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Paper, to be briefly technical, is an aqueous
deposit of any vegetable fibre in sheet form. The name,
as most people know, comes from the Latin papyrus,which
in the hands of the early Egyptians (its first known users)
comprised the pith of a grass-like plant which was sliced
into layers and beaten or pressed into sheets. Specimens
bearing written characters have been found in Egyptian
tombs of 3500 BC and its place in history is underlined
by the fact that most of the works of the Greek and Roman
scholars were written upon it. |
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Flattened stalks of papyrus reeds were
used by the Egyptians as a writing surface. |
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But paper, as we know it today, had its
origins in China. Traditional Chinese records give the
credit for its development, to one T'sai Lun (about 105
AD), who was even deified as the god of papermakers. Samples
in the British Museum indicate that the early Chinese
paper was of a very high quality and comparable even with
that of hand made rag paper today. This picture shows
early papermaking in China using plait fibres. |
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Eastern civilisation developed more or
less simultaneously with the civilisations of the Middle
East and of Europe, but as if in a separate world. This
is why paper, which was in general use in China nearly
2,000 years ago, was unknown further west until the capture
of Chinese prisoners by Arabs at Samarkand in the eighth
century. In 793 AD, a factory was working at Baghdad where
Haroun-el-Raschid introduced Chinese workmen. The next
centre was Damascus; the main source of supply for Europe
for several centuries. From Damascus, the craft travelled
westwards, by way of Egypt, to Morocco (in about 1110
AD) ; the Moors introduced the craft to Europe. |
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Further progress of the craft will be appreciated
from the following table, showing the dates (doubtful
in some cases) of the earliest mills in various countries: |
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The earliest reference to England's first
mill was in a book printed by Carton in about 1490 and,
in fact, its products were used for an edition of Chaucer's
Canterbury Tales. This mill belonged to John Tate and
is supposed to have been near Stevenage in Hertfordshire.
Confirmation that a certain Tate had a paper mill in 1498
is provided by an entry in the household book of Henry
VII. In 1588 Sir John Spielman had a paper mill at Dartford
and was granted special privileges by Queen Elizabeth
for the collection of rags and other fibrous raw materials.
Recent researches have shown that in the reign of James
VI of Scotland, afterwards James I of England, small mills
were established near Edinburgh. Evidence also exits of
a mill at Cannock Chase in Staffordshire at this time
and by the middle of the 17th century, several mills apparently
existed in Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Surrey. This
picture shows early paper making during this time. |
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These early mills do not appear to have
been very successful: one reason was the current belief
that the discarded rags used by papermakers helped to
spread the plague. However, the influx of Huguenots from
France brought fresh blood into the industry. The first
effects of the Industrial Revolution in the second half
of the 18th century were felt particularly in the cotton,
wool and iron trades and, indirectly, in the paper industry.
There was a great increase in population and at first,
because of the new textile developments, an increase in
the supplies of raw materials such as rags. |
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This latter was, however, a temporary phase,
as by the end of the 18th century the shortage of raw
materials was as great as ever, because the growth of
industry increased the demand for papers of all kinds,
both at home and for the growing export trade. There was
more correspondence, the educated classes bought more
books (the 18th century being a literary age) and more
account books were required. |
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The daily press, which really came into
being at the beginning of the 18th century, was increasing
and although there was no national free education in England
and Wales until 1870, paper was increasingly required
for schoolbooks and writing materials. Education provided
by religious and charitable bodies on a voluntary basis
was, at the same time, spreading throughout the poorer
classes. The consequent demand for rags for the manufacture
of paper could not be satisfied. The Napoleonic Wars of
1793-1815 increased the difficulty of importing foreign
raw materials. In 1800, 24 million pounds of rags were
being used annually and a good proportion of these were
imported, mainly from the Continent. The increase in population
and the spread of industry, commerce and education still
further augmented the demand for paper, with a consequent
increase in the number of mills. Thus, at about the end
of the 18th century there were 416 mills in England and
Wales, 49 in Scotland and 60 in Ireland, but nearly all
of these were very small. |
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Quite a number also manufactured articles
other than paper. All the paper was made by hand so that,
although the quality was usually high, output was low
and it is not surprising that attempts were made to replace
the old methods by machinery. The most important of these
was that made in 1799 by Louis Robert, a clerk at the
mill of Didot Freres at Essonnes in France. A model of
his machine can be seen in the Science Museum in London.
The effort was not a success but the idea was passed on,
through an Englishman, John Gamble, to a London firm of
stationers owned by the brothers Henry and Sealy Fourdrinier,
who engaged the engineer Bryan Donkin of the firm of Donkin
and Hall of Dartford. After many trials and much expense,
a machine was erected at Frogmore, Hertfordshire, in 1803.
Although it was based on the ideas of Robert, many changes
had been made in the design and it is probable that much
credit for this success is due to Donkin. Unfortunately,
expenses were so high, that, so it is said, the Fourdrinier
brothers lost a fortune, but their name is, and will be,
familiar to many generations of papermakers for their
share in the development of a machine, the essential principles
of which are still in use today. |
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So although the basic processes of papermaking
have remained unchanged for nearly two thousand years
paper, once made by hand in individual sheets, is now
made on enormous papermaking machines, four times the
length of a cricket pitch. In one week a single machine
can produce enough paper to stretch from London to New
York. |
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Paper, to be briefly technical, is an aqueous
deposit of any vegetable fibre in sheet form. The name,
as most people know, comes from the Latin papyrus,which
in the hands of the early Egyptians (its first known users)
comprised the pith of a grass-like plant which was sliced
into layers and beaten or pressed into sheets. |
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