Formerly, to fix anything to solid walls was a messy job, necessitating chiselling out a square hole in the plaster and masonry and filling it with a tight-fitting wooden plug of the same shape. The fitting was then secured by screwing or nailing it into the wooden bung. The result, however, was frequently unsightly because it was very easy to crack and damage the surrounding plaster walls. Even cylindrical wood plugs did not work well because wood was not soft or pliable enough to fill tightly the interstices or spaces between the hole in the wall and the screw or nail being driven in. John Rawlings believed there had to be a better, easier and neater way of fixing into walls. He solved the problem by inventing the rawlplug – a small fibre plug made of jute bonded with glue or animal blood. The jute tube was weakened along its length by being drawn from reels through a die. It was basically eight segments held together by a coating of gum or glue.

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