August 12, 2026 • 41 mins
Frederick Walton caused a lot of financial family friction on the way to developing linoleum. And even though he believed he had revolutionized home dec, he didn't expect to be remembered.
Research:
- “4,000 for His ‘Devoted Attendant.’” Western Daily Press. August 3, 1928. https://www.newspapers.com/image/813758815/?match=1&terms=%22Frederick%20Walton%22
- Baker, Anne Pimlott. "Walton, Frederick Edward (bap. 1834, d. 1928), inventor of linoleum." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. September 23, 2004. Oxford University Press. Date of access 20 Jul. 2026, <https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-67799
- Kaldewei, Gerhard, ed. “Linoleum: History, Design, Architecture 1882-2000.” Hatje Cantz. 2000.
- “Cork Carpets.” The Chatauquan. Volume 21. 1895. https://books.google.com/books?id=a2cXAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA471#v=onepage&q&f=false
- Gross, Linda. “The Evolution of Linoleum.” Hagley Museum and Library. March 19, 2018. https://www.hagley.org/librarynews/evolution-linoleum#:~:text=In%201860%20Walton%20applied%20for,1864%2C%20in%20Staines%2C%20England.
- Hodgson, R.D. “Frederick Walton: Centenary of the Birth of the Inventor of Linoleum.” Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry. Vol. 53. Issue 10. March 1934. Pages 209-232. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jctb.5000531003
- “Inventor’s Will.” Daily Record. Aug. 3, 1928. https://www.newspapers.com/image/1041447745/?match=1&terms=%22Frederick%20Walton%22
- “Lincrusta History.” https://lincrusta.com/about-us/#history
- Parsons, Ralph. “Linoleum: A Chiswick Invention.” Brentford & Chiswick Local History Society. https://brentfordandchiswicklhs.org.uk/local-history/industries-and-crafts/linoleum-a-chiswick-invention/
- D.H. “CENTENARY OF FREDERICK WALTON, INVENTOR OF LINOLEUM.” Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, vol. 82, no. 4240, 1934, pp. 432–33. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41317315
- Simpson, Pamela H. “Comfortable, Durable, and Decorative: Linoleum’s Rise and Fall from Grace.” APT Bulletin: The Journal of Preservation Technology, vol. 30, no. 2/3, 1999, pp. 17–24. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1504636
- “Society of Arts.” The Morning Post. April 3, 1862. https://www.newspapers.com/image/396195800/?match=1&terms=Frederick%20Walton%20&search-id=58db9118-0a75-49e3-a4ae-68272c242a64&search-rank=1
- Walton, Frederick. “The infancy and development of linoleum floorcloth.” Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent. London. 1925.
- “Walton-Scruby.” The Morning Post. March 22, 1867. https://www.newspapers.com/image/396195945/?match=2&terms=frederick%20walton&search-id=ed4e6ef1-9806-4b3d-84bb-62b4e8e0efc6&search-rank=1
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Frye and I'm Tracy V.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Wilson.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
We made a little drive by reference to today's topic
several episodes back, and I kind of hinted that he
was coming. I have to confess to you, every time
I have told someone I am working on this topic,
they go boring, and I sure don't think so. Everything's
interesting if you look at it at the right perspective,
because Frederick Walton really changed everything in terms of home
(00:41):
decor in the nineteenth century. And I really love him
for that, and I just think he's an interesting bloke
and he knew that he had made this big change,
that he had an impact, although he did not expect
to be a famous historical figure for it. I really
really love this, he once said of his work life quote,
every householder can vouch for the utility and sanitary value
(01:05):
of linoleum, and many housewives will. I hope bless my
memory in the future, although my name may be forgotten
obviously not just housewives, but these things happen in the
nineteenth century. He's not forgotten though. If I have anything
to say about it. So today we are going to
talk about Frederick Walton and his invention of linoleum. Frederick
(01:28):
Walton was born on March thirteenth, eighteen thirty four, and
he came from a family of cloth frizzers. His father,
James Walton, his grandfather, his great grandfather had all been
cloth frizzers. Frizzing, which you can spell with one or
two z's or more if you want to be really unique,
(01:50):
is the method of treating wool to make it very textured.
You first comb or brush the wool to pull up
any fibers, and then very tightly twist them to create
a nubbly texture that has a lot of depth. These
wolves are usually used for outerwear garments like cloaks and coats.
(02:11):
The family method of frizzing was apparently a very closely
guarded secret, and they did very well for themselves. Frederick
stated later that his father had succeeded in business and
became the High Sheriff of Montgomery County. James, who again
is Frederick's father, had started working with his father in
the textile mill when he was just a kid. That
mill was located in West Yorkshire in the Stubborns area
(02:34):
of Sowerby. He was interested in the family business, but
that interest actually led to some friction because after he
got to understand the workings of the mill, James wanted
to tinker with all the machines because he thought they
could all be improved, and his father was not a
fan of this at all. Soon James left the family
(02:54):
business to start his own frizzing enterprise, and he got
into some financial trouble when one of his inventions, which
was a wire card that was used to brush wool fibers,
got into a long patent litigation, and after that he
was really really secretive about his work. He had gone
into business with some friends and they had all argued
(03:14):
kind of over who owned the rights to this particular thing,
and he just felt burned by it. But even though
he didn't want to share with friends, he did want
to share his business with his sons, William and Frederick,
and he made them partners in his mill once they
were adults. This also did not work out because neither
(03:34):
of the young men wanted a life in textiles. William
wanted to pursue the arts, and Frederick was interested in
the machinery at the mill, but that led him into
wanting to work on his own projects. He had been
exposed to uses of our recent recurring character on the
show India Rubber through his father's work, and he had
(03:55):
started his own experiments to try to find a similar
substance that did not have all the drawbacks that natural
rubber did. James was really frustrated with this, so much
so that Frederick decided he would just move to London
and continue his own work. That meant that he gave
up his interest in the family business and the income
(04:16):
that he received through it, so he was really just
striking out on his own at the age of twenty
seven without much of a safety net. He started his
own brush company as a side business. He had started
that even while still working with his father, and that
produced hair and horse brushes, but it was not profitable
(04:36):
and actually was a liability.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Even though all of.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
This was a big risk, Frederick was confident in his decision.
He had been experimenting with oxidized oil, which he combined
with resin and gum, and he created a substance he
called Campticon. I'm just going to tell you right now
there are a lot of names of products and substances
in this that will make you say, why do people
name these things? These things because they're not very catchy,
(05:04):
sometimes difficult to say, just sound kind of clunky, sometimes
sound unappealing to me. Just I don't want that in
my house. And yet there it is the story of
how Frederick started this experiment is something that he described
later in his life this way. And I will also
say this, there are people that have said that this
(05:25):
is really kind of like the myth version that he
made up, like a smooth, easy version to tell people. Quote,
there was a paint pot in the laboratory and as usual,
a skin or surface of dried oil had formed upon it.
It occurred to me that I could use it as
a waterproofing material similar to India rubber. So, according to
(05:47):
his story, when he picked up the skin that had
dried on top of the paint, which was made with
linseed oil, he found that that skin stayed together in
one piece, and that it had these sort of pliable
and rubber equalities, and he started to consider whether this
could be a substitute for India rubber. Recognizing that the
linseed oil had dried due to natural oxidation, he began
(06:10):
to experiment with purposely oxidizing it, and it was through
that experimentation that he landed at Campdicon. He combined coal
dust with Campdicon to get a floor cloth called Camptulicon.
Now this was not something that he invented. He was
trying to figure out how to make it. Camptulican had
(06:31):
been invented in eighteen forty three as a way to
line the hulls of iron warships. The idea was that
if the ship was fired upon, the rubber would prevent
splintering and ideally would offer a temporary seal around the hole.
As the rubber would melt from the heat from the munitions,
that it would like fill in the spot where the
(06:53):
hull had been penetrated. It was tested for this usage,
but determined to not be good enough for the investment
of installing it. When that use did not go as plan,
Camp Tulcan started to be used as a floor covering.
The India rubber backing made it waterproof and less prone
(07:13):
to sliding around than some other floor covering options. We
will be coming back to Camp Tulacan in a little while. Yeah,
I will say that testing that was done on shipholes.
It did work some of the time, but not consistently
enough was the problem. Like there is a report that
there was one hole in a test that completely filled
(07:35):
in and it you know, retained its seaworthiness, but.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
A very expensive kind of a gamble.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Yeah, And the reason that Walton was so fixated on
creating a durable floor covering was that the existing options
were not durable. He was also, as you'll see, trying
to come up with any kind of use for this
new kind of substance he felt.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
He was working with.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
We're going to backtrack just a little to talk about
floor covering terminology here because it can get a little
confusing as certain words are used interchangeably. Today, the word
carpet is usually used in reference to a permanently affixed
floor covering, like one that fills the space, whereas a
rug is something that is generally smaller than the space
(08:22):
that is in and isn't permanently affixed. But just so
you know, in a lot of writing, particularly from the
nineteenth century, carpet and rug get used sort of interchangeably.
The idea of wal to wall carpet just did not
really exist at that point. It wasn't until the twentieth
century that that happened. So anytime we reference a quote
(08:43):
and it's talking about carpet or that comes up in
the course of this episode, we're talking about rugs. When
Walton died, one of his obituaries lauded him as having
really been the person who changed the game when it
came to flooring quote. The usual floor covering of a
century ago, a wax cloth consisting of cotton fabric provided
(09:05):
with a coating of linseed oil, varnish and coloring matters,
was not durable, even when the cotton fiber had been
replaced by the courser jute. Coming up, we will talk
about how Walton innovated and some money troubles, but first
we'll take a sponsor break. Walton's experimentation with oxidized oil
(09:35):
quickly burned through the money that he had on hand
after he left his father's company and went out on
his own. This led to additional family friction because he
suggested that his father, James, could just start giving him
his inheritance early, starting with a thousand pounds and then
advancing him another seven hundred or eight hundred pounds each
(09:57):
quarter so that he could get his business up and running.
His father, who already felt pretty jilted by his son's
exit from the family business, did not appreciate Frederick trying
to hasten his inheritance, and he refused to even speak
to his son. His brother William, though, who was still
involved in the family business and was doing quite well,
(10:19):
did help out, but Frederick then spent all of that
money too. At this point, he was literally penniless, and
Frederick's entire family worked to convince his father, James, that
he really should help his son out, and he finally did,
but only in the form of loans with clear interest terms.
There was absolutely no early inheritance, and those loans were
(10:41):
issued very carefully in small enough increments that Frederick had
to be really careful with his spending. He found this
very frustrating, so he kept asking for more, and then
it reached a point where Frederick had borrowed more than
eight thousand pounds from his father.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Keep in mind.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
In the mid eighteen hundred, so that was a lot
of money. He didn't have any indication that he was
anywhere near a position to pay any of that back,
and once again his father, James cut him off. I
feel this would be like, I don't know the etiquette
of the nineteenth century and a family like this, but
I feel that approaching a parent and being like, can
(11:21):
I have my inheritance early? That's going to be a
dicey conversation in most families.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Father, I'm tired of waiting for you to die.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Yes, even if there's even without all of the baggage
of already having some strained family relations because of not
wanting to go into the family business. So sometime in
eighteen sixty or eighteen sixty one, Frederick Walton moved into
the British Grove Works in Chiswick that included a factory
(11:51):
and a house, and he moved there to continue his work.
The Brentford and Chiswick Historical Society noted in its coverage
of Walton's time there that the eighteen sixty one census
data shows there was a rubber manufacturer at British Grove Works,
and then interestingly that Walton appeared to have also moved
two families with him to the property from Hot and Green,
(12:14):
where his father's company was. The male heads of those
families were employed at the factory. Yeah, I don't know
if that would be another element in the friction between
him and his father. If he took two of the
good factory workers with him poached some people, yeah, that
could be a problem, but it was probably good for
Frederick that he had experienced workers to help him get
(12:37):
production up and running, because there were understandably all kinds
of problems in setting up the facility, because going from
these tests he was doing in small batches to a
larger scale was very tricky.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
There wasn't really any kind.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Of equipment that could boil oil in huge amounts and
also be open for air to access it so that
it could then dry up, so he had to build
these very large, open rectangular boiling tanks. Then to give
the oxidized oil something to cling to you while it dried,
cloth had to be dipped into it, but those cloths
(13:14):
that they came up with needed to be hung, so
Walton and his team built these huge iron racks over
the tanks for this purpose, and those long pieces of
fabric had to be dipped repeatedly, but they couldn't be
dipped over and over. You had to basically let the
oxidized oil set for about a day before you could
dip it again, and that took weeks to build up
(13:37):
just a few millimeters of thickness on the cloth. But
then initially that thin layer was not intended to stay
on the dip cloth. They were trying to figure out
a method to peel it off. It didn't want to
come off, so the solution was don't bother. The strips
of thin cotton with the oxidized oil were ground into
(14:01):
a pulp and then heated with rosin and then poured
onto dedicated floors to cure, and then after that cut
aged and ground up again. The second grinding was combined
with additional ingredients which included cork dust instead of coal dust,
and pigment. In addition to figuring out the manufacture process,
(14:24):
Walton also wanted to see how his oxidized oil could
perform in comparison to India rubber. He found that it
did not break down when he got it wet. The
heat did not seem to affect it, so that was
all great. The one thing that did break it down
was alcohol, and seeing its resilience really got him to
think about the applications that India rubber was being used
(14:47):
for and whether his oxidized oil would be an improvement,
and one of the places that he saw on opportunity
was camtulcan, which, as we said, had already been invented,
and the existing camtu lecon had risen in price because,
as we have also recently discussed on the show, more
and more applications were being found for India rubber all
(15:08):
the time, and supply really couldn't keep up with demand.
That meant that it got more and more expensive. But
then to try to temper the rising costs, manufacturers of
camptulcan kind of cut back on the amount of rubber
that they used and that reduced both the price and
the quality of their products. So when Walton figured out
(15:29):
how to make camptulucan with his oxidized oil, it really
offered a chance to fill a need in the consumer market.
His camptulcan formula had been refined over time and it
had developed a finish that was very similar to rubber.
One of the issues with camptulacan was that there was
no way to attach it to any kind of backing.
(15:51):
But Frederick, who had started rolling out his camptulcan between
two rollers to create a sheet of material with a
consistent thickness, had the idea to roll it with a
backing fabric. At the same time, he was able to
get consistent results, and although his business had not yet
taken off, Frederick Walton knew that he had advanced his
(16:13):
work and he was able to get other investors interested
in this new material, which he called camp Toicon. Presumably
the capital provided by those investors was used to acquire
the factory at Chiswick. So camp Toicon was not an
original enough name. People confused it with Camptulikhan, which sounds
(16:34):
so obvious when we're saying it aloud that I can't
imagine that it didn't occur to him.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
But it didn't.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
When I first read the outline, I was like, is
that a typo? Did part get left out? Did Holly
make an epic typo? Because sometimes I do? And like,
let's face it, neither of those names is particularly catchy,
so he had to rename it, and that is when
the name Linoleum was coined. This is a portmanteau of
(17:01):
two Latin words. The first is linim. That's the linn
which refers to flax. In case you didn't know, linseed
oil is made from dried flax seeds. The second word, olium,
most people know, is the Latin word for oil. Walton
made several patent applications in the early eighteen sixties. One
was for a varnish process that he co filed in
(17:24):
eighteen sixty one with Richard Beard, who was employed at
British Grove Works. Another invention that had been made with
India rubber, the wire card that Frederick Walton had created
to help in the family woolf rising business, was also
updated with his new substance, and that patent was filed
with his brother William. He also filed one for telegraphic
(17:46):
cables that made use of his oxidized material. And then
there was his patent for his floor covering, which he
described by writing quote, This invention has for its object
improvements in the making of fabrics for covering floors and
other surfaces. Canvas or other suitable strong fabrics are coated
(18:06):
over their upper surfaces with a composition consisting of oxidized oil, coal, dust,
and gum or resin preferring Cowie or New Zealand gum.
Such surfaces being afterwards primed, painted, embossed, or otherwise ornamented.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
As we said.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
He later subbed out coal for cork, but that same
year Walton and his team actually developed a new version
of linoleum, and he filed a second patent for it.
This version didn't need to be painted or decorated because
it already had color in it and went all the
way through. Having that linoleum completely colored as it was
(18:43):
made meant that the finish or design was not going
to wear off, and that was a huge step forward.
Even before these patents, Walton had been asked to give
a talk at the Society of Arts because his work
at the factory and Chiswick was not a secret and
people were eager to hear what he had been up to.
He read a paper titled on the Introduction and Use
(19:03):
of Elastic Gums and Analogous Substances. The Morning Post of
London had to write up about the paper Walton read
in the April third, eighteen sixty two edition. In addition
to outlining the topics Walton covered, it gives a slightly
more detailed account, as told by Walton, of how he
arrived at his own invention.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Quote.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
The author began by giving an account of the discovery
and early history of India rubber. He referred to the
various uses to which it is now applied and pointed
out the large amount of additional comfort and convenience which
this simple substance has produced. Passing to Guttapercha, he gave
a similar resume of its past history and its present
(19:45):
commercial position. He then proceeded to describe a material which
he had himself invented and which is, in his opinion,
adapted for use as a substitute for India rubber for
many purposes. So here's where that write up, discription, the
actual invention and heads up.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
It's a big ole run on sentence quote.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Whilst engaged about two years ago in a series of
experiments on the manufacture of artificial leather, it was of
the greatest importance to the success of the material that
it should have a coat of fine varnish, which, whilst drying,
quickly possessed the flexibility of India rubber. It suddenly occurred
to him that if linseed oil was first dried into
(20:24):
a skin and then dissolved into a volatile solvent like
India rubber sheet, the semi resinous material would immediately on
the evaporation of the solvent, resume like India rubber. The
form it was in prior to solution so you could
see that already a more condensed version of his process
was being cultivated. It makes the whole thing sound very
(20:45):
fast and tidy, and not the kind of thing that
would cause a bunch of familial upheaval over finances while
he tested it and ran out of cash. The Morning
Post account also describes how Walton started working with his
oxidized oil, saying that he dipped panes of glass into
the oil and let them dry, then redipped them and
(21:06):
did it over and over again. This is similar to
what was described as happening at the British Grove Works
with fabric. Presumably he could not find large enough panes
of glass to do this at a larger scale that
was needed for industrial production. He then crushed the solid
sheets of oxidized oil and added salac to make a
(21:28):
dough like consistency that could be fed into rollers. He
could add the pigment at this point in the process
as well. He also discussed that his material could be
treated in a manner similar to vulcanization, but without sulfur,
and that the result was hard like ebonite. So that
speech that reading of the paper was given at a
(21:50):
unique time in Walton's business recall he had not yet
patented linoleum. And what is not mentioned in that write up,
and presumably not mentioned at his talk, because I think
it would have shown up in the papers, was that
his factory had just burned down a couple of weeks prior.
This was surprisingly not really a financial hardship. Perhaps recognizing
(22:14):
that the chemicals and materials that were involved in his
process were highly flammable, Walton had taken out a very
large and robust insurance policy on the British Grove works,
and almost immediately after the fire he was able to
begin work on a larger, custom built factory. We'll talk
about Walton's life after the fire after we hear from
(22:35):
some of the sponsors that keep stuff you mus in
history class going. Although Walton built a shiny new factory,
he did not stay there very long because as his
process had gotten better and better, interest in Linoleum was
(22:58):
very high, and when it came time to really plot
out production for market, it became apparent to Frederick and
his investors that the factory was not going to be
large enough to keep up. So in January eighteen sixty four,
Walton moved his entire enterprise to Stains upon Thames into
a factory that had been a textile mill. This was
(23:20):
handy because it came with lots of rollers in it already.
The new factory opened in June with the name Stains
Linoleum Manufacturing Company Limited. In family happenings, things improved for Walton.
Finally making good on all of his work led Frederick
to a reconciliation with his father, and he also started
(23:40):
his own family. On March nineteenth, eighteen sixty seven, Frederick
married Alice Scruby, who was a lawyer's daughter. The two
of them had several children together in the following years. Yeah,
I'm sad to say I don't know much about Alice.
I was not able to dig up a lot. And
there is the added bonus that there was another Fredrick
Walton that existed at the same time. And you kind
(24:03):
of have to pick apart any mentions because sometimes the
two of them got conflated in both biographies and in newspapers.
But it appears that they had several kids, seemed happy.
Walton continued his work with oxidized oil and that led
to new inventions. Remember he was always looking for ways
(24:25):
that it could be applied and one of these inventions
was something called link Crustal Walton, which he invented in
eighteen seventy seven. This was a wallpaper that was washable,
the first of its kind. It had originally been called
Linoleum neuralis i e. Wall Linoleum, and it was quickly
adopted as a decor choice for fine homes and businesses. Remember,
(24:48):
prior to this, all wallpaper was like a fabric finish.
You couldn't just wipe it down. The White House had
link Crustal Walton wall coverings, and so did The Titanic,
as well as many other that you will see listed.
At the start of the eighteen eighties, Walton had opened
a factory in Pierre Fitzosen, which is directly north of
Paris and just outside the city, and that was part
(25:11):
of a larger strategy to globalize his business. Lincrusta expanded
to the North American market in eighteen seventy nine, although
it didn't really take off there until eighteen eighty three,
when the patent rights were purchased by F. R. Beck
and a dedicated factory was established in Connecticut. Incidentally, lyn
(25:31):
Cresta is still available today as a luxury brand, although
the company, and the rights have changed hands several times.
Just as Walton was getting his Lincrusta project up and running,
he also became embroiled in a legal battle. A number
of competitors had emerged in the market. As soon as
it became apparent that linoleum was in demand. A lot
(25:53):
of companies that had been making oil cloth flooring started
to sell their own products as linoleum. As d this,
his patent expired in eighteen seventy seven, and Walton tried
to sue one of them. Things did not go as
he expected, though, because while he had patented linoleum, he
had not trademarked the word, and so it was ruled
(26:13):
as a common name. Yeah, anybody could use it, and
he was really mad about that. Also, during the expansion
of Link Cresta, Walton was still trying new things with linoleum.
He invented and patented granite linoleum, which mimicked the look
of granite through inlaid pigment in streaks. But the big
innovation was not Walton's though, it was one of his employees.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
In eighteen eighty C. F.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Leak, who worked for him, developed a process that passed
colored linoleum through a stencil to create mosaic inlaid linoleum.
This was once again something that all competitors tried to replicate,
but they didn't have Walton's process. Additionally, Walton built on
Leak's work to continue to refine the process, and in
(27:01):
eighteen ninety he got his first patent for a continuous
inlaying machine, and he set up a company several years
later just to make the inlay linoleum. Because the Walton
inlay was so superior to anything else anybody was trying
to make, it became the industry standard, and because no
one else could quite figure out how to make it,
(27:23):
competitors had to buy their machines from Walton. In eighteen
ninety five, an article appeared in The Chautauque that had
been translated from the German art and design publication Moderna Kunst.
This article was titled Cork Carpets, and it offers insight
into the way linoleum was perceived at the time, which
was as a kind of carpet. It also illustrates just
(27:46):
how much of a marvel people found it to be.
The article opens with quote, as we wander through the
public places, vying with each other in size and magnificence
of establishment, which have lent those characteristic fetures that so
impress one at Berlin, or as we betake ourselves to
enjoy or perhaps criticize, one of the more recent theaters.
(28:08):
While the eye delightedly notes the wonders of modern art decoration,
the foot at the same time finds a very peculiar,
yet very agreeable sensation. What is it on which we
are walking? It is not a wood floor, for we
see no cracks, and besides, it is too elastic to
the tread. It is not oilcloth, for this antiquated floor
(28:32):
covering was hard and cold in spite of the easy
walking on it. It is not a wool carpet, for
here nothing of the dust is to be seen, which
always clings to a wool carpet, be it ever so clean.
It appears to be a floor covering, which, free from
the faults of the older kinds of carpeting, unites in itself.
They're virtues. Upon more thorough inspection, we recognize that we
(28:57):
have here linoleum or cork carpet. Yeah, there's a whole
side section that happens after this, where it's like, forgive
us in Germany. We call it cork carpet. We know
you call it linoleum like it's an area.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
It's very cute.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
This write up, which was made after a visit to
a linoleum manufacturing facility in Delmenhorst, Germany, then explains to
the reader what linoleum is, listing linseed oil as the
most important component and cork as the second most important.
This article also shares a layman's perspective on what linoleum
production at massive scale looked like at the end of
(29:34):
the nineteenth century.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Quote. The technical director who.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Accompanied us first showed us the cork mills, whereby an
imposing number of millstones of huge dimensions.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
The cork is ground up into powder.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Then it goes into a huge oil tank in which
there is constantly about a million pounds of the best
painter's linseed oil into the oil cauldron and pumps into
the oxidizing houses. Here, a peculiar surprise awaits one who
has been accustomed to regard oil as a fluid. He
sees the linseed oil as a catouche like pellucid mass,
(30:10):
hanging in long, stringy strips which constantly are flooded with
fresh oil. The wonderful metamorphosis from fluid to the solid
state is the result of the oxidizing process affected by
the oxygen of continually renewed air. Then, it explains, after
six to eight months of natural oxidation, during which the
(30:31):
linseed oil releases its acid content, the solidified oil quote
is pulverized mixed with a fossil resin that is put
through a series of kneading and roller systems which work
the pulverized cork in fine coloring matter thoroughly through it,
and finally, the resulting mass is pressed through steam heated
rollers onto a strong canvas web. The writer notes that
(30:55):
the completed floor covering quote perfectly unites in itself the
warmth and sound deadening qualities of carpet, the elasticity, firmness
and waterproofness of kouchuk, and the cleanliness of the old
time oil cloth. There's also a description of the color
and finish options of linoleum, with particular admiration for inlaid
(31:16):
linoleum quote, the colors of whose patterns actually go clear
through it so that they never can wear off. I
was extremely astonished to see them fill up the different
colored parts and compartments and to subject the material thus
applied in a pattern to a hydraulic pressure of about
four thousand, four hundred pounds to the square inch. That thought,
(31:39):
I to myself, is indeed the floor covering of the future.
I really love this because I love the idea that
a person who writes for like a design and architecture
magazine walked into a factory probably saw large scale factory
works for the first time, which are amazing.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Anytime I visit a factory and I was like, how
do they do this? And just away like, wow, that's amazing.
I just love it.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
By the end of the nineteenth century, Walton had made
numerous lucrative licensing deals to manufacturers in multiple countries. Linoleum
was embraced by builders and consumers because it offered an
easy to clean, bouncy alternative to other flooring.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
It also did get.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
I want to say, some criticism from some people for
seeming like a cheap or easy finish, like in a
world where they were used to like the very heavy
Victorian decor. This seemed a little like kind of quaint
and maybe anemic, but obviously that was not everybody. But
even without his initial patent, Walton's subsequent ones provided plenty
(32:46):
of income for years, and he continued throughout to work
on new inventions. I think his last patent was filed
in nineteen seventeen. Walton saw his business interests through World
War One, but when the war ended, he decided to retire,
which he did to Nice France. His hobbies in retirement,
and I found it charming that this was mentioned in
(33:06):
a write up were fishing and painting. In nineteen twenty five,
Walton wrote a book titled The Infancy and Development of
Linoleum floor Cloth, and in it he talked about his
work in his life. Towards the end he mentioned, out
of sort of nowhere his belief in clairvoyance. There's a
whole story of a time thirty years prior to the
(33:27):
writing when he wasn't feeling very well while working in stains.
He described his condition at the time this way quote,
I felt not exactly ill, but I lost energy and
my work became a trouble to me. So it kind
of sounds like he might have been experiencing some burnout
or maybe even mild depression, but we cannot really know
(33:48):
for sure. His landlady, though, thought that going to a
psychic would help him, and he says that when they went,
the psychic predicted things about his linoleum floor cloth that
came to fruition decades later, and this, to him was
proof that clairvoyance was real. He wrote, quote, I mentioned
(34:08):
this incident as a most remarkable case of long antecedent clairvoyance,
and I can vouch for its absolute truth. Yeah, there
was apparently a moment that she had described of like
a bunch of stakeholders in the company standing around a
machine and talking. And he states that he you know
that that moment happened, and he realized in the moment, like,
(34:30):
oh my gosh, this is exactly as she described it.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
You know, it's fine.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
He concludes this narrative about his life, again surprisingly by
sharing his thoughts on you don't see this coming, religion
and evolution, and I swear I did not know that
this was part of his story until after we recorded
our recent episode on Thomas Huxley. Walton starts this section
(34:55):
by ruminating on the progress of the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries. Quote, When I think of the extraordinary progress
of science and scientific research that has taken place since
I was born, I am filled with wonder, and I
am tempted at times to allow my fancy to dwell
upon what may happen in the years to come. He
then goes on to talk about the fact that he
(35:16):
watched railroads being built as a boy, and then as
an adult seeing planes take flight. But he also notes
that even though quote there seems to be no question
that our animal origin is undoubtedly proven, and he does
namecheck Darwin and Huxley after that, that humans continue to
behave like beasts, en slaying one another. In Walton's opinion,
(35:38):
there needs to be more moral evolution.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
Quote.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
I may be wrong, but I firmly believe that nothing
short of a long evolution, extending over countless centuries or
even millions of years, will bring us to that perfection
which many of us see in our dreams, but which
can never be realized except in the imagination of those
who picture they most desire. So basically, he thinks man
(36:03):
has a long way to go before humans become truly altruistic.
He then compares the growth of religion to the growth
of language and states that he believes quote both are
but a form of evolution. He also mentions that little
section may alienate some of his associates and colleagues, but
he concludes by writing quote, my object in adding these
(36:24):
final words is only to emphasize the wonderful changes which
have occurred during the last ninety years. And I am
indeed thankful that I have had time and opportunity to
modify the views that I held in my youth. As
Walton entered his nineties, he started to think about a
goal of living to be one hundred. That was not
(36:44):
to be. He fell and broke his leg in early
nineteen twenty eight. He never really recovered, and then he declined,
and Frederick Walton died on May sixteenth of nineteen twenty eight.
Walton's will garnered a fair amount of press coverage because
he made provisions for the people who had worked closely
under him in later years. He reportedly left behind an
(37:08):
estate of fifty four thousand, one hundred and sixteen pounds,
and he left four thousand of that to Hilda Mary Gay,
who he described as his devoted attendant, and another four
thousand in a trust to provide for the widow of
Edward Francis Armstrong, who had been his personal secretary. In
the terms of the trust, He had also arranged that
(37:28):
it would pass to Edward's daughter, Catherine maud Armstrong once
Edward's widow died. Presumably the rest was for his family.
But I just love that all the write ups are
kind of like he gave money to the servants. It's
kind of a hoot, but that was what they got
for supporting the inventor of linoleum, because that's Frederick Walton,
who I find very interesting and a little a little
(37:53):
marvelously odd. I have listener mail.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Listen.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
I'm gonna tell you some of the listener mail was
chosen because of the animals.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
Okay, this is from our listener.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
Valerie, who writes, Hello, Holly and Tracy. I absolutely love
listening to your podcast, especially when I'm out running. It
keeps my mind occupied with something other than how much
I want to stop, especially in this Texas summer heat.
A funny side effect is that I'll occasionally post a
fun fact of the day on Facebook, and it's always
always something I learned from your show. I've actually had
(38:26):
people comment that they can tell I've gone for a
run because another random fun fact has appeared on my page.
I recently listened to your episode about shoes, and while
I wouldn't say I have a shoe obsession unlike someone else,
I won't mention I mean, I presume Valerie means me.
I apparently own enough running shoes that my husband recently
felt he needed to comment on my collection. I also
(38:48):
heard on one of your minis that y'all have done
a run Disney Weekend. I've only done one so far,
but I absolutely loved it. It was such a fun
experience and I definitely look forward to doing another one someday.
For the requires pet tacks, I'm including a couple of pictures.
One is of our flock in their coop, which we
proudly call the hen Sane Asylum. Ah oh, these chickens
(39:12):
names are the absolutely best. A little dark, so get ready.
Our girls are Tanya Harding, Lizzie Borden, Casey, Anthony, Carol Baskin,
the strippers, Babs, Diamond and Cinnamon, plus Missus Tweety and
Mac from Chicken Run. That's a pretty wild and delayful
assortment and names. The other picture, and everybody be cool,
(39:33):
don't share this information. The other picture is of our
two very spoiled Boston terriers, Tucker and Lila. Please keep
that description between us, though they have no idea they're
actually dogs. As far as they're concerned, they're babies, and
we've made absolutely no effort to convince them otherwise. Sending
lots of listening love from Texas. Listen, I'm not gonna
tell those two children that they're not children. The hens
(39:56):
are so cute. The babies are so cute. Tucker, Karanlila
are very sweet, and I just I love it. We
don't get many chicken pictures. Send them on, Send them on.
Some of those are very pretty babies. Anyway, I love it.
I love that we make running easier. Run Disney is
ramping back up very quickly. I mean, they did, you know,
(40:17):
during the height of the pandemic, when nobody was doing anything,
they of course stopped and they have started back a
while back. But I feel like they're in that rapid
growth dace that happened when Run Disney first became a thing,
but it started at a higher level, so now it's
really huge growth. I hope that everyone that tries to
get into races gets in. I haven't registered for one
a long time, and my understanding is that now registration
(40:39):
day is fraught because it's like, you know, trying to
get tickets to Taylor Swift. Probably not that bad, but
in any case, thank you for sharing that with us
and the chickens and your two beautiful children. If you
would like to write to us, you can do so
at History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You can find
the show notes for any of the shows that we
(41:01):
record at mystonhistory dot com, And if you have not
yet subscribed to the podcast and you'd like to, you
can do that on the iHeartRadio app or anywhere you
listen to your favorite shows. Stuff you Missed in History
Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
(41:23):
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Frye and I'm Tracy V.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Wilson.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
We made a little drive by reference to today's topic
several episodes back, and I kind of hinted that he
was coming. I have to confess to you, every time
I have told someone I am working on this topic,
they go boring, and I sure don't think so. Everything's
interesting if you look at it at the right perspective,
because Frederick Walton really changed everything in terms of home
(00:41):
decor in the nineteenth century. And I really love him
for that, and I just think he's an interesting bloke
and he knew that he had made this big change,
that he had an impact, although he did not expect
to be a famous historical figure for it. I really
really love this, he once said of his work life quote,
every householder can vouch for the utility and sanitary value
(01:05):
of linoleum, and many housewives will. I hope bless my
memory in the future, although my name may be forgotten
obviously not just housewives, but these things happen in the
nineteenth century. He's not forgotten though. If I have anything
to say about it. So today we are going to
talk about Frederick Walton and his invention of linoleum. Frederick
(01:28):
Walton was born on March thirteenth, eighteen thirty four, and
he came from a family of cloth frizzers. His father,
James Walton, his grandfather, his great grandfather had all been
cloth frizzers. Frizzing, which you can spell with one or
two z's or more if you want to be really unique,
(01:50):
is the method of treating wool to make it very textured.
You first comb or brush the wool to pull up
any fibers, and then very tightly twist them to create
a nubbly texture that has a lot of depth. These
wolves are usually used for outerwear garments like cloaks and coats.
(02:11):
The family method of frizzing was apparently a very closely
guarded secret, and they did very well for themselves. Frederick
stated later that his father had succeeded in business and
became the High Sheriff of Montgomery County. James, who again
is Frederick's father, had started working with his father in
the textile mill when he was just a kid. That
mill was located in West Yorkshire in the Stubborns area
(02:34):
of Sowerby. He was interested in the family business, but
that interest actually led to some friction because after he
got to understand the workings of the mill, James wanted
to tinker with all the machines because he thought they
could all be improved, and his father was not a
fan of this at all. Soon James left the family
(02:54):
business to start his own frizzing enterprise, and he got
into some financial trouble when one of his inventions, which
was a wire card that was used to brush wool fibers,
got into a long patent litigation, and after that he
was really really secretive about his work. He had gone
into business with some friends and they had all argued
(03:14):
kind of over who owned the rights to this particular thing,
and he just felt burned by it. But even though
he didn't want to share with friends, he did want
to share his business with his sons, William and Frederick,
and he made them partners in his mill once they
were adults. This also did not work out because neither
(03:34):
of the young men wanted a life in textiles. William
wanted to pursue the arts, and Frederick was interested in
the machinery at the mill, but that led him into
wanting to work on his own projects. He had been
exposed to uses of our recent recurring character on the
show India Rubber through his father's work, and he had
(03:55):
started his own experiments to try to find a similar
substance that did not have all the drawbacks that natural
rubber did. James was really frustrated with this, so much
so that Frederick decided he would just move to London
and continue his own work. That meant that he gave
up his interest in the family business and the income
(04:16):
that he received through it, so he was really just
striking out on his own at the age of twenty
seven without much of a safety net. He started his
own brush company as a side business. He had started
that even while still working with his father, and that
produced hair and horse brushes, but it was not profitable
(04:36):
and actually was a liability.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Even though all of.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
This was a big risk, Frederick was confident in his decision.
He had been experimenting with oxidized oil, which he combined
with resin and gum, and he created a substance he
called Campticon. I'm just going to tell you right now
there are a lot of names of products and substances
in this that will make you say, why do people
name these things? These things because they're not very catchy,
(05:04):
sometimes difficult to say, just sound kind of clunky, sometimes
sound unappealing to me. Just I don't want that in
my house. And yet there it is the story of
how Frederick started this experiment is something that he described
later in his life this way. And I will also
say this, there are people that have said that this
(05:25):
is really kind of like the myth version that he
made up, like a smooth, easy version to tell people. Quote,
there was a paint pot in the laboratory and as usual,
a skin or surface of dried oil had formed upon it.
It occurred to me that I could use it as
a waterproofing material similar to India rubber. So, according to
(05:47):
his story, when he picked up the skin that had
dried on top of the paint, which was made with
linseed oil, he found that that skin stayed together in
one piece, and that it had these sort of pliable
and rubber equalities, and he started to consider whether this
could be a substitute for India rubber. Recognizing that the
linseed oil had dried due to natural oxidation, he began
(06:10):
to experiment with purposely oxidizing it, and it was through
that experimentation that he landed at Campdicon. He combined coal
dust with Campdicon to get a floor cloth called Camptulicon.
Now this was not something that he invented. He was
trying to figure out how to make it. Camptulican had
(06:31):
been invented in eighteen forty three as a way to
line the hulls of iron warships. The idea was that
if the ship was fired upon, the rubber would prevent
splintering and ideally would offer a temporary seal around the hole.
As the rubber would melt from the heat from the munitions,
that it would like fill in the spot where the
(06:53):
hull had been penetrated. It was tested for this usage,
but determined to not be good enough for the investment
of installing it. When that use did not go as plan,
Camp Tulcan started to be used as a floor covering.
The India rubber backing made it waterproof and less prone
(07:13):
to sliding around than some other floor covering options. We
will be coming back to Camp Tulacan in a little while. Yeah,
I will say that testing that was done on shipholes.
It did work some of the time, but not consistently
enough was the problem. Like there is a report that
there was one hole in a test that completely filled
(07:35):
in and it you know, retained its seaworthiness, but.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
A very expensive kind of a gamble.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Yeah, And the reason that Walton was so fixated on
creating a durable floor covering was that the existing options
were not durable. He was also, as you'll see, trying
to come up with any kind of use for this
new kind of substance he felt.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
He was working with.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
We're going to backtrack just a little to talk about
floor covering terminology here because it can get a little
confusing as certain words are used interchangeably. Today, the word
carpet is usually used in reference to a permanently affixed
floor covering, like one that fills the space, whereas a
rug is something that is generally smaller than the space
(08:22):
that is in and isn't permanently affixed. But just so
you know, in a lot of writing, particularly from the
nineteenth century, carpet and rug get used sort of interchangeably.
The idea of wal to wall carpet just did not
really exist at that point. It wasn't until the twentieth
century that that happened. So anytime we reference a quote
(08:43):
and it's talking about carpet or that comes up in
the course of this episode, we're talking about rugs. When
Walton died, one of his obituaries lauded him as having
really been the person who changed the game when it
came to flooring quote. The usual floor covering of a
century ago, a wax cloth consisting of cotton fabric provided
(09:05):
with a coating of linseed oil, varnish and coloring matters,
was not durable, even when the cotton fiber had been
replaced by the courser jute. Coming up, we will talk
about how Walton innovated and some money troubles, but first
we'll take a sponsor break. Walton's experimentation with oxidized oil
(09:35):
quickly burned through the money that he had on hand
after he left his father's company and went out on
his own. This led to additional family friction because he
suggested that his father, James, could just start giving him
his inheritance early, starting with a thousand pounds and then
advancing him another seven hundred or eight hundred pounds each
(09:57):
quarter so that he could get his business up and running.
His father, who already felt pretty jilted by his son's
exit from the family business, did not appreciate Frederick trying
to hasten his inheritance, and he refused to even speak
to his son. His brother William, though, who was still
involved in the family business and was doing quite well,
(10:19):
did help out, but Frederick then spent all of that
money too. At this point, he was literally penniless, and
Frederick's entire family worked to convince his father, James, that
he really should help his son out, and he finally did,
but only in the form of loans with clear interest terms.
There was absolutely no early inheritance, and those loans were
(10:41):
issued very carefully in small enough increments that Frederick had
to be really careful with his spending. He found this
very frustrating, so he kept asking for more, and then
it reached a point where Frederick had borrowed more than
eight thousand pounds from his father.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Keep in mind.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
In the mid eighteen hundred, so that was a lot
of money. He didn't have any indication that he was
anywhere near a position to pay any of that back,
and once again his father, James cut him off. I
feel this would be like, I don't know the etiquette
of the nineteenth century and a family like this, but
I feel that approaching a parent and being like, can
(11:21):
I have my inheritance early? That's going to be a
dicey conversation in most families.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Father, I'm tired of waiting for you to die.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Yes, even if there's even without all of the baggage
of already having some strained family relations because of not
wanting to go into the family business. So sometime in
eighteen sixty or eighteen sixty one, Frederick Walton moved into
the British Grove Works in Chiswick that included a factory
(11:51):
and a house, and he moved there to continue his work.
The Brentford and Chiswick Historical Society noted in its coverage
of Walton's time there that the eighteen sixty one census
data shows there was a rubber manufacturer at British Grove Works,
and then interestingly that Walton appeared to have also moved
two families with him to the property from Hot and Green,
(12:14):
where his father's company was. The male heads of those
families were employed at the factory. Yeah, I don't know
if that would be another element in the friction between
him and his father. If he took two of the
good factory workers with him poached some people, yeah, that
could be a problem, but it was probably good for
Frederick that he had experienced workers to help him get
(12:37):
production up and running, because there were understandably all kinds
of problems in setting up the facility, because going from
these tests he was doing in small batches to a
larger scale was very tricky.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
There wasn't really any kind.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Of equipment that could boil oil in huge amounts and
also be open for air to access it so that
it could then dry up, so he had to build
these very large, open rectangular boiling tanks. Then to give
the oxidized oil something to cling to you while it dried,
cloth had to be dipped into it, but those cloths
(13:14):
that they came up with needed to be hung, so
Walton and his team built these huge iron racks over
the tanks for this purpose, and those long pieces of
fabric had to be dipped repeatedly, but they couldn't be
dipped over and over. You had to basically let the
oxidized oil set for about a day before you could
dip it again, and that took weeks to build up
(13:37):
just a few millimeters of thickness on the cloth. But
then initially that thin layer was not intended to stay
on the dip cloth. They were trying to figure out
a method to peel it off. It didn't want to
come off, so the solution was don't bother. The strips
of thin cotton with the oxidized oil were ground into
(14:01):
a pulp and then heated with rosin and then poured
onto dedicated floors to cure, and then after that cut
aged and ground up again. The second grinding was combined
with additional ingredients which included cork dust instead of coal dust,
and pigment. In addition to figuring out the manufacture process,
(14:24):
Walton also wanted to see how his oxidized oil could
perform in comparison to India rubber. He found that it
did not break down when he got it wet. The
heat did not seem to affect it, so that was
all great. The one thing that did break it down
was alcohol, and seeing its resilience really got him to
think about the applications that India rubber was being used
(14:47):
for and whether his oxidized oil would be an improvement,
and one of the places that he saw on opportunity
was camtulcan, which, as we said, had already been invented,
and the existing camtu lecon had risen in price because,
as we have also recently discussed on the show, more
and more applications were being found for India rubber all
(15:08):
the time, and supply really couldn't keep up with demand.
That meant that it got more and more expensive. But
then to try to temper the rising costs, manufacturers of
camptulcan kind of cut back on the amount of rubber
that they used and that reduced both the price and
the quality of their products. So when Walton figured out
(15:29):
how to make camptulucan with his oxidized oil, it really
offered a chance to fill a need in the consumer market.
His camptulcan formula had been refined over time and it
had developed a finish that was very similar to rubber.
One of the issues with camptulacan was that there was
no way to attach it to any kind of backing.
(15:51):
But Frederick, who had started rolling out his camptulcan between
two rollers to create a sheet of material with a
consistent thickness, had the idea to roll it with a
backing fabric. At the same time, he was able to
get consistent results, and although his business had not yet
taken off, Frederick Walton knew that he had advanced his
(16:13):
work and he was able to get other investors interested
in this new material, which he called camp Toicon. Presumably
the capital provided by those investors was used to acquire
the factory at Chiswick. So camp Toicon was not an
original enough name. People confused it with Camptulikhan, which sounds
(16:34):
so obvious when we're saying it aloud that I can't
imagine that it didn't occur to him.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
But it didn't.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
When I first read the outline, I was like, is
that a typo? Did part get left out? Did Holly
make an epic typo? Because sometimes I do? And like,
let's face it, neither of those names is particularly catchy,
so he had to rename it, and that is when
the name Linoleum was coined. This is a portmanteau of
(17:01):
two Latin words. The first is linim. That's the linn
which refers to flax. In case you didn't know, linseed
oil is made from dried flax seeds. The second word, olium,
most people know, is the Latin word for oil. Walton
made several patent applications in the early eighteen sixties. One
was for a varnish process that he co filed in
(17:24):
eighteen sixty one with Richard Beard, who was employed at
British Grove Works. Another invention that had been made with
India rubber, the wire card that Frederick Walton had created
to help in the family woolf rising business, was also
updated with his new substance, and that patent was filed
with his brother William. He also filed one for telegraphic
(17:46):
cables that made use of his oxidized material. And then
there was his patent for his floor covering, which he
described by writing quote, This invention has for its object
improvements in the making of fabrics for covering floors and
other surfaces. Canvas or other suitable strong fabrics are coated
(18:06):
over their upper surfaces with a composition consisting of oxidized oil, coal, dust,
and gum or resin preferring Cowie or New Zealand gum.
Such surfaces being afterwards primed, painted, embossed, or otherwise ornamented.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
As we said.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
He later subbed out coal for cork, but that same
year Walton and his team actually developed a new version
of linoleum, and he filed a second patent for it.
This version didn't need to be painted or decorated because
it already had color in it and went all the
way through. Having that linoleum completely colored as it was
(18:43):
made meant that the finish or design was not going
to wear off, and that was a huge step forward.
Even before these patents, Walton had been asked to give
a talk at the Society of Arts because his work
at the factory and Chiswick was not a secret and
people were eager to hear what he had been up to.
He read a paper titled on the Introduction and Use
(19:03):
of Elastic Gums and Analogous Substances. The Morning Post of
London had to write up about the paper Walton read
in the April third, eighteen sixty two edition. In addition
to outlining the topics Walton covered, it gives a slightly
more detailed account, as told by Walton, of how he
arrived at his own invention.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Quote.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
The author began by giving an account of the discovery
and early history of India rubber. He referred to the
various uses to which it is now applied and pointed
out the large amount of additional comfort and convenience which
this simple substance has produced. Passing to Guttapercha, he gave
a similar resume of its past history and its present
(19:45):
commercial position. He then proceeded to describe a material which
he had himself invented and which is, in his opinion,
adapted for use as a substitute for India rubber for
many purposes. So here's where that write up, discription, the
actual invention and heads up.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
It's a big ole run on sentence quote.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Whilst engaged about two years ago in a series of
experiments on the manufacture of artificial leather, it was of
the greatest importance to the success of the material that
it should have a coat of fine varnish, which, whilst drying,
quickly possessed the flexibility of India rubber. It suddenly occurred
to him that if linseed oil was first dried into
(20:24):
a skin and then dissolved into a volatile solvent like
India rubber sheet, the semi resinous material would immediately on
the evaporation of the solvent, resume like India rubber. The
form it was in prior to solution so you could
see that already a more condensed version of his process
was being cultivated. It makes the whole thing sound very
(20:45):
fast and tidy, and not the kind of thing that
would cause a bunch of familial upheaval over finances while
he tested it and ran out of cash. The Morning
Post account also describes how Walton started working with his
oxidized oil, saying that he dipped panes of glass into
the oil and let them dry, then redipped them and
(21:06):
did it over and over again. This is similar to
what was described as happening at the British Grove Works
with fabric. Presumably he could not find large enough panes
of glass to do this at a larger scale that
was needed for industrial production. He then crushed the solid
sheets of oxidized oil and added salac to make a
(21:28):
dough like consistency that could be fed into rollers. He
could add the pigment at this point in the process
as well. He also discussed that his material could be
treated in a manner similar to vulcanization, but without sulfur,
and that the result was hard like ebonite. So that
speech that reading of the paper was given at a
(21:50):
unique time in Walton's business recall he had not yet
patented linoleum. And what is not mentioned in that write up,
and presumably not mentioned at his talk, because I think
it would have shown up in the papers, was that
his factory had just burned down a couple of weeks prior.
This was surprisingly not really a financial hardship. Perhaps recognizing
(22:14):
that the chemicals and materials that were involved in his
process were highly flammable, Walton had taken out a very
large and robust insurance policy on the British Grove works,
and almost immediately after the fire he was able to
begin work on a larger, custom built factory. We'll talk
about Walton's life after the fire after we hear from
(22:35):
some of the sponsors that keep stuff you mus in
history class going. Although Walton built a shiny new factory,
he did not stay there very long because as his
process had gotten better and better, interest in Linoleum was
(22:58):
very high, and when it came time to really plot
out production for market, it became apparent to Frederick and
his investors that the factory was not going to be
large enough to keep up. So in January eighteen sixty four,
Walton moved his entire enterprise to Stains upon Thames into
a factory that had been a textile mill. This was
(23:20):
handy because it came with lots of rollers in it already.
The new factory opened in June with the name Stains
Linoleum Manufacturing Company Limited. In family happenings, things improved for Walton.
Finally making good on all of his work led Frederick
to a reconciliation with his father, and he also started
(23:40):
his own family. On March nineteenth, eighteen sixty seven, Frederick
married Alice Scruby, who was a lawyer's daughter. The two
of them had several children together in the following years. Yeah,
I'm sad to say I don't know much about Alice.
I was not able to dig up a lot. And
there is the added bonus that there was another Fredrick
Walton that existed at the same time. And you kind
(24:03):
of have to pick apart any mentions because sometimes the
two of them got conflated in both biographies and in newspapers.
But it appears that they had several kids, seemed happy.
Walton continued his work with oxidized oil and that led
to new inventions. Remember he was always looking for ways
(24:25):
that it could be applied and one of these inventions
was something called link Crustal Walton, which he invented in
eighteen seventy seven. This was a wallpaper that was washable,
the first of its kind. It had originally been called
Linoleum neuralis i e. Wall Linoleum, and it was quickly
adopted as a decor choice for fine homes and businesses. Remember,
(24:48):
prior to this, all wallpaper was like a fabric finish.
You couldn't just wipe it down. The White House had
link Crustal Walton wall coverings, and so did The Titanic,
as well as many other that you will see listed.
At the start of the eighteen eighties, Walton had opened
a factory in Pierre Fitzosen, which is directly north of
Paris and just outside the city, and that was part
(25:11):
of a larger strategy to globalize his business. Lincrusta expanded
to the North American market in eighteen seventy nine, although
it didn't really take off there until eighteen eighty three,
when the patent rights were purchased by F. R. Beck
and a dedicated factory was established in Connecticut. Incidentally, lyn
(25:31):
Cresta is still available today as a luxury brand, although
the company, and the rights have changed hands several times.
Just as Walton was getting his Lincrusta project up and running,
he also became embroiled in a legal battle. A number
of competitors had emerged in the market. As soon as
it became apparent that linoleum was in demand. A lot
(25:53):
of companies that had been making oil cloth flooring started
to sell their own products as linoleum. As d this,
his patent expired in eighteen seventy seven, and Walton tried
to sue one of them. Things did not go as
he expected, though, because while he had patented linoleum, he
had not trademarked the word, and so it was ruled
(26:13):
as a common name. Yeah, anybody could use it, and
he was really mad about that. Also, during the expansion
of Link Cresta, Walton was still trying new things with linoleum.
He invented and patented granite linoleum, which mimicked the look
of granite through inlaid pigment in streaks. But the big
innovation was not Walton's though, it was one of his employees.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
In eighteen eighty C. F.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Leak, who worked for him, developed a process that passed
colored linoleum through a stencil to create mosaic inlaid linoleum.
This was once again something that all competitors tried to replicate,
but they didn't have Walton's process. Additionally, Walton built on
Leak's work to continue to refine the process, and in
(27:01):
eighteen ninety he got his first patent for a continuous
inlaying machine, and he set up a company several years
later just to make the inlay linoleum. Because the Walton
inlay was so superior to anything else anybody was trying
to make, it became the industry standard, and because no
one else could quite figure out how to make it,
(27:23):
competitors had to buy their machines from Walton. In eighteen
ninety five, an article appeared in The Chautauque that had
been translated from the German art and design publication Moderna Kunst.
This article was titled Cork Carpets, and it offers insight
into the way linoleum was perceived at the time, which
was as a kind of carpet. It also illustrates just
(27:46):
how much of a marvel people found it to be.
The article opens with quote, as we wander through the
public places, vying with each other in size and magnificence
of establishment, which have lent those characteristic fetures that so
impress one at Berlin, or as we betake ourselves to
enjoy or perhaps criticize, one of the more recent theaters.
(28:08):
While the eye delightedly notes the wonders of modern art decoration,
the foot at the same time finds a very peculiar,
yet very agreeable sensation. What is it on which we
are walking? It is not a wood floor, for we
see no cracks, and besides, it is too elastic to
the tread. It is not oilcloth, for this antiquated floor
(28:32):
covering was hard and cold in spite of the easy
walking on it. It is not a wool carpet, for
here nothing of the dust is to be seen, which
always clings to a wool carpet, be it ever so clean.
It appears to be a floor covering, which, free from
the faults of the older kinds of carpeting, unites in itself.
They're virtues. Upon more thorough inspection, we recognize that we
(28:57):
have here linoleum or cork carpet. Yeah, there's a whole
side section that happens after this, where it's like, forgive
us in Germany. We call it cork carpet. We know
you call it linoleum like it's an area.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
It's very cute.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
This write up, which was made after a visit to
a linoleum manufacturing facility in Delmenhorst, Germany, then explains to
the reader what linoleum is, listing linseed oil as the
most important component and cork as the second most important.
This article also shares a layman's perspective on what linoleum
production at massive scale looked like at the end of
(29:34):
the nineteenth century.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Quote. The technical director who.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Accompanied us first showed us the cork mills, whereby an
imposing number of millstones of huge dimensions.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
The cork is ground up into powder.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Then it goes into a huge oil tank in which
there is constantly about a million pounds of the best
painter's linseed oil into the oil cauldron and pumps into
the oxidizing houses. Here, a peculiar surprise awaits one who
has been accustomed to regard oil as a fluid. He
sees the linseed oil as a catouche like pellucid mass,
(30:10):
hanging in long, stringy strips which constantly are flooded with
fresh oil. The wonderful metamorphosis from fluid to the solid
state is the result of the oxidizing process affected by
the oxygen of continually renewed air. Then, it explains, after
six to eight months of natural oxidation, during which the
(30:31):
linseed oil releases its acid content, the solidified oil quote
is pulverized mixed with a fossil resin that is put
through a series of kneading and roller systems which work
the pulverized cork in fine coloring matter thoroughly through it,
and finally, the resulting mass is pressed through steam heated
rollers onto a strong canvas web. The writer notes that
(30:55):
the completed floor covering quote perfectly unites in itself the
warmth and sound deadening qualities of carpet, the elasticity, firmness
and waterproofness of kouchuk, and the cleanliness of the old
time oil cloth. There's also a description of the color
and finish options of linoleum, with particular admiration for inlaid
(31:16):
linoleum quote, the colors of whose patterns actually go clear
through it so that they never can wear off. I
was extremely astonished to see them fill up the different
colored parts and compartments and to subject the material thus
applied in a pattern to a hydraulic pressure of about
four thousand, four hundred pounds to the square inch. That thought,
(31:39):
I to myself, is indeed the floor covering of the future.
I really love this because I love the idea that
a person who writes for like a design and architecture
magazine walked into a factory probably saw large scale factory
works for the first time, which are amazing.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Anytime I visit a factory and I was like, how
do they do this? And just away like, wow, that's amazing.
I just love it.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
By the end of the nineteenth century, Walton had made
numerous lucrative licensing deals to manufacturers in multiple countries. Linoleum
was embraced by builders and consumers because it offered an
easy to clean, bouncy alternative to other flooring.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
It also did get.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
I want to say, some criticism from some people for
seeming like a cheap or easy finish, like in a
world where they were used to like the very heavy
Victorian decor. This seemed a little like kind of quaint
and maybe anemic, but obviously that was not everybody. But
even without his initial patent, Walton's subsequent ones provided plenty
(32:46):
of income for years, and he continued throughout to work
on new inventions. I think his last patent was filed
in nineteen seventeen. Walton saw his business interests through World
War One, but when the war ended, he decided to retire,
which he did to Nice France. His hobbies in retirement,
and I found it charming that this was mentioned in
(33:06):
a write up were fishing and painting. In nineteen twenty five,
Walton wrote a book titled The Infancy and Development of
Linoleum floor Cloth, and in it he talked about his
work in his life. Towards the end he mentioned, out
of sort of nowhere his belief in clairvoyance. There's a
whole story of a time thirty years prior to the
(33:27):
writing when he wasn't feeling very well while working in stains.
He described his condition at the time this way quote,
I felt not exactly ill, but I lost energy and
my work became a trouble to me. So it kind
of sounds like he might have been experiencing some burnout
or maybe even mild depression, but we cannot really know
(33:48):
for sure. His landlady, though, thought that going to a
psychic would help him, and he says that when they went,
the psychic predicted things about his linoleum floor cloth that
came to fruition decades later, and this, to him was
proof that clairvoyance was real. He wrote, quote, I mentioned
(34:08):
this incident as a most remarkable case of long antecedent clairvoyance,
and I can vouch for its absolute truth. Yeah, there
was apparently a moment that she had described of like
a bunch of stakeholders in the company standing around a
machine and talking. And he states that he you know
that that moment happened, and he realized in the moment, like,
(34:30):
oh my gosh, this is exactly as she described it.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
You know, it's fine.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
He concludes this narrative about his life, again surprisingly by
sharing his thoughts on you don't see this coming, religion
and evolution, and I swear I did not know that
this was part of his story until after we recorded
our recent episode on Thomas Huxley. Walton starts this section
(34:55):
by ruminating on the progress of the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries. Quote, When I think of the extraordinary progress
of science and scientific research that has taken place since
I was born, I am filled with wonder, and I
am tempted at times to allow my fancy to dwell
upon what may happen in the years to come. He
then goes on to talk about the fact that he
(35:16):
watched railroads being built as a boy, and then as
an adult seeing planes take flight. But he also notes
that even though quote there seems to be no question
that our animal origin is undoubtedly proven, and he does
namecheck Darwin and Huxley after that, that humans continue to
behave like beasts, en slaying one another. In Walton's opinion,
(35:38):
there needs to be more moral evolution.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
Quote.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
I may be wrong, but I firmly believe that nothing
short of a long evolution, extending over countless centuries or
even millions of years, will bring us to that perfection
which many of us see in our dreams, but which
can never be realized except in the imagination of those
who picture they most desire. So basically, he thinks man
(36:03):
has a long way to go before humans become truly altruistic.
He then compares the growth of religion to the growth
of language and states that he believes quote both are
but a form of evolution. He also mentions that little
section may alienate some of his associates and colleagues, but
he concludes by writing quote, my object in adding these
(36:24):
final words is only to emphasize the wonderful changes which
have occurred during the last ninety years. And I am
indeed thankful that I have had time and opportunity to
modify the views that I held in my youth. As
Walton entered his nineties, he started to think about a
goal of living to be one hundred. That was not
(36:44):
to be. He fell and broke his leg in early
nineteen twenty eight. He never really recovered, and then he declined,
and Frederick Walton died on May sixteenth of nineteen twenty eight.
Walton's will garnered a fair amount of press coverage because
he made provisions for the people who had worked closely
under him in later years. He reportedly left behind an
(37:08):
estate of fifty four thousand, one hundred and sixteen pounds,
and he left four thousand of that to Hilda Mary Gay,
who he described as his devoted attendant, and another four
thousand in a trust to provide for the widow of
Edward Francis Armstrong, who had been his personal secretary. In
the terms of the trust, He had also arranged that
(37:28):
it would pass to Edward's daughter, Catherine maud Armstrong once
Edward's widow died. Presumably the rest was for his family.
But I just love that all the write ups are
kind of like he gave money to the servants. It's
kind of a hoot, but that was what they got
for supporting the inventor of linoleum, because that's Frederick Walton,
who I find very interesting and a little a little
(37:53):
marvelously odd. I have listener mail.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Listen.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
I'm gonna tell you some of the listener mail was
chosen because of the animals.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
Okay, this is from our listener.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
Valerie, who writes, Hello, Holly and Tracy. I absolutely love
listening to your podcast, especially when I'm out running. It
keeps my mind occupied with something other than how much
I want to stop, especially in this Texas summer heat.
A funny side effect is that I'll occasionally post a
fun fact of the day on Facebook, and it's always
always something I learned from your show. I've actually had
(38:26):
people comment that they can tell I've gone for a
run because another random fun fact has appeared on my page.
I recently listened to your episode about shoes, and while
I wouldn't say I have a shoe obsession unlike someone else,
I won't mention I mean, I presume Valerie means me.
I apparently own enough running shoes that my husband recently
felt he needed to comment on my collection. I also
(38:48):
heard on one of your minis that y'all have done
a run Disney Weekend. I've only done one so far,
but I absolutely loved it. It was such a fun
experience and I definitely look forward to doing another one someday.
For the requires pet tacks, I'm including a couple of pictures.
One is of our flock in their coop, which we
proudly call the hen Sane Asylum. Ah oh, these chickens
(39:12):
names are the absolutely best. A little dark, so get ready.
Our girls are Tanya Harding, Lizzie Borden, Casey, Anthony, Carol Baskin,
the strippers, Babs, Diamond and Cinnamon, plus Missus Tweety and
Mac from Chicken Run. That's a pretty wild and delayful
assortment and names. The other picture, and everybody be cool,
(39:33):
don't share this information. The other picture is of our
two very spoiled Boston terriers, Tucker and Lila. Please keep
that description between us, though they have no idea they're
actually dogs. As far as they're concerned, they're babies, and
we've made absolutely no effort to convince them otherwise. Sending
lots of listening love from Texas. Listen, I'm not gonna
tell those two children that they're not children. The hens
(39:56):
are so cute. The babies are so cute. Tucker, Karanlila
are very sweet, and I just I love it. We
don't get many chicken pictures. Send them on, Send them on.
Some of those are very pretty babies. Anyway, I love it.
I love that we make running easier. Run Disney is
ramping back up very quickly. I mean, they did, you know,
(40:17):
during the height of the pandemic, when nobody was doing anything,
they of course stopped and they have started back a
while back. But I feel like they're in that rapid
growth dace that happened when Run Disney first became a thing,
but it started at a higher level, so now it's
really huge growth. I hope that everyone that tries to
get into races gets in. I haven't registered for one
a long time, and my understanding is that now registration
(40:39):
day is fraught because it's like, you know, trying to
get tickets to Taylor Swift. Probably not that bad, but
in any case, thank you for sharing that with us
and the chickens and your two beautiful children. If you
would like to write to us, you can do so
at History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You can find
the show notes for any of the shows that we
(41:01):
record at mystonhistory dot com, And if you have not
yet subscribed to the podcast and you'd like to, you
can do that on the iHeartRadio app or anywhere you
listen to your favorite shows. Stuff you Missed in History
Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
(41:23):
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
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Stuff You Missed in History Class News
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Tracy Wilson
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