Alexander Parkes

Alexander Parkes was a metallurgist and inventor from Birmingham, England, born in 1813, who created Parkesine, the first man-made plastic. The son of a brass lock manufacturer, he was apprenticed to brass founders and then worked for George and Henry Elkington, who patented electroplating, taking out his first patent in 1841. He held at least 66 patents, patented a cold cure process for vulcanizing rubber in 1846, developed phosphor-bronze in 1848, and in 1850 developed the Parkes process for economically desilvering lead. In 1856 he patented Parkesine, a celluloid based on nitrocellulose, and set up The Parkesine Company in 1866. It closed in 1868 and he died in 1890.