PAPER-MAKER
Jean Stirk takes a look at the history of paper manufacturing, which until the Industrial Revolution relied on highly skilled manual labour
Jean Stirk takes a look at the history of paper manufacturing, which used to rely on highly skilled manual labour
Paper, first made in China some 2,000 years ago, was gradually adopted across the globe for writing, drawing, painting and, by the 15th century, printing, although the English continued to create parchment from sheepskin, as the animal’s abundance made it cheaper to produce. It was John Tate at Sele Mill, Hertfordshire, who first brought paper-makers from France and Holland to teach English apprentices how to create paper by hand using recycled fibres from rags of poor cloth or good linen, and by the late 1400s Tate was producing such high-quality paper that Henry VII visited in 1498 to reward him for its excellence. However, ultimately Tate could not compete with European paper prices, so he closed the mill and retired.
A German-born jeweller, John Spilman, in Dartford, Kent, secured the monopoly from Elizabeth I to manufacture paper in around 1558, again importing Continental papermakers to teach apprentices the trade. His first mill encouraged the development of other paper mills in the area. By the 1600s, accompanying an increase in demand, more paper-makers emigrated to Britain from the Continent to escape religious persecution, in some cases hiding in barrels on a boat to avoid capture. They established businesses in south-east Kent, near Southampton and in parts of Devon, where they had access to sufficient supplies of rags; unskilled workers to deal with that material; a reliable flow of river water; and a road network
putting marketplaces and businesses within reach. Mills spread throughout Britain, and smaller mills supported bigger ones at times of high demand.
The Continental workers brought with them unwritten trade customs followed across the world since they were established in China. These included a seven-year apprenticeship from the age of 14. The apprentices, often paper-makers’ sons, would learn by watching and gradually moving from fetching and carrying to pushing a press and eventually making a sheet of paper with a mould. They usually worked a 12-hour day from Monday to Saturday, with a 30-minute lunch break.
Complex process
The basic manual workflow involved a sequence of specialised tasks. Labourers partly cleaned old cloth of various kinds, then female workers macerated it (broke it apart) with knives before it was beaten with water into a pulp. The pulp was transferred to a vat into which a papermaker dipped a wooden mould, shook it slightly, removed the deckle edge and turned out a sheet of paper onto a dry cloth. Then a coucher (from the French verb ‘to lie down’) placed it between two sheets, forming a pile for pressing to remove the excess water before the paper was dried on a line.
Paper-makers were paid in a hierarchy, with the senior paper-sheet maker receiving the highest rate. There were many other specialist roles to look out for in censuses including cutter, dryer, hanger, macerator, picker (who examined finished paper for defects), rag sorter and vat man. Wages were based on the number of sheets of each size produced in a day, and at the industry’s height before the advent of machinery the most experienced papermakers enjoyed a good standard of living, able to afford curtains and books for their house. Apprentices earned a small wage, and paid half the membership fee for their trade union. They would also be compensated for absence if they were ill.
The union at each mill collected weekly subscriptions from the workers to create a benefit fund. If a paper-maker became unemployed, he travelled an accepted route from mill to mill ‘on tramp’ looking for work. If a mill had nothing available, the paper-maker received basic bed and board for a night paid out of the benefit fund, and was told of any known vacancies in the area.
Improvements to the manufacturing process in the mid- to late 18th century included replacing cumbersome wooden stampers that macerated material into pulp with a Hollander, an enclosed metalbeater that macerated material more quickly and firmly, both improving the pulp’s quality and reducing manufacturing time.
However, the end of the 18th century was a worrying time for anyone in the trade. The combination of very poor harvests in Britain and the impact of the threat of war from France on imports forced increases in excise duty and disputes over reduced wages, as the price of food and goods rose dramatically.
Concerned employers formed a Committee of Master Papermakers in 1790. A Combination Act of 1796 was intended to prevent papermakers from forming trade associations and unionising; those fearing imprisonment followed the accepted tramping route round the country to avoid the authorities. Amid increasing tension the paper-makers clandestinely organised their own trade union in 1800, the Original Society of Papermakers (OSP), which continued supporting its members until closure in 1948.
The most experienced paper-makers enjoyed a good standard of living
Meanwhile machine-made paper was being developed, but initially the machinery was expensive to buy and to run, and in some cases required larger premises; workers needed training; and some clients were reluctant to make the change. In addition it took decades to reach a point where machines could dry paper, imprint a watermark and take off the made paper quickly enough to prevent damage.
The machine age
It is not surprising that many manufacturers hesitated until development was more assured, or adopted a dual system of machine- and handmanufacturing. The Masters and OSP members agreed new payment and work arrangements at a national meeting in 1853. As hand-making work reduced, men retrained as machine operators, accepted an OSP payment to emigrate, or retired with a redundancy payment.
However, machine-related accidents were a frequent concern. One newspaper reported the case of an employee who crawled onto a working machine to disentangle some snarled-up paper, only to lose a limb. Another told of a woman who was killed when her clothes got caught in a new machine that she was showing a colleague. Employees also had to contend with the introduction of toxic chemicals used for treating paper and breaking down esparto grass, a plant from Spain and North Africa with a high cellulose content used to make wood pulp – a substitute raw material that reduced costs significantly.
In the 20th century many mills went out of business, because of increasing costs, competition for certain types of paper from abroad and, eventually, the impact of the internet on print publishing. The survivors had to narrow their focus. One example is Chartham Paper Mill in Kent, which now specialises in producing tracing and translucent paper. Another is Springfield Paper Mill, Maidstone, which was built in 1800 and changed to preparing specialist medical paper products in the 20th century before finally closing in 2016, while some mills, for example in Norfolk and Northumberland, switched from manufacturing to recycling waste paper into everyday products. In addition handmade paper is still produced by individual, artisan paper-makers who create specialist products on a small scale, and it is difficult to see how society will ever become truly paperless.
The largest size of book and drawing paper manufactured by paper-makers (26½ x 40 inches) was called a ‘double elephant’.