RURAL BRITISH PAPER MILLS

Geographical and geological features dictated the position of early paper mills, which were often situated in rural areas. Paper mills required an all year round supply of pure water free of soluble iron for processing and a continuous flow to power machinery; they were normally established on proven sites where other types of water mills had been successful. These early mills could have a dual purpose, grinding corn and making paper using the same waterpower. The decline in the cloth industry and the closure of fulling mills and later other mills, offered excellent sites for the manufacture of paper and the conversion of such mills was economically advantageous. In the case of fulling mills the mallets previously used for pounding cloth could be converted to pound rags in water to form pulp from which the paper was made. However, the rapid introduction in the first half of the eighteenth century of a 'beating engine' from the Continent, generally called a 'Hollander', consisting of a rotating drum with iron teeth through which rags mixed with water were repeatedly drawn, considerably speeded up the preparation of pulp. The installation of steam engines after 1786 was gradually increased and continued to do so with improvements made after 1800¹, although steam and waterpower sometimes operated side-by-side, with turbines being introduced later.

Some mills began by making wrapping papers before commencing production of white paper, perhaps returning to 'browns' in difficult times. Where papermaking machines were added to a vat mill (making hand-made paper), the mill would normally continue to make both machine and hand-made paper.

Paper was treated with animal size to prevent the printing ink, gum etc. penetrating the paper; this size was mostly produced by the boiling of hide pieces. Rosin size was available in the first decade of the nineteenth century, but the practice of introducing rosin size to the 'beating engine' hence, engine-sized, may have been slow to catch on in some mills. In 1903 an Inland Revenue contract for stamp paper stipulated, "engine-sized to stand gumming [and] lightly machined animal size".

Despite being protected from cheap imports until the mid Victorian period, bankruptcy was not unknown in the industry. Before the 1860s most papers were made from rags, which were always in short supply. Excise duty on paper was abolished in 1861, but this did little to help the rural mill. Changes in British foreign policy could affect sales; the Second Anglo Boer War saw the export of British paper to Germany decrease, probably as a result of German sympathies with the Boer Republics². Transport costs were also a problem for rural mills as, although situated on streams or rivers, these waters were not generally navigable. As the monetary requirements of the industry changed, competition from larger mills contributed to the decline of both small and rural mills. Many mills closed at the end of the nineteenth century and this trend continued into the twentieth³.

Paper mills were particularly vulnerable to fire; floods could also be a problem. Basted Mills⁴ in the Shode Valley on a stream locally known as the 'Busty', North of the village of Plaxtol, Kent, which made paper for postage stamps⁵ closed after flooding in 1968⁶.

British manufactured watermarked papers often display any combination of the mill number, company name, mill name and initials or monogram of the owner or master papermaker, initially encouraged by an Act of Parliament of 1794 (Act 34 Geo 111, c20). Mill Numbers were the Excise fiscal register numbers issued by the Excise Office until 1857; Chafford Mills' number was 389. These watermarks, termed 'sheet watermarks'⁷ by some authors; can aid the researcher in identifying the location of paper mills. Although the identification of mills from watermarks appears reliable, there are problems; for various reasons the Excise authorities sometimes allotted new numbers or reallocated old numbers to mills⁸. Moreover, when a paper mill was sold, the use of the watermark often passed to the new owner and could be used for decades. Another problem is that some watermarks display the name of the company that ordered the paper and not the manufacturer. The research of the late Alfred H. Shorter helped to unravel many of these complexities and convey a clearer picture of the diversity and distribution of British paper mills.

However, it is relatively easy to locate a paper mill if the watermark is the name of the mill. Papers used for Revenue stamps and a halfpenny postage stamp of the Transvaal issued after 1879 and a four penny postage duty of the Falkland Islands, printed by the London firm of Bradbury Wilkinson & Co. are printed on wove papers with a two line horizontal watermark 'R TURNER / CHAFFORD MILLS'. That for the Transvaal in serif capitals and that for the Falkland Islands in ornate lettering. This paper was, therefore, manufactured at Chafford Mills, Kent⁹, which stood on the River Medway¹⁰, four miles from Tunbridge Wells. Production ceased just before the First World War.

A halfpenny Transvaal 'Queen's Head' postage stamp printed on a Chafford Mills watermarked paper.

Notes and References

1. Coleman, 1958, p. 62-63, 109-112, 222, 223
2. Spicer, 1907, p. 135
3. Shorter, 1971, p. 152, 174
4. Ordnance Survey grid reference: TQ 607557
5. The British Postal Museum and Archive, London, reference: Postage stamps contracts for watermark paper, POST 33/1599.
6. Penn, 1981, p. 91
7. Other authors use the terms 'Countermark' or 'House watermarks'
8. Shorter, 1971, p.122, 123
9. Woolgar, 2004, p. 63-77
10. Ordnance Survey grid reference: TQ 517405

Bibliography

Coleman, D.C., 1954, The British Paper Industry 1495-1860, a study in industrial growth: Oxford University Press.

Penn, A., 1981, Portrait of the River Medway: Robert Hale. London.

Shorter, A.H., 1971, Paper making in the British Isles, An historical and geographical survey: David & Charles Ltd.

Spicer, A.D., 1907, The Paper Trade: Methuen & Co., London

Woolgar, J., 2004, Chafford and Roughway Paper Mills, the Turners and the Transvaal: The Transvaal Phitatelist vol. 39, No.3 (115)

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