Who patented the rubber band in 1845?

Stephen Perry was a 19th-century British inventor and businessman. His corporation was the Messers Perry and Co, Rubber Manufacturers of London, which made early products from vulcanised rubber.

On March 17, 1845, he was granted, together with the engineer Thomas Barnabas Daft, British Patent No. 13880 for the production of elastic bands from vulcanized natural rubber for straps, belts and bandages.

The rings were produced by cutting hollow rubber tubes into narrow strips. At first, they were still anything but a mass product and were used almost exclusively for binding loose sheets of paper, newspapers, and other paper products.

Perry has been almost forgotten and has been eclipsed by better known contemporaries such as Charles Nelson Goodyear (1800-1860) and Thomas Hancock (1786-1865), the discoverers of the vulcanization of rubber, or Charles Macintosh (1766-1843), manufacturer of the first waterproof rubber impregnated raincoat. No biography has been written about him, nor can any photos be found to this day.

Rubber, which derives from plants that grow best in an equatorial climate, was first discovered by European explorers in the Americas, where Christopher Columbus encountered Mayan indians using water-proof shoes and bottles made from the substance. Intrigued, he carried several Mayan rubber items on his return voyage to Europe. Over the next several hundred years, other European explorers followed suit.