SUPERSEDING THE USE OF BRISTLES, COCOA FIBRES, FLAX, HEMP, WHALEBONE, &C., TO BE STYLED AND CALLED AN INVENTION FOR ADAPTING AND APPLYING THE FIBROUS PLANTS OF SOUTH AFRICA TO THE PURPOSES OF MANUFACTURE
Year: 1857

page_text: TTERS PATENT to Peter Wicks, of the Cape of Good Hope, and also
No. 10, Devonshire Street, Bloomsbury, and Thomas Goulston Ghislin,
also of the Cape of Good Hope, and No. 7, Alfred Place, Blackfriars Road,
for the Invention of "SUPERSEDING THE USE OF BRISTLES, COCOA FIBRES,
FLAX, HEMP, WHALEBONE, &C., TO BE STYLED AND CALLED AN INVENTION FOR
ADAPTING AND APPLYING THE FIBROUS PLANTS OF SOUTH AFRICA TO THE
PURPOSES OF MANUFACTURE."
Sealed the 25th September 1857, and dated the 14th April 1857.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Peter Wicks and Thomas
Goulston Ghislin at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with
their Petition, on the 14th April 1857.
We, P.TER WICKS, of the Cape of Good Hope, and also No. 10, Devon-
shire Street, Bloomsbury, and THOMAS GOULSTON GuiSLIN, also of the Cape
of Good Hope, and No. 7, Alfred Place, Blackfrias Road, do hereby declare
the nature of the said Invention for "SUPERCEDING THE USE OF BRISTLES, COCOA
FIBRES, FLAX, HEMP, WHALEBONE, &C., TO BE STYLED AND CALLED AN INVENTION
FOR ADAPTING AND APPLYING THE FIBROUS PLANTS OF SOUTH AFRICA TO THE
PURPOSES OF MANUFACTURE," to be as follows:-
The adaptation and application and preparation of the following South
Africanfibrous plants, viz.,Juncus sereta,Juncus trista,aloe aborea,sanseviacæ,
malvaca, Watsouia latifolia, Watsonia narvoso, Watsonia pumillac, Watsonia
paperi, gladiolus, antholiza, lapeyrousia tulipa, babiana horteuses, Witsinia.
ונם.D

page_text: cyperaceae, Gurnsey lilly, gnapaliums, papyrous, triticum, strelitzia, salicornic
suffruticosca, zamia, tritomanthea, tritonia, Virgilia holeus, maze, graininca,
saccharinea stipe, proteacca algae, phoenix reclinator, hibiscus, &c., for the
purposes of manufacturing paper (white & colored), yarns, jute, thread, cord-
age, cloth, sacking, bagging, platting, matting, stuffing chairs, sofas,ottomen,
& mattresses; making brushes, horse cloths, tilts, textile fabrics, spinning,
weaving, and other purposes, being the production of Her Majesty's South
African posessions, and never used or adapted to these purposes heretofore.
These fibres are to be adapted after this wise, viz., having been well and
properly crushed, soaked, cleaned, and combed, they become seperate and
capable of being worked into any fancy or mechanical desegns, and when cut
into becoming lengths are suitable for making brushes of every description,
being of an elastic and durable nature, and when wetted and reduced to a
pulp well suited to the purpose of paper making.
We, therefore, claim as our Invention the application, adaptation, and
preparation of the South African plants herein particularly mentioned by any
mode or modes we may dopt, and also the manufacturing into their various
uses herein particulary discribed, being our sole Invention, and never applyed
to such purposes heretofore.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent; filed
by the said Peter Wicks and Thomas Goulston Ghislin in the Great
Seal Patent Office on the 9th October 1857.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, wc, PETER
WICKS, of the Cape of Good Hope, and also of 10, Devonshire Street,
Bloomsbury, and THOMAS GOULSTON GHISLIN, also of the Cape of Good Hope,
and of 7, Alfréd Place, Blackfrias Road, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Fourteenth day of April, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven, in the twentyeth year of Her
reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto us, the
said Feter Wicks and Thomas Goulston Ghislin, Her special licence that
we, the said Peter Wicks and Thomas Goulston Ghislin, our executors,
adininistrators, and assigns, or such others as we, the said Peter Wicks and
Thomas Goulston Ghislin, our executors, administrators, and assigns, should
at any time agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all times
thereafter during the term therein expressed, should and lawfully might

page_text: make, use, exercise, and vend, within the United Kingdom of Great Bri-
tain and Ireland, the Channel Islands. and Isle of Man, an Invention for
"SUPERSEDING THE USE OF BRISTLES, COCOA FIBRE, FLAX, HEMP. WHALEBONE, &C., &c.
TO BE STYLED, AND CALLED AN INVENTION FOR ADAPTING AND APPLYING THE FIBROUS
PLANTS OF SOUTH AFRICA TO PURPOSES OF MANUFACTURE," upon the condition
(amongst others) that we, the said Peter Wicks and Thomas Goulston Ghislin,
our executors or administrators, by an instrument in writing under our, or
their, or one of their hands and seals, should particularly describe and
ascertain the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same was
to be performed, and cause the same to be filed in the Great Seal Patent
Office within six calendar months next and immediately after the date of the
said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that we, the said Peter Wicks and Thomas Goulston
Ghislin, do hereby declare the nature of our said Invention, and in what
manner the same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascer-
tained in and by the following statement :-
The Invention or discovery, intended to be secured under the above in part
recited Letters Patent, is the adaptation, application, preparation, and uses of
the fibres, vegetable substances, their roots, barks, stems, fronds, stipes,cuticles,
leaves, flowers and fruit, their medicinal, farinaceous, saccharinons, gelatinous.
alcoholic, fatty, and all other properties of the following South African plants,
their species and families, viz:-junceae, serratus, trista, &c., aloc arborea, &c.,
sanseviera, malvaceae. Watsonia latifolia, narvoso humilis, papyrace, &c.,
restiacea, gladiolus, antholyza, lapeyrousia, &c. tulipa beyniana, babiana
hortenses, &c., Witsenia cyperaceae, cycadere amaryllidea, belladonna, &c.,
guaphalium papyrous.tritomanthe,triticum,strelitzia,salicornia,euphorbiacer
Vergelia, tritonia holeus, maze, gramine, saccharinae, &c., stipea, oxalis,
ficoideae ficus, sparaxis asphodela, proteaceae, phoenix reclinatai, &c., hibiscus.
bryonia, &c. &c., for the purpose of manufacturing pulp, paper, yarns, jute,
coir, thread, cordage, roping, making tilts, horse cloths, sacking bagging,
platting, felts, cloths, crinolines, cottons and silks, textile fabrics, spinning and
weaving purposes in general; making artificial and substitutes for bristles,
horsehair, & whalebone; also for the purpose of stuffing shairs, sofas,&c. The
"other purposes" as spoken of in our "Provisional Specification" to which
we would apply the properties of these plants are extracting and the making.
of gums, oils, dyes, essences, spirits, medicines, &c. &c.
From the juncus serratus we propose to make brushes by five different
modes of treatment, viz. :-
First, by cutting the plaut into junks of proper lengths, dressing one end

page_text: but leaving the fibres at the other end to remain cemented by the gum nature
has supplied it with, instead of being astened by string, wire, iron or copper
bindings, as is usually done.
.
Secondly, by stripping off the outer black fibrous leaves and using the inner
fibre only, dressing one end and leaving the other cemented by gum, as pre-
viously discribed.
Thirdly, by cutting it into junks of sufficent lengths to allow of the fibre
and handle to be one entire peice, instead of inserting a handle made of wood
or of some other material.
Fourthly, by rolling the outer black fibrous leaf into bunches of about the
substance of a cigar, and when cut into proper lengths inserting them in that
condition, instead of being "deviled " or " heckled," or devided into seperate
fibres like bristles, hair, &c. &c., and then fastening by any means best
adapted to the taste, skill, and good judgment of the operative.
Fifthly, by using the outer black fibrous leaves without rolling, and fasten-
ing then, layer upon layer, like flat feathers, by any ordinary or known process.
The "cuttings" or "waste" in the use of these black leaves, we apply to
the purposes of stuffing chairs, sofas, &c. &c. The gum when extracted from
this plant we apply to medicinal purposes, its properties being "" astringent."
This plant we also apply to the purposes of rope making, and manufacture
a new article called the "marine "rope, being an" aquatic "itself; its fibres
are found to be almost indistructible by the influences of sea water. This rope
can be made from it either by using the plant entire, or by seperating the
fibres and using the black only.
Beyond the treatment of this plant for the purposes discribed, we do not
propose any new mode of operation, the invention nor introduction of any
particular new machinery more than what is already known and usually
adopted, nor do we confine confine ourselves (even in regard to the juncus
serratus) to any particular mode or modes of treatment, but simply state what
at present appears to us to be the best mode, rather reserving to ourselves
the right and privilege of using such means,and adopting such methods as we
may hereafter find best suited to our various purposes, believing that these
fibrous plants after being properly soaked, cleaned, combed, dressed or dyed,
spun,thrown,wove or platted, reduced, steeped, boiled or distilled in the ordinary
way, will be found capable of being manufactured into all the various uses
and applied to all the various purposes herein-before particularly discribed.
Furthermore, we state, by way of explanation, that all the plants before
mentioned are indigenous to or are the productions of Her Majesty's South
African possessions, and abound more or less from Cape Town, the capital, to

page_text: the west, north, and east of the whole of the British territories, (the settlement
of Natal and the lately abandoned Orange River settlement included). Some
are "aquatics," growing in the mountain streams, rivers, and stagnant fresh
waters; others on the margin of salt bays, &c. others "terrestials," abound in
all the various soils and situations peculiar to South Africa, such as sands,
loams, alluvials, and rocky places.
Owing to the great demand in this country for cotton and other fibrous
materials for the manufacture of textile fabrics, paper, &c., &c., the supply is
found to be inadequate to the demand, even with the aid of immence impor-
tations from other countries; hence it is desirable to open up fresh sources of
supply, and espescially if those sources can be obtained in our own territories,
rendering us thereby more independant of rival States who now supply us.
These plants can most of them be obtained in large and many of them in
unlimited quantities; but their further cultivation, besides opening a wide field
of labour, just suited to the capasity of the aborigines, would be of immense
advantage to the established settler and future emegrant, and by entensive
importations to this country would add to its commercial and manufacturing
importauce, give strength to its government, and add to the colonial revenue
also.
We therefore claim as our right, and seek to secure by these Royal Letters
Patent, the adaptation, application, and preparation of the fibrous plants of
South African, and all their various properties, as herein-before particularly
discribed, by any mode or modes we may adopt, and also the manufacturing
of them and their various properties into all the various uses and purposes
herein-before particularly discribed by any mode or modes we may dapt, the
application of them of them to these purposes being our sole Invention, they'
never having (to the best of our knowledge and belief) been applied to these
purposes heretofore.
In witness whereof, we, the said Peter Wicks and Thomas Goulston
Ghislin, have hereunto put our hand and seal, this the Ninth of
October, in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and
fifty-seven.
PETER WICKS.
(L.S).
THOMAS GOULSTON GHISLIN. (L.B.)