The material rubber was created in the 1839 after American chemist Charles Goodyear discovered a process to create vulcanised rubber, by dropping sulphur on his stove, with the heat of the stove activating the sulphur, turning it in to rubber, terming this process as “vulcanisation” after the Roman God of Fire Vulcan. He patented this process in 1844, then almost twenty years later rubber stamps would be invented. During this period this new material of vulcanised rubber was used in dentistry as a material for dentures.
The actual inventor of rubber stamps is subject to controversy, in 1866 an inventor named James Woodruff took these techniques used by dentists and applied them to letter moulds, creating the rubber stamp as we know it. During this time the idea of a stamp was nothing new but this recently discovered material (vulcanised rubber) transformed the way they are manufactured, overtime this process became quicker and more accurate at pressing rubber into different shapes and sizes.
After this, in 1866 a man named L.F. Witherell claimed to have created the rubber stamp by fixing rubber letters on the end of a bedpost to mark the wooden pumps he made. Unfortunately, Witherell never submitted any proof to support his claim of the invention so can be easily discredited.
Quickly after this, date and letter stamps gained popularity for accelerating working processes typically found in post offices and banks. Later on pictures could be created on rubber stamps, revolutionising the educational industry as a way to encourage pupils doing their work.
Although the inventor of rubber stamps is still debated to this day, the history and development of rubber stamps has truly shaped the way that many companies do business in the UK. With the outbreak of Covid-19, many industries digitalised, moving away from paper, this caused an issue for stamp makers. However three years on from the pandemic, stamps are just as popular today as they were in 1866.
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