Mr Phil Norman, cultural historian and technical sleuth, has brought to light some fascinating Henry Hoke related information, in particular about the conundrum of his bottled spirit level bubbles:
"From the 1930s through the 1940s and even into the 1950s people bought their spirit level bubbles separately from the Level Body.
They would put the bubble in themselves or had the bubble installed at the local soap suds factory.
A spirit level bubbles bottle (known in the trade as a SLBB ) would contain lots of bubbles , as many bubbles were spilt and lost in the process of installing a bubble into a Level Body.
The horizontally oval bubbles were always more expensive and were much sought after , as they were more accurate in showing something to be more or less level.
This practice quickly evaporated away when a method of embedding the suds directly into the soap was discovered , so that cakes of soap were self sudsing ( when some water and movement was added ).
As time went by , many of the smaller local bubble and soap suds factories closed down and in modern times all spirit levels have the bubbles already installed and fixed in the Level Body."
Excellent work Mr Norman! That’s the great thing about the Henry H project - amazing stories keep coming to light...
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