The earliest reference to tape can be found in Thomas Mace's "Musick's Monument" published in 1676 where lute makers used 'little pieces of Paper, so big as pence or two pences, wet with Glew' to hold the thin strips of sycamore in place during construction of their musical instruments.

The first use of 'pressure sensitive' tape can be found in 1845 in a US patent taken out by Shecut and Day where a natural rubber, pressure sensitive adhesive was used in the manufacture of sticking plasters. Sticky bandages were used in the American Civil War.

However, real progress was not made in this field until the mid 1920's when Henry Ford pioneered the industrial uses of tapes. Masking tapes were used in the spray-painting process, where different coloured cars - aside from the ubiquitous black of the time - were assembled.

Sellotape® dates back to 1937 when Colin Kininmonth and George Gray coated Cellophane film with a natural rubber resin, creating a 'sticky tape' product, which had been based on a French patent. They had seen this process carried out in France by a company called CIMA and they obtained a licence to manufacture in the UK. [See our section How is Tape Made? for further details.]

They registered their product under the name 'Sellotape®' and manufacturing soon commenced in Acton, West London.

Following the outbreak of war in 1939 the company was put on war work and made Cellulose tape for sealing ration and first aid packs and a cloth tape for sealing ammunition boxes. There was also a product produced in sheet form for covering windows as protection from breaking glass.

Today, Sellotape® consumer products are highly popular and used widely in offices
and homes world wide.

Click on the topics below to find out more.
The Sellotape® Company Today | The History of The Sellotape® Company | The History of Sticky Tape | Sellotape® and The Environment | How is Tape Made?