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“Forgotten Heroes and Forgotten Issues”: Business and Trademark History during the Nineteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 September 2012

David M. Higgins
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Abstract

This reassessment of the importance of trademarks in business during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries reveals that the focus by business historians on the beverage and processed-foodstuff industries has resulted in comparative neglect of the textile and metal-fabrication industries. The trademark histories of the latter two show that they followed their own paths, which resulted in their adopting three solutions to trademark issues that differed sharply from the approaches taken by the former two. The textile and metalfabrication sectors participated heavily in the evolution of an international regime to protect intellectual property; featured prominently in the development of patents in trademarks and trade names; and devised unique institutional solutions to the emerging problem of conflicting private marks in the Lancashire cotton-textile and Sheffield edge-tool industries. The history of these two industries indicates that trademark protection was not sufficient to ensure international competitiveness and long-run survival.

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Articles
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Business History Review , Volume 86 , Issue 2 , Summer 2012 , pp. 261 - 285
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 2012

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References

The author wishes to thank Christopher Beauchamp, Paul Duguid, Dev Gangjee, Teresa da Silva Lopes, Christopher Price, and the business and patents office, Leeds Central Library. Particular thanks are due to Geoff Tweedale for allowing the author access to Tweedale's Directory before its publication and to Richard Wiltshire for granting access to the Chubb archives at the Guildhall Library, London. Earlier versions of this article were presented to seminars at the University of York and the London School of Economics. Some of the research was financed by a Nuffield Grant, Ref: SGS/33846.

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13 Because of overlap between the categories of “food,” “alcohol,” and “chemicals used for medicine and pharmaceuticals,” the latter class may sometimes be included among “non-durable consumer products.” It should also be noted that the trademark classification does not conform to standard industrial codes (SICs). Consequently, some products belonging to paper and stationery, as well as some household products and toiletries, may be classed as non-durable consumer products. See Duguid, Lopes, and Mercer, “Reading Registrations,” 18.

14 These positions are reversed in later subperiods.

15 Similar longevity of trademark use can be observed in the textile trademark classes. For example, James Chadwick, sewing thread, twenty years; Schuster, Fulda & Co., cotton yarn and thread, twenty-five years; Thomas Porter, cotton goods, thirty years; John Mulliner, cotton webbing, sixty years; Hutton & Co., cotton goods, ninety years; Christy and Sons, towelling, up to twenty-eight years; I. & W. Taylor, sewing cotton manufacturers, up to forty-seven years.

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21 Reported in Chubb Collectanea, vol. 1, part 1, Guildhall Library, London (hereafter, Chubb Collectanea). See also Wilson v. Heenon (1833) in Chubb Collectanea.

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23 Later commentary indicated that Rodgers had spent £1,000 per annum for over forty years defending its trademarks. Hardware Trade Journal, 31 Mar. 1886.

24 Charles and Jeremiah Chubb were established as ships' ironmongers in the early nineteenth century. In 1818, Jeremiah Chubb patented the “detector lock,” which rendered the lock inoperable without the correct key. The firm become a limited company in 1882 and was taken over by Racal Electronics in 1984. Numerous accolades are reported in Chubb Collect-anea: vol. 1, part 2; vol. 4, part 1; vol. 5, parts 2 and 6; vol. 10, part 3; and vol.11, part 2.

25 Morning Chronicle, 23 Apr. 1842. See also Carpenter and Tildesley v. Wootton (1847) involving misuse of marks on locks; Chubb Collectanea, vol. 1, part 2. The first action taken by Chubb appears to be 1831. Chubb Collectanea, vol. 1, part 1.

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