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Lexicon Corrugated iron _____________________________________________________ A pressed iron sheeting of regular undulations, known in the trade as 'S-profile galvanised sheet-metal'. It originated under patent to Henry R Palmer a civil engineer in London, in 1829. Richard Walker (to whom the patent had been attributed) acquired the patent and was in production and advertising the product by 1832. In 1837 a patent was taken out by HV Craufurd in 1837 and Sorel in the same year in France for hot-dipped galvanising, and the combination of these technologies into a single product is claimed by John Porter of Southwalk in 1843. (HERBERT, 1978: Chapter 3 'Corrugated iron and prefabrication'). The product was an immediate success in the colonies, particularly as, with cast iron, it served as ballast for the outward bound trading ships, and could thus be off-loaded at the ports of call and exchanged by weight for the local produce being exported.LEWCOCK (1963: 346-347) records that there was an 'iron store' to let in Cape Town in 1947. Corrugated iron was being exported to Australia in 1850 which approximates with its first use in South Africa where 'iron' buildings were reported in the Natal Colony. Its heyday of usage in South Africa was however in the 1860s-1870s where it soon became ubiquitous in replacing thatch or tiles as a roof covering. In local South African parlance it became known as 'zinc', the metal component of the galvanising finish. In kit form (see Prefabricated wood-and-iron) it enabled the rapid housing of the mining towns of Kimberley and later Johannesburg. It is of the most widely used materials in creating shelter and informal housing. Its use today is still ubiquitous and its aesthetic as a material has seen contemporary resurgence as being fashionable. Some examples on this site General Smuts House Ivy Villa Stables Conversion and Studio. Referred works Pioneers of Prefabrication: the British Contribution in the Nineteenth Century Early Nineteenth Century Architecture in South Africa : a study of the interaction of two cultures, 1795-1837.