1856
A draper from Basingstoke.
Thomas Burberry was twenty-one when he opened a draper's shop in Basingstoke, Hampshire. He noticed that the smock-frock worn by local shepherds repelled rain because its tightly woven worsted wool had been treated with lanolin. He spent the next two decades engineering a fabric that did the same thing but lighter and more breathable. In 1879 he patented gabardine — woven tightly enough that water beaded off, ventilated enough to wear in heat. The British Army adopted it for the South African campaigns. Roald Amundsen wore it to the South Pole in 1911. Ernest Shackleton wore it on the Endurance.
