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The history of the raincoat |
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The mackintosh had its heyday in the 1880s and 1890s. The India Rubber Journal commented that many manufacturers were so overworked that they could hardly keep up with public demand. These conditions encouraged many new entrants into the trade; at this period there were seventy mackintosh firms in Manchester. Along with Mandleburg and Frankenburg, the trade was dominated by Macintosh, Moseley, the Ancoats Vale Rubber Company, and another Jewish enterprise, Philip Frankenstein, established in 1854. Their main competitors included the North British Rubber Company, and the London firms Abbott and Andcrson, P.B. Cow, Hill & Company, Warne & Company, and the Victoria Rubber Company.
Firms like these produced garments for an ever-widening cross-section of the public. While some manufacturers had retail outlets, most were wholesalers and sold their goods through warehousemen, drapers and outfitters. The earliest mackintoshes were made for men, but as women became more independent and physically active, they too needed waterproof clothing. From the 1880s a wide variety of female mackintoshes could be bought. By this time also, protective clothing was worn not only by the gentleman tourist or sportsman, but also by the navvy and the farmworker. The diaries of the Reverend Francis Kilvert testify to the mackintosh’s widespread use in the 1870s. In 1893 the India Rubber Journal noted the considerable reduction in price that had recently taken place; 'Now the servant girl out of her slender means can procure a really stylish and serviceable waterproof for a mere trifle.’ The prices given by the Ancoats Vale Rubber Company in 1888 confirm this; their products were sold wholesale for as little as 3s. to as much as £3.10s.36.
In many instances, lower prices were innevitably [sic] attended by a reduction in quality. The Manchester Guardian noted in 1892 that 'Even now, however, a good waterproof cannot be got at a low price, and it is a mistaken economy to buy a cheap, showy cloak, prepared to look like silk, until the first shower makes the run and the hastily cemented seams’. Mackintoshes were still difficult products to handle. If the proofing was bad they were not watertight. Alternatively, they stuck together and decomposed. Too much sulphur made the surface 'bloom'. Impure solvents, certain colouring matters and the rubber itself still smelt unpleasantly. To safeguard their reputations, as well as to promote 'brand awareness' in a fiercely competitive market, the largest manufacturers labelled their garments. Many firms registered their trade marks at the start of the scheme in 1875; Joseph Mandleburg Co. registered theirs in 1889. Since a great deal of effort had gone into several patents for unsmelly mackintoshes, they registered the initials F.F.O. meaning 'Free From Odour'.
By this clever sales ploy, Mandleburgs claimed a patent monopoly on mackintoshes, though most of the other manufacturers had been working hard to produce garments with the same attribute. Mandleburgs objected to anyone else advertising odourless mackintoshes, and took the London general warehousemen I. & R. Morley to court. They represented a manufacturers' committee made up of Messrs Frankenburg, Mistovski and Birnbaum, and in 1893 the court found in their favour. Contemporaries frequently noted other improvements in mackintoshes apart from their smell. They were not only more stylish, but also more colourful with the once ubiquitous black rubber giving way to brighter hues. The range of fabrics used and surface effects were two of the most striking features of late-nineteenth-century mackintoshes. Mandleburgs exhibited their 'Albion' and 'Embossed' proofings at the 1887 Jubilee Exhibition at Manchester, as well as 'silk waterproofs for ladies, some single, with a film of pure rubber coating inside. Some have an additional lining of silk of ankle length'. They also displayed velvet air cushions. Other manufacturers also experimented with decorative rubber surfaces. In 1885 David Moseley's son Charles invented a method of printing on rubber. His patent 'Coruscus' surface, exhibited at the Manchester exhibition, was the subject of a court case in that year when Moseley charged the Victoria Rubber Company with infringing his patent. Philip Frankenstein registered some of his special rubber effects, and so examples of his pastel pink blue and green frosted surfaces survive in the sample books. Cotton was probably the most popular material for proofing. A variety of weaves were used and the fabric sometimes had a printed design. Silk and wool were also much used for the more expensive products; in the early 1890s, Macintosh & Co were selling camel hair and broche mackintoshes. While cotton could bc 'steam cured' wool and silk were usually 'cold cured' since they were easily damaged by the steam. It was much harder to proof them successfully. Woollen fabrics were apparently the hardest to proof, because traces of oil were often present in the cloth. Weaving cloth for the waterproofing industry was a specialized business, for it had to be lighter than ordinary cloth. By the 1880s a number of firms, mainly in Manchester, catered for the trade. These included Henry Rocca & Co., A. Backhouse, Ralph Hall & Co., Hugh Spencer & Co., Sir E. Armitage & Sons, and Everett Lawley &Co. In 1888, apart from these, the India Rubber Journal listed only David Craven and Co. of Bradford and J. & R. MacAlister of Glasgow as suppliers to the trade. In 1893 George Birch of Leek advertised special sewing silks for the waterproof trade. While a great deal of woollen cloth used for mackintoshes came from Yorkshire, the characteristic tweed check lining material was apparently made only at the village of Newtownlands in Northern Ireland.
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