of industrial and domestic products. These included gutta percha coated telegraph wire but it does not appear the Hancocks wanted to compete with Bewley’s firm in the production of submarine cable – or perhaps they were not invited to tender. Nonetheless, products manufactured in a converted workhouse in West Ham began to generate a steady demand. The words ‘Charles Hancock’s Patents’ in newsprint seems to have been a selling point and it would appear the quality of some items was such that they cornered the market. Developing promising opportunities could be very important for any new company and the expanding production of linen in north of Ireland must have been quickly identified by the Hancocks. Adverts for ‘Hancock’s Patent Gutta Percha Bosses, for Flax Manufacturers’ began to appear in Ulster newspapers in April 1851 by which time an agent had been appointed in Belfast.
The growth of the linen industry in the north of Ireland had been relatively fast in the early C19th. Linen was a traditional fabric hand made from flax but after the industrial revolution demand had suffered from the expansion of the cotton industry. However, when steam power was adapted to linen production and the cotton industry itself began to suffer from competition in the rest of Great Britain there was a reversal of fortune. By 1850 Belfast had become the centre of the largest area of linen production in the world. It had over 60 modern mills employing nearly 20,000 workers and it was to these factories in what became known as ‘Linenopolis’ that the West Ham Gutta Percha Company aimed to supply a hardwearing and reliable product, as the extract of an advert to the right shows.
1851 may have been a time when the West Ham Gutta Percha Company made profitable inroads into the Ulster flax industry but in two other areas the Gutta Percha Company also enhanced its prestige. In May the Great Exhibition opened. There were over 13,000 exhibits from many countries displayed in a huge and innovative ‘Crystal Palace’. One half of the glass pavilion was given over to products from the United Kingdom and its dominions, the other being devoted to the rest of the world. A group of enthusiasts in Singapore had collected several hundred items from the Malay Peninsula and the adjacent archipelago and a ‘Sub-committee for Arranging and Packing’ had seen them safely dispatched on the Tyne built, Liverpool based ship, the Inglewood. Some of the items that found their way to Hyde Park were provided by a Mr Kerr who organised them to show how gutta purcha was actually used in Jahore. Elsewhere the East India Company displayed actual samples sent by Dr Montgomerie in 1843. It was less than a decade since these had arrived but anyone wanting to know how British companies had exploited the new material needed only to make their way to the North Gallery. There they would have found the Gutta Percha Company at stand 85 and, a short distance away, C Hancock at stand 90. As there was neither a stand 86 nor 87 it was most fortunate that two other gutta percha manufacturers applied to exhibit and could be tactfully placed between the rivals on stands 88 and 89. Even so there may have been some tense moments during the exhibition for Charles Hancock was still intent on pursuing sole rights to the wire coating machine which had caused the split with Bewley. It was noticeable that only Hancock’s stand displayed an example of coated wire but nonetheless it was Bewley’s company, which showed a wide variety of gutta percha products and which was awarded a coveted Council Medal.
The Council Medal was awarded by juries for outstanding excellence and originality and as only 170 exhibitors were judged to have shown such a combination this was some achievement for the Wharf Road factory. As it happens a Council Medal was also awarded to a firm, based in the Middle Gallery South, which had also used gutta percha extensively. The Middle Gallery South was given over to exhibits from the German Zollverein and it is no surprise Siemens and Halske were given the award for their telegraphic system. It is probable this award was even more welcome to Siemens than to Bewley because 1851 was a troubled year for the ex-military officer. The successful completion of the Berlin to Frankfurt telegraph had raised the profile of Siemens and Halske to such a degree that there were really no competitors when other lines were commissioned. The Prussian Ministry of Commerce had taken over responsibility for telegraphic expansion from the military, authority now resting with Friedrich Nottebohm, technical director of the telegraph administration. After leaving the army Siemens became a civilian contractor and at first things went well but as more and more malfunctions occurred in underground cables the relationship between Nottebohm and Siemens soured. There were a number of reasons for the cable failures including problems caused by the gutta percha vulcanisation process but Siemens, never one to take criticism lying down, rejected what he considered unjust comments from Nottebohm. Resenting the blame being heaped on himself and Halske, Siemens retorted by publishing a document entitled A short account of experiences in connection with the Prussian sub-terranean telegraph line. This brought the curtain down on his relationship with the Prussian telegraph administration, which ensured no further contracts came his way. Innovative designs he and Halske had developed were handed over to be used by other contractors and for years afterwards attempts by the partnership to register patents were blocked by Nottebohm. In consequence it must have been sweet indeed for Siemens and Halske to have won a Council Medal and to see, in an August edition of the Morning Chronicle, a whole column published in German under title Der Siemen’sche Telegraph (The Siemen's Telegraph).
Gratifying though the award of a Council Medal, which showed both Queen Victoria and Prince Albert on the face, must have been to the Gutta Percha Company almost as soon as the exhibition closed there was another, arguably more important, triumph for the Wharf Road firm. Mr Statham was still in charge of manufacturing and had supervised the production of the core of a new submarine telegraph cable which, like that run out from the Goliath, would lay on the bed of the English channel. However, the 1851 cable was far more sophisticated than the one of 1850. This time there would be four transmission wires, each double coated with gutta percha, clustering round a strand of Russian tarred hemp. As each wire was approximately 25 miles in length the Gutta Percha Company had to produce a hundred miles in total and a report in a contemporary magazine called the Engineer and Machinist, said nothing could be more perfect than the manner in which that order was executed. Praise indeed. Further protection to the four wires was given through the use of more strands of tarred hemp laid between one covered wire and the next and then spun yarn was wound around both coated wires and strands as shown in the illustration to the right. In order to ensure durability it was decided to sheath this core in ten spirally wound strands of galvanised iron.
Making the complete cable was beyond the capabilities of the Wenlock Basin factory and so the iron wires, which were manufactured in Manchester, were put in place at premises of another company in Wapping and loaded onto the Blazer, an old Admiralty steam ship that had been much altered for its role in the project. Once loaded the engineless Blazer was towed to Dover on Wednesday, September 24th and began to feed the cable into the Channel almost immediately. The starting point in England was the South Foreland lighthouse rather than a horsebox in Dover Railway Station and the landing point in France the village of Sangatte rather than Cap Griz Nez. As was probably inevitable there were some initial tribulations, but after the connection had been made the second cross-Channel cable was to prove far more reliable than the first and lasted for years.
Given the part the wire coating machine had played in creating the submarine cable it may well have been that the obvious success and the promise of future developments strengthened the resolve of Charles Hancock to have what he considered his due. His pursuit would have been supported financially, partly at least, by profits from his own gutta percha company and, on a practical level, by his brother, Walter. Walter had been important in devising and maintaining machinery for use in the gutta percha industry but had gradually withdrawn from day to day operations in the Stratford factory due to illness and died at home in May 1852. The Essex Herald published an obituary which alluded to his skill and inventiveness laying the ‘non success’ of his road going steam locomotive at the door of railway development. It also drew attention to the fact that although he had made many important discoveries the financial benefits were ‘chiefly obtained by others’ although these others were not named. Perhaps Walter had been too amiable and unworldly to have been a success in the early Victorian business world but although his modest and unassuming manners certainly made him many friends he appears to have no remaining memorial. He was buried in Bow Cemetery, not far from the old route of the Infant and a few hundred yards from the Regents Canal but exactly where he was laid to rest is now unknown although one day, perhaps, his gravestone might be discovered in what is now called Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park.
After the death of Walter, Charles continued to pursue his case and eventually both he and Bewley agreed that the dispute would go to arbitration. Meanwhile the success of the Gutta Percha Company continued unabated and although orders for coating telegraph wire continued to grow the opportunities to meet the demands of other, if rather unusual, markets were taken. One opportunity lay with the growing number of potential emigrants who intended to book a passage to the other side of the world to prospect for gold. These hopefuls would need all kinds of kit, a good deal of which could be manufactured in Wharf Road and bought all over the country via agents. The newspaper advert to the right was typical of the time. Perhaps the transported John Angworth eventually became involved in the rush. If so it would have been ironic indeed had he acquired a washing pan manufactured by the very company the theft from which had given him a free passage to Australia!
Increasing sales of gutta percha items to fortune hunters would obviously be welcome to Bewley but he must have been as aware as anyone that the real profits would be made in the production of submarine cables and after the success of the cable laid by the Blazer it is no surprise other far more ambitious plans soon appeared. Just a month after the death of Walter Hancock a line was laid on the bed of the Irish Sea between Holyhead and Howth. The core had been manufactured at Wharf Road under Mr Statham’s supervision and then armoured by R.S.Newall and Co. of Gateshead, the same company that had completed the Blazer cable. Successful at first, the Holyhead to Howth telegraph failed after three days, but this did not deter an attempt to lay a cable between Ireland and Scotland soon afterward. Although this project was abandoned, the cable was recovered. By the end of the year another cable with a core manufactured at Wharf Road and protected by R.S.Newall armour had been fed into a channel. It had been transported across the Atlantic first and then used joined New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island telegraphically via the Northumberland Strait. It too failed within a year but there was no faltering in the emergence of new plans to link the world through armoured submarine cables. Given the benefits that would accrue to those owning patents crucial to the manufacture of gutta percha cores the tenacity that Charles Hancock showed over the wire coating machine patent is understandable. His claim against Bewley went to arbitration in October 1852 but it would be months before the decision of the arbiters would be announced. Even by February 1853 no determination had been made and yet the laying of another cross-channel cable, this time between Dover and Ostend, was in the offing.
When London Became An Island
Gutta Percha comes to the Metropolis
Chapter 14 - Gutta Percha Rivals
Commanders and clippers
