CELEBRATING 90 YEARS OF PERSPEX® ACRYLIC

In November 1934 the word Perspex came into the English language.  Derived from the Latin “to see through” it was registered as the trademark for ICI’s acrylic sheet.  90 years on Perspex® arylic is still being made in the UK and the range continues to get bigger and better!

It was work by John Crawford of the Research Department at ICI and Crawford Hill of British  Dyestuffs Corporation that led to a patent application for the polymer of methyl methacrylate in November 1931, which also covered for both moulding and extrusion of the polymer.

It took the war to bring about a significant demand for Perspex® acrylic as a glazing material for aircraft. With this increased demand and the Ministry of Supply insisting on manufacture over a number of different sites, to minimise the risk from enemy attack, a production site at Darwen, Lancashire was found. So it was in 1940 that production of Perspex® acrylic on a small scale began and continues to this day.

The fledgling product would soon become an increasingly important part of the war effort with 50 tons of Perspex® acrylic produced during that first year at Darwen for the cockpit canopies of fighter aircraft. In the Battle of Britain year, production had increased significantly to 455 tons and by 1944 Perspex® acrylic production had grown to six thousand tons.

As expected, with the end of the war, the need for Perspex® acrylic fell dramatically to less than half of the wartime peak. It took a while for Perspex flat sheet to find a replacement market for the capacity that had been developed during those war years.

One of the new colours developed at Darwen was opal, in four different grades, which helped to create a demand in an entirely new market, for both indoor and outdoor lighting applications.

Endorsement of Perspex® acrylic for the lighting industry was also helped by a significant installation of four hundred fittings designed by Sir Gilbert Scott for the new House of Commons. This success and the abundance of grades and colours would subsequently lead to the consideration of Perspex® acrylic for signs and fascias. Complemented in no small part by the characteristics of the material, signage remains a market of prime importance to this day.

Now, 90 years after it first appeared, Perspex® acrylic is produced in hundreds of variants and for many applications. Supplied in the UK since 2003 by Perspex Distribution, we have established Perspex® cast acrylic once again as the market leader.