Back to FAQ NEXT WHAT IS BAKELITE AND EBONITE?
• Bakelite (Pronounced bakerlight) is the trade name for the first commercially successful, thermo set plastic. It was patented on the 14th of June 1907 in Ghent in Belgium by Leo Baekeland and named after him. It is a polymer of phenol and formaldehyde with a filler, usually of sawdust. It was used in the manufacture of many telephone cases and internal parts. Baekeland then emigrated to America to develop his invention there. By an extraordinary co-incidence, James Swinburne, a Scottish engineer, applied for a similar patent the following day. Baekeland and Swinburne swiftly buried their differences, opening factories in The USA and England. Swinburne’s Damard Lacquer Company was eventually renamed Bakelite Ltd in 1927 with Swinburne as its chairman. It seems a strange twist of fate, that the future of Bakelite, a substance fundamental to many telephones, should be decided by patent applications placed one day apart. It echoes the original patent applications for the telephone placed
