Early heavy-duty water-repellent materials included tarred canvas (tarpaulin), worn for example by seamen, and leather – traditionally used for vessels containing liquids. Oilskin (linen/cotton material impregnated with boiled linseed oil) was developed c.1810s, progressively replacing tarpaulin, while workers like railway platform staff, policemen and postmen received outdoor garments of heavy, densely woven woollen cloth and stout leather footwear. Yet there remained a growing need for fully waterproof fabrics.

Early European explorers in the Americas had observed how indigenous people used a natural resin or latex from native trees to make capes and footwear. Later, in the 1800s, North Americans and Europeans began to experiment with latex, many pioneers being associated with the early development of ‘India rubber’. Notably, Scottish chemist Charles Macintosh invented a solution of India rubber dissolved in benzene to bond fabric layers together. The resulting waterproof cloth (patented 1823) began production in 1824 and was commissioned for army cloaks and capes; later when used for civilian raincoats, the so-called Mackintosh (spelt with a ‘k’) was named after its creator. Macintosh’s original ‘India rubber cloth’ was certainly impermeable, but smelled unpleasant and became stiff in cold weather, sticky in the heat. However, when more stable vulcanised rubber able to withstand temperature changes was developed in the 1840s, rubber became more consumer friendly. Now others joined the industry, like Stephen Moulton who, after working with vulcanisation pioneer and tyre manufacturer Charles Goodyear in the US, established a rubber factory in Bradford in 1848.

Moulton supplied railway buffers, hosepipes and springs and also manufactured rubber-coated fabric sheets to fashion into waterproof capes for the British Army during the Crimean War. Rubber in all its applications was booming. In 1856 the North British Rubber Company produced Britain’s first rubber or ‘gum’ boots: waterproof footwear also named Wellingtons. Initially unpopular as a substitute for leather, rubber ‘trench waders’ proved critical during WW1 when the NBR Company manufactured millions of pairs for soldiers’ winter kit, helping to prevent ‘trench foot’. Afterwards, gumboots/Wellingtons and new rubberised aprons were adopted in many industries, from farming to fishing.

Rubber had numerous industrial and commercial uses, from erasers and tyres to conveyer belts and mattings. It also radically enhanced ladies’ fashion, particularly regarding foundation garments. During the 1920s sheet rubber ‘reducing corsets’ were marketed to achieve the desirable slender figure. Elastic was also refined, a major breakthrough the development of elastic yarn with a two-way stretch: termed lastex, this thread with a rubber core covered with wool, cotton, silk or rayon was developed by the US Rubber Company in the 1930s under the trade-name Spandex. This was widely used for corsets, girdles, bras and swimwear, but during WW2 Malayan rubber plantations fell to Japan: with rubber now a scarce resource, some synthetic rubber was produced for gas masks and military equipment. A later fashion innovation was Lycra – the best-known of the original Spandex fibres and renamed ‘elastane’ in 1976. Containing no natural rubber at all, this light, strong fabric demonstrated how yet another material could be artificially contrived using modern science. {