Floor and Wall Coverings

Floorcloth

Stone and timber floors in larger houses were artisan-created works, intended to be seen. Painted and stencilled floors were augmented by floorcloths, hard-wearing painted canvas. Floorcloth (also known as floor oilcloth or painted floorcloth) first appeared in the early 18th century, but there are 15th- and 16th-century references to a similar material.

Floorcloth became popular despite its expensiveness and tendency for patterns to wear off. It was used in high-traffic areas, such as entrance halls and stairways, where easy cleaning was important. It was also favored in ground-level rooms in the summer, although it became malodorous and tacky when hot. Manufacturing was labor intensive and dangerous, using painting frames six storys high on which workers balanced to coat the canvas. The processes of drying and curing meant that production took several months. By the close of the 19th century, floorcloth had fallen in price enough to be available to the working classes.

Linoleum

The next significant development in flooring was Linoleum, which developed from a product called Kamptulicon. In 1855, Frederick Walton peeled the skin from the top of a can of oil paint and used this skin, produced by oxidation of linseed oil, to develop a product he called Kampticon, but later rebranded as Linoleum. Walton started the Linoleum Manufacturing Co., Ltd., in 1864. At first, the company ran at a loss as the fierce competition between floorcloth and Kamptulicon continued. A large advertising campaign and the opening of two Linoleum shops in London reversed the situation and sales skyrocketed.

The success of Linoleum spawned its imitation by floorcloth companies. Walton began legal action against Nairns of Kirkcaldy in 1877, but lost, having never registered the trade name. The word linoleum became the first product name to be ruled a generic trademark in court.

Linoleum's heyday was from the 1860s until after World War II, when the do it yourself (DIY) boom saw other hard floorings overtake linoleum, which was seen as old-fashioned and vulnerable to damage from the fashionable high-heeled shoes of the time. The “poor man's carpet” was undermined by [Page 260]the appearance of cheap carpeting. By the 1960s, linoleum was almost completely replaced by cheaper vinyl flooring and struggled throughout the 1970s when environmental change increased the price of linseed oil. A recovery in the late 1970s and 1980s credits linoleum's natural ingredients, durability, and nontoxic breakdown and combustion products. Linoleum has enjoyed resurgence as a green product since the 1980s, when it became possible to recycle linoleum for linseed oil, making it 100 percent recyclable. Natural lino production also recycles all remnants back into the production process.

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