Although aluminium was not used in widespread commercial applications until the late 19th century, its existence was known many years previous, and it had received acknowledgement from the most unlikely of places.

Pottery and Dyes

Naturally occurring compounds of aluminium were actually put to use by ancient civilisations. Clays made of hydrated aluminium silicates were used in pottery and aluminium sulphate was known to the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans as a mordant in the dyeing process.

Pliny the Elder

Some scholars have suggested limited production of aluminium metal may have occurred as long as 2000 years ago. In his famous encyclopedia "Historia Naturalis" Pliny the Elder mentions a familiar sounding silvery metal:

"One day a goldsmith in Rome was allowed to show the Emperor Tiberius a dinner plate of a new metal. The plate was very light, and almost as bright as silver. The goldsmith told the Emperor that he had made the metal from plain clay. He also assured the Emperor that only he, himself, and the Gods knew how to produce this metal from clay. The Emperor became very interested, and as a financial expert he was also a little concerned. The Emperor felt immediately, however, that all his treasures of gold and silver would decline in value if people started to produce this bright metal of clay. Therefore, instead of giving the goldsmith the regard expected, he ordered him to be beheaded."

Although we cannot test the truth behind this story the metal's description is intriguing. Many centuries later another Emperor, Napoleon III, used aluminium plates and cutlery to serve the King of Siam at a state banquet. Aluminium was then a rare and precious metal and less important guests had to eat from plates of pure gold.

Charles Dickens

Famous British writer Charles Dickens is well know for his sharp social commentary and well observed wit. Less well know are Dickens' opinions on aluminium. Over 140 years ago, approximately 30 years before the work of Hall and Héroult, Dickens became very interested in the discovery of a new metal that he believed would have an outstanding future. The metal was aluminium, and in 1857 he wrote:

"Within the course of the last two years .. a treasure has been divined, unearthed and brought to light ... what do you think of a metal as white as silver, as unalterable as gold, as easily melted as copper, as tough as iron, which is malleable, ductile, and with the singular quality of being lighter that glass? Such a metal does exist and that in considerable quantities on the surface of the globe. The advantages to be derived from a metal endowed with such qualities are easy to be understood. Its future place as a raw material in all sorts of industrial applications is undoubted, and we may expect soon to see it, in some shape or other, in the hands of the civilised world at large."

Aluminium has indeed fulfilled Dickens's prophecy ... but even he would no doubt be amazed at the thousands of different products in which it is now used throughout the world.

Jules Verne

Jules Verne, the father of modern science fiction, wrote "From Earth to the Moon", describing a manned trip to the moon over 100 years before the Apollo landings. The protagonists' space craft is to be fired from a giant gun and they decide there is one material which is ideally suited to the application - aluminium:

"This valuable metal possesses the whiteness of silver, the indestructibility of gold, the tenacity of iron, the fusibility of copper, the lightness of glass. It is easily wrought, is very widely distributed, forming the base of most of the rocks, is three times lighter than iron, and seems to have been created for the express purpose of furnishing us with the material for our projectile."