Polish
Polishing simply means producing a flat surface, you can achieve this in two ways, either you use an abrasive to wear away the ridges and bumps or you use something like wax to fill in the valleys. Polish manufacturers often produced a wide range of products, for example in the 1920s and 30s H. S. Lovell and Co of Clerkenwell were offering:- Metal Polishes; Boot, Floor, Furniture Polishes; Furniture, Boot and Motor Body Creams; Plate and Knife, Scouring Soap Powders; Liquid Soap; Disinfectants, etc.
Sand with a high proportion of garnet is employed as an abrasive, the coarser grades are used for sand paper, the fine material goes to the polish makers. 'Bath bricks' are blocks (slightly smaller than a house brick) of compacted fine siliceous sand for scouring metal, often used for knife sharpening. They are made from the mixed mud and sand of the river Parrett near Bridgwater. The deposit is dug out, moulded into bricks, and dried. Bath bricks are still made today, up to the 1950s they were mainly sold by hawkers from a barrow (who also sold 'hearth stones', used for cleaning not the stones used for making a hearth). Silt from rivers was also dried and sieved to be made into an abrasive block for cleaning silver, this material was at one time exported all over the world (the last such works in the UK, on the River Trent, closed in 1982 due to a lack of demand for their product).
The illustration shows an advert for a sand based metal polish 'Polish De Luxe, Komo Metal Paste, entirely free from grease and a perfect polish, also for mirrors'.
Fig ___ Sand based metal polish advert
As well as sand, which tends to be fairly coarse, there were firms producing ceramic powder for use in metal polish. One example is Hopol Ltd of Sandbach in Cheshire (they also produced their own range of polishes under the Zan brand in the 1920s and 30s).
Prior tothe early 20th century people used 'dubbin', a mixture of natural wax, oil, soda ash and tallow on their leather footwear. This protected the leather but did not give it a shine. In the later 18th century the fashion was for shiny shoes and people started making 'blacking' (usually soot mixed with beeswax or lanolin).
The first commercial shoe polish was a mixture of sugar, vinegar, black dye and water, the problem was that this stuff, as with the 'blacking', came off on peoples clothes. Meanwhile the people at the Chiswick Soap Company had a problem with unused tinplate left over from packaging their soap and decided to start using it to make boot polish tins. The hired a chemist to produce a polish that did not stain clothing and in 1907 the Cherry Blossom Boot Polish 'one penny tin' with its swiveling 'butterfly opener' was launched. In 1912 they sold off the soap company and concentrated on the manufacturing of polish and renamed the company, The Chiswick Polish Company (Cherry Blossom is now the only shoe care brand actually manufactured in Great Britain).
Nugget was another popular make (which eventually merged with Cherry Blossom) and in many parts of the world 'nugget' is used to refer to the solid forms of boot polish.
Fig ___ Nugget polish advert from 1910
Essentially floor, furniture, shoe and boot polish all consist of wax and solvent, the solvent softens the wax so that it can spread easily and then evaporates during the polishing to leave only a film of dry wax. However there are many waxes and solvents used, each company having its own blends, the details of which they keep secret.
At the factory the waxes are melted in steam heated drums from where measured amounts are squirted into mixing pots, where the solvents are added. Once the mix is right the dyes and pigments are added to produce the desired colour of polish. The hot molten polish is then passed to the filling room where it is squirted in measured doses into the tins and allowed to cool slightly before the air-tight top is put on, so the solvents do not evaporate. As the mixture cools and sets the air above it shrinks slightly, creating a slight vacuum inside the tin.
The works had to maintain a stable temperature all the year round, hence they often had not only heating for winter but also refrigeration for the summer months.
Modelling a Polish Works
Polish factories had no particular distinguishing features, they had a number of tanks to hold the ingredients but these seem to have been housed inside the buildings. The set dressing, the sign on the wall and the materials arriving on the siding, will therefore have to indicate the nature of the works.
For abrasive cleaners they would receive bagged sand and other gritty type materials, they used only very fine sand so I suspect they did not get wagon loads of bulk sand but I could be wrong on that.
One thing polish works required in bulk was turpentine, the sketch below is based on a tracing of a photo, the photo was small and the colours are a guess based on advertising for this company. The lorries were used to bring turpentine from the docks to the works (which was not rail connected).
Fig ___ 1920s (11 ton) turpentine lorry
When they make turpentine from pine or larch sap they distil it, the turpentine oil is driven off and the residue is a thick material that sets solid at room temperature. This residue is called rosin, although in practice there are many grades of the stuff (which vary depending on the individual tree and the time of year). This hard waxy material has many uses, including inks, and it is an important component of many soaps but it is also used for making polish. Rosin was imported in barrels, it is inflammable and there were various restrictions on its carriage with other goods (for example it could not be loaded with cotton).
Beeswax is used for furniture and shoe polishes, supplied either in barrels or in light lined wooden cases. For use as a furniture polish it is dissolved in turpentine, sometimes blended with linseed oil or tung oil (both delivered in barrels but also possibly in tank wagons owned by the seed crushing firms at the docks).
Carnauba wax is obtained from the leaves of a South American plant, it is shipped as flakes, either in barrels (usually) or in lined cases (less commonly). Carnauba wax can add a high gloss shine so it is used in automobile waxes, shoe polishes, instrument polishes, and floor and furniture waxes and polishes, especially when mixed with beeswax and with turpentine. Carnauba wax is used as a coating on dental floss and food products such as sweets, and it is the main ingredient in surfboard wax (combined with coconut oil).
Naphtha, from the coal distillers, supplied in drums, possibly in tank wagons.
Gum arabic, imported, could be in barrels or cases, possibly in sacks.
Lanolin, a by product of wool cleaning, supplied in barrels and later in drums.
Ethylene glycol, a clear syrupy liquid, usually shipped in drums (can be shipped in rail tanks but I have not seen any UK tanks used for this product)
Various colourants, including carbon black (soot, supplied in sacks, very dirty) or azo dyes (such as aniline yellow, supplied in small 5 gallon drums or tins). One odd colourant used in some brands was industrial grade dates, although I have not yet found out how these were processed.
Shoe polish comes in small tins because, once opened, the volatile solvents begin to evaporate and the polish sets solid in the tin. It was standard practice to manufacture the tins at any of the larger works, either printing the tinplate on site or having it pre-printed before delivery to the works. The tinplate sheets are run through a punch to cut out the required shape, the small round tins are then formed by dye stamping (using a high pressure mould to deform the metal to shape, larger containers for liquids are made up as a body with separate top and bottom pieces secured on by folding and pressing the edges (all done by machine by the later 1920s).
The tinplate would be supplied to the works in light wooden cases, the illustration below shows a man with some kind of works trolley moving cases of tinplate in 1930.
Fig ___ Trolley for tinplate boxes
The tins were then packed in thin card boxes, a larger works would handle this on-site, receiving coils of card which they would print, cut, fold and glue at the works. The rolls of card were about four feet (120cm) in diameter and about three feet (93cm) wide (each one weighing in at about 11 hundredweight, hence the machines used to shift them). The sketch below is based on a photograph of a roll being loaded onto a printing machine at the receiving end and gives a sense of the scale of the rolls.
Fig___ Roll of carton card being loaded into a printing machine
Heavier card, used for making the boxes to ship the cartons in, was usually supplied from the paper mill in flat form, rough cut to measurements given by the client. It was typically delivered in half-hundredweight bundles (at one firm, making shoe polish, the largest size used in the 1950s was 47 inches by 35 1/2 inches).
The cartons of polish to be shipped out in the 1930s were (typically) about a foot thick, eighteen inches high and two feet long (31 x 46 x 62cm)
Some Notable British Polish Companies
There have been a great number of British polish companies at one time or another, many having splendidly 'cheesy' names, such as Osobrite Ltd (makers of motor car polish), and some of the brand names were even more strained, Spectakleer for Lenses, Poli-Bryte a pure wax polish for Lino, Brytenup Polish (available for boots and shoes). The point being you can invent your own company for inclusion on a layout, and have some fun with product names if you like that kind of thing.
Ronuk
A manufacturer of floor polishes and wood treatments based in Brighton, I am not sure when they set up but they were definitely up and running in 1907. They produced a range of polishes and waxes (highly regarded in hospitals for their germicidal properties) and developed the Ronseal range and Colron wood dyes in the 1950s. Ronuk operated several railway tanks and models in their pleasingly different livery have appeared from time to time. I believe the tank pre-dates the Ronseal dyes, however there are two main types of polish (liquid and wax) and there are also solvents (mainly turpentine, see also 'Lineside Industries - Chemical Industries - Wood Tar Distillers') involved in some polishes. The advertising for the Airfix model of a Ronuk tank suggested it carried 'white spirit' (a petroleum distillate that is often used as a cheap substitute for turpentine), however white spirit is a Class B liquid (flash point above 23 deg C and below 60 deg C) , so these tanks should have been red oxide to conform to the rules. It may have carried turpentine (a solution of resins distilled from the sap of conifers, used in varnish and as a paint solvent, in this case it would serve as a solvent for the wax in the polish), this can fall outside the Class B specification depending on the exact 'mix'. It may have been used to ship bulk liquid wax to a bottling plant.
Fig ___ RONUK tank
Ronuk was purchased by Izal Ltd in the late 1960s (see also Heavy Chemical Industries - Chemical Manufacturers for more on Izal). Ronuk became a separate sales division of Izal in 1970 (trading as Roncraft), and was bought three years later by the Sterling Drug Company.
Kiwi Polish Co This firm stated life in the early 20th century in Australia, their Kiwi brand boot polish was adopted as standard by the British and American forces in World War One, by the 1920s they were producing six colours of boot polish. In 1984 Kiwi was bought by the Sara Lee Corporation, it remains the dominant brand in the UK.
Chiswick Polish Co Established in the 1880s as a soap making company (trading as Chiswick Soap Company) they began making small tins using the packaging waste of the soap business and hired a chemist to develop a boot polish that would not come off on people's clothes. The result was Cherry Blossom boot polish, launched in 1906 and an instant success. In 1912 they launched Mansion Polish (a furniture polish) and in 1913 they set up the separate Chiswick Polish Co in partnership with Reckitt and Sons (the mustard and starch people). The London factory concentrated on furniture and floor polishes, the metal polish business was moved to the Reckitt factory in Hull. In the later 1920s, following a period of co-operation, they merged with the Nugget Polish Co to form Chiswick Products Ltd. In the mid 1930s they launched their 'Cardinal' red polish for tile or composition floors (widely used as a door step polish). In 1954 they were merged into the newly-formed Reckitt and Colman Holdings Ltd. In the early 1970s the Chiswick factory was shut down and production was centred at Hull.
The Magic Polish Company Set up in the 19th century and based in Leicester this small firm was one of the first to introduce aerosols in the 1950s. They also produced a polish for windows that contained DDT to kill off the flies a bit in summer. They marketed 'Magic' and 'Quickshine' polishes. Taken over by J.Goddard and Sons Ltd in the late 1950s or early 1960s.
Goddard's Silver Polish Set up shop in Leicester as J Goddard and Sons Ltd in 1839. The Goddard’s range provides products to clean and protect your gold, silver and platinum as well as brass, copper, pewter, chrome and many others. The company was acquired by SC Johnson in 1968.
The Première Polish Co. This company started life in Ontario Canada, the family moved to England and in 1923 set up the UK based Première Polish Co. on premises in Cheltenham. Première became a limited company on July 2nd 1924 manufacturing of wax polish and cleaning chemicals. In 1966 a wholly owned subsidiary company, Vanguard Floor Maintenance Ltd. was formed to manufacture commercial polishing machines and vacuum cleaners. The company is still doing well in the early 21st Century and remains an independent entity.
McBride Set up in the early 1920s in North Manchester to supply chemical processing products to Lancashire's cotton industry, in 1945 they opened their present factory at Middleton (North Manchester), at which time they began making consumer products for sale in local shops (the first product was a household bleach, sold in glass bottles). In 1960 they began blow-moulding plastic bottles and selling launched washing-up liquid and fabric conditioner, the bottles being branded for supermarkets own labels. In 1975 they acquired Gretna Laboratories, a toiletries business in Burnley Lancashire, increasing the range of operations and breadth of product range. In 1978 the firm was acquired by BP, becoming part of their Detergents Division. In 1987 Robert McBride Ltd acquired Camille Simon Ltd's washing powder factory at Barrow, bringing with it Surcare, their leading brand of laundry products designed for people with sensitive skin. At about this time Robert McBride became the first manufacturer to develop two times concentrated washing powders. Further UK acquisitions included ER Holloway's aerosol factory in Hull, and the Crestol Ltd haircare business in Bradford. In 1988 McBride was the first to launch a combined liquid detergent and fabric conditioner, as well as the first fine china dishwashing powder. In the early 1990s BP sold off its consumer products divisions and in 1994 McBride Ltd was established to build on the goodwill attached to the McBride name. The company 'went public', listing on the London Stock Exchange in 1995. In 1999 the company established a 50/50 joint venture with Nichol Beauty products and created the UK's second largest independent filler of aerosol products.
In 2001 McBride plc was the first company to launch soluble liquid laundry detergent sachets in Europe under the name Brio Actipods, beating the major multinational manufacturers. In 2006 McBride acquired the household liquids business and assets of Sanmex International Limited, and Coventry Chemicals two UK based private label suppliers. In 2008 they acquired the production assets of Darcy industries in the UK with production facilities in Warrington plus the former Remploy household and personal care production facility in St Helens in the UK. In 2009 the group acquired the Limelite and Frish brands in the UK. McBride has been buying foreign companies since the 1980s and now has manufacturing plants acorss Europe and new plants in the Far East.
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