From Paper-mill to PressroomWheelwright, William Bond
Philosophy
From Paper-mill to Pressroom
Wheelwright, William Bond
Papermaking
“During a period of twenty years the heretical inhabitants were either
extirpated or driven into perpetual exile. Those who escaped carried
with them a passionate affection for their destroyed fatherland, and an
undying hatred against the tyranny of the Church of Rome.
“It will be shown that from the appearance of the first water-mark in
1282 these mysterious marks are, speaking broadly, the traditional
emblems of Provençe.
“From the fact that fundamentally the same designs were employed all
over Europe, we can deduce the inference that Provençal refugees
carried their art throughout Europe, just in the same way as at a later
period and under somewhat similar circumstances Huguenots carried new
industries into strange countries. It will also be shown that the same
code which unlocks many of the obscurities of paper-marks elucidates
the problems of printers’ marks, and evidence will be brought forward
that paper-makers and printers were originally in close touch with each
other, held similar views, and were associated in identical aims.”
Gradually the secrets of the craft pursued their northward trail into
the Netherlands. Saardam, in the Duchy of Holland, became in the
eighteenth century an important center, employing, it is said, one
thousand persons.
In England, which for many years imported all its paper, the first mill
was erected about 1498, as is attested by an entry for that year in
the privy-purse expenses of King Henry VII. Further corroboration is
also to be found in the following quaint verse from Wynken de Worde’s
edition of “De Proprietatibus Rerum”:
And John Tate the younger Joye mote he broke,
Which late hathe in England doo make this paper thynne
That now in our Englyshe this book is written inne.
England, however, achieved no reputation for fine papers until the
establishment of the famous James Whatman, in 1760.
In the meantime, the trade had taken root in our own country when,
in 1690, William Rittenhouse started the first American mill on the
Wissahickon river at Roxborough, near Philadelphia, and thirty years
later New England’s first mill was established by David Hinchman at
Milton, Massachusetts.
The migratory characteristics of the trade were made possible by the
simplicity of the machinery which was required in these times. Pictures
of early mills depict a mortar and pestle in which to macerate the rags
to pulp, a small vat for the paper stuff, a mold on which the paper was
formed, and a screw press with which to squeeze out the water from the
new-formed sheets.
Mechanical improvements came with painful slowness, and no doubt each
small advance was a jealously guarded secret.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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