Brushes have in one form or another been with us since times immemorial. Prehistoric Man is likely to have used collection of bound animal hairs for his artistic expression in the caves he inhabited. Later the Romans enriched their homes with large al fresco paintings, applied to the wet plaster with what must have been the precursor of our modern paintbrushes.

In the Middle ages the Monks continued to develop the art of brushwork in the service of the Church, producing their illustrated manuscripts. The Castles would be painted with large scenes of historic or religious importance or the ceilings decorated with intricate patterns.

As pastoral Man was followed by Agriculturists, the homestead would become more secure and stable, and in these early times a collection of twigs, bound to stick, would be used to sweep the floor and keep the yard clean.

In all these cases the user would simply make up his own 'brush' by securing a collection of hairs or fibres to a holder, as there was yet no trade in these tools.
By the course of the seventeenth century we find however in England the craft of brushmaker firmly established. Brooms or 'besoms' were made initially of pure English bristle, the hair of the wild swine still roaming the forests of England. As agriculture encroached upon these forests, the supply of local bristle dwindled and more and more the trade relied on imports of bristle from Russia. It was then that specialised 'bristle merchants' set up in London to supply the trade with the many varieties of bristle required.

Domestic brushes were made by inserting 'knots' of prepared bristle in holes, predrilled in the stocks (handles). The base of the knots would be inserted in 'pitch' (tar) by the 'pan-hand', who would bind the knot with twine, dip it again and then insert the knot in the hole. This trade was a truly skilled craft and in the eighteenth century there was already established a 'London Society of Journeyman Brushmakers', the establishment which sold to wholesalers, and who competed vigorously with the 'illegal' trade of hawkers, a 'motley crowd of Gypsies, vagrants and poor Irishmen' who, because this required less skill, concentrated on making 'besoms' (brooms) at lower prices and hawking these on the streets.

As the supply of imported bristle became more erratic and prices increased, substitutes of vegetable fibres were introduced: first Bahia Bass from Brasil and later oil dyed Mexican fibre, which looked so much like bristle, that it was difficult to distinguish and led to so much dishonesty and false claims for this much cheaper but inferior material that the 'Pure Bristle' standard had to be introduced by the established trade.
Charles Hamilton was apprenticed in 1798, and after seven years apprenticeship, he became an accredited tradesman, who established his own business in 1811 in London.

The business grew rapidly, based on a solid reputation of making only the finest quality brushes of 'unadulterated' bristle. His son-in law Watkins introduced many innovations and patents in the business, the most important patent was Watkin's patent of 1879, by which 'bristles were bound to the handles by wire and afterwards forced by compression into metal ferrules'. In 1912 Hamilton introduced into England the American invention of setting paintbrushes in vulcanised rubber, which was a great quality improvement The Company subsequently amalgamated in 19 with the Star brush Company, led by its founder, E.F. Bradley, an American engineer, who invented and pioneered the first automatic block drilling and knot-inserting machines, which greatly reduced the cost of manufacture of brooms and brushed.

In this way Hamilton, by combining the highest quality standards with the latest mechanisation processes, became the leading British brush manufacturer.
The years between the two Worldwars were tumultuous times for the industry. Supplies of Russian bristle dwindled and prices rose dramatically, whilst the Great Depression caused output to slump. Slowly supplies of (black) Chinese bristle took over, which was initially regarded as inferior because it was black and more curly. In the thirties the industry went from boom to slump to boom: Hamilton's were by then already the largest manufacturer, which exported paintbrushes to all corners of the British Empire, where local industries had not yet been established.

After Worldwar II, to safeguard their markets against local competition, local Hamilton subsidiary Companies were established in Australia, New Zealand, the U.S.A. and South Africa, making it a truly international Brush Company. In the early eighties Hamilton U.K. relinquished control of these overseas companies, which were acquired by local interests.

The history of the manufacture of domestic brushes (scrubbing brushes and brooms) and of paintbrushes runs largely parallel, because the processes of knot picking and fixing in predrilled cavities, were essentially the same, and in fact most manufacturers made a full range of all types of brushes.

With the advent of the American flat varnish brush, instead of the traditional round, sashtool type brush, and the modern epoxy setting in metal ferrules, instead of tying the knot by wire or rope to the handle, the manufacturing processes have now completely diverged. Similarly the trade outlets have become specialised, and thus the overlap between the manufacture and marketing of the two types of brushes has become minimal.

Hamilton’s in South Africa, like Hamilton U.K. has recognised the consequences of this and has become a specialist manufacturer of paintbrushes (and of course paintrollers) only. In this way it can concentrate on maintaining the highest quality standards and the best methods of manufacture, which made Hamilton's the worlds leading paintbrush manufacturer.