Tiles, wood, parquet, woven carpets and floorcloth were the most likely options for domestic flooring until the invention in 1860 by Mancunian Frederick Walton of the material that would become the world’s most popular floor covering until vinyl took its place a century later, essentially on the grounds of cost.

The story as related by historian Pamela Simpson is so revealing of much of the product invention process. The raw materials: linseed oil, cork, rosin, gum and pigments were commonplace. Walton, then employed by his engineer father, was exploring amongst much else substitutes for rubber when he struck upon linoleum. Simpson explains in some detail the manufacturing process of mixing, heating, drying, grinding and remixing and this gives a sense of just how hard Walton worked to arrive at the final satisfactory product. To me there are echoes of those ICI scientists exploring derivatives of hydrocarbons and ending up with perspex and polythene.

With the material capable of production, Walton found backers and set up production fust at Chiswick and then at Staines both to the west of London. Linoleum soon gained popularity and the business did well. The patent expired allowing other manufacturers to exploit the idea. The Nairn family of Kirkaldy was one of these but was challenged by Walton over the use of the name linoleum. The court held that by then the name was in common usage and so no longer had protection.

Linoleum crossed the Atlantic and became as great success in the USA. A design isse that needed to be addressed was just how to produce linoleum with a pattern. Floor cloths, being essentially a painted cloth, had offer a variety of patterns; how could this be done with the linoleum? At first the pattern was applied to the surface, but it was found that this wore off all too quickly. The answer came from Walton in straight-line in laid linoleum where pieces of different colours were arranged manual before being heat-fused into the final product. This as inevitably a time consuming process which Walton solved with a a machine he invented.

Linoleum production took off not only in the USA (the area of Staton Island in New York where the factory was based was named Linoleumville), but elsewhere in the world and manufacturers bought Walton’s new machine.

In the first decade of the 20th century American, Charles Armstrong made a vital further move by advertising linoleum direct to the consumer, the housewife. The medium used was magazines and a large budget was spent but yielded high rewards. Linoleum was everywhere, in homes, offices, schools, hospitals, even on the decks of naval ships.

In the 1960s the availability of vinyl meant that linoleum production shrank. Vinyl was cheap and plentiful. I recall my mother rejoicing in the new ‘Vinylay’. There is then the British Amtico as a more upmarket plastic based flooring

In the 21st century, the damage to the planet caused by plastics has offered a linoleum revival. In the UK, the original Nairn business in Kirkaldy has become part of the Dutch Forbo and produce the plant based product that Walton invented.

Further reading

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. Accessed 10 Feb. 2024.

Pamela H. Simpson, Cheap, Quick and Easy:
Imitative Architectural Materials, 1870-1930
(Knoxville, University of Tennessee Press, 1999.

Image

The ferry en route to Staton Island the home of Linoleumville.