The Marley Tile Company Limited

The Marley Tile Company Limited, of Sevenoaks, Kent, England, launched Marleydek, a vinyl roofing sheet with an asbestos backing, in 1967, and in 1981 was looking for asbestos fiber for its vinyl floor tile. The library's few documents about it end in 1981 and say nothing about how its asbestos business ended.

Draft. The history on this page was written from the documents in our library and has not yet been reviewed by a person.

Asbestos products

In October 1967 the trade journal Asbestos reported that Marleydek roofing sheet, "after tests lasting eight years," was claimed to have kept the roofs it covered watertight without maintenance, and that Marley was therefore launching it commercially.¹ The journal said Marleydek "is described as a flexible non-ageing vinyl with a backing of asbestos."¹ It repeated the item in its review of the year in December 1967.⁴ The Sourcebook on Asbestos Diseases lists Marleydek as "roofing vinyl with asbestos backing."⁵

What the documents show

Three 1981 letters among the Union Carbide trial exhibits concern Marley's search for asbestos fiber. On May 28, 1981, J. D. Clare, Marley's Chief Buyer, wrote to Union Carbide in New York that Marley had "in the past had samples of an Asbestos Fibre" from one of its companies, and asked whether a Grade 7T fiber with the reference "Coalinga SG103-5" was still available, for delivery in full container loads to a U.K. port.² On June 15, 1981, R. E. Byrne, Jr., Union Carbide's Manager of Asbestos Technology, replied that "Calidria" asbestos SG-103-5 was sold in England through W. R. Grace, Ltd., and passed the request to Grace.⁶

On November 17, 1981, W. E. Valentine, a W. R. Grace Limited sales manager in London, wrote to Byrne that Grace had offered Marley samples of its own Sylodex products, which were "far too expensive for use in their vinyl floor tile product."³ Valentine asked Union Carbide for a sample, prices and "health and safety data" on SG-103-5, and reported that Marley had said floor tile makers in the United States, such as Azrock and Kentile, used it.³ The library holds no reply and no record of whether Marley bought the fiber.

The library has no document about dust, health or warnings at Marley's own plants, and no court case names the company.

References

1. Asbestos, October 1967, p. 16
2. UC-4906: J. D. Clare (Marley Tile Company) to Union Carbide Corporation Asking Whether Grade 7T Coalinga SG103-5 Asbestos Fibre Is Still Available (1981)
3. UC-4899: W. E. Valentine (W. R. Grace Limited) to R. E. Byrne, Jr. on Calidria SG-103-5 for Marley Tile Company (1981)
4. Asbestos, December 1967, p. 9
5. Marleydek (Marley Tile), product page
6. UC-4907: R. E. Byrne, Jr. to J. D. Clare (Marley Tile) Referring a Calidria SG-103-5 Inquiry to W. R. Grace Ltd. (1981)

People

People the documents tie to The Marley Tile Company Limited, most often named first, with the titles the documents give them.

• J. D. Clare: Chief Buyer unreviewed

Asbestos products

1 product our documents name The Marley Tile Company Limited as making or selling. Each product's page says what the documents say about it, including its asbestos content.

• Marleydek (Marley Tile)

In the Union Carbide documents

The Marley Tile Company Limited is named in 3 Union Carbide documents dated 1981 (1 as the source, 3 mentioned), from asbestos lawsuits over Union Carbide's Calidria asbestos. All are published in our collection.

• J. D. Clare (Marley Tile Company) to Union Carbide Corporation Asking Whether Grade 7T Coalinga SG103-5 Asbestos Fibre Is Still Available (1981) UC-4906 (mentioned, source)
• R. E. Byrne, Jr. to J. D. Clare (Marley Tile) Referring a Calidria SG-103-5 Inquiry to W. R. Grace Ltd. (1981) UC-4907 (mentioned)
• W. E. Valentine (W. R. Grace Limited) to R. E. Byrne, Jr. on Calidria SG-103-5 for Marley Tile Company (1981) UC-4899 (mentioned)

Names in the documents

The spellings documents use for The Marley Tile Company Limited, OCR misreadings included, so a search for any of them finds this page: The Marley Tile Company Limited, Sevenoaks, Kent, England · Marley Tile Company · The Marley Tile Company, Ltd.

Where this comes from

This page brings together every document in our library that names The Marley Tile Company Limited, across collections. Titles and affiliations are taken from the documents themselves, and units and subsidiaries are grouped under the company they belong to.