Fig. 3.—The Paper Mill of Ulman Stromer, A.D. 1390 (supposed to be the oldest known drawing of a Paper Mill).
Paper-making in England.—The actual period at which the manufacture of paper was first started in England is somewhat uncertain. The first mention of any paper-maker is found in Wynkyn de Worde's “De Proprietatibus Rerum,” printed by Caxton in 1495, the reference being as follows:—
And John Tate the younger, joye mote he brok,
Which late hathe in England, doo
Make thys paper thynne,
That now in our Englyssh
Thys booke is prynted inne.
John Tate was the owner of a mill at Stevenage, Hertfordshire. In the household book of Henry VII. an entry for the year 1499 reads, “Geven in rewarde to Tate of the mylne, 6s. 8d.”
In 1588 a paper mill was erected by Sir John Spielman, a German, who obtained a licence from Queen Elizabeth “for the sole gathering for ten years of all rags, etc., necessary for the making of paper.” This paper mill was eulogised by Thomas Churchyard in a long poem of forty-four stanzas, of which we quote two:—
I prayse the man that first did paper make,
The only thing that sets all virtues forth;
It shoes new bookes, and keeps old workes awake,
Much more of price than all the world is worth:
It witnesse bears of friendship, time, and troth,
And is the tromp of vice and virtue both;
Without whose help no hap nor wealth is won,
And by whose ayde great works and deedes are done.
Six hundred men are set to worke by him
That else might starve, or seeke abroad their bread,
Who now live well, and goe full brave and trim,
And who may boast they are with paper fed.
Strange is that foode, yet stranger made the same,
For greater help, I gesse, he cannot give
Than by his help to make poore folk to live.
The industry made but little progress for some time after Spielman's death, and up till 1670 the supplies of paper were obtained almost entirely from France. The first British patent for paper-making was granted to Charles Hildeyard in 1665 for “the way and art of making blue paper used by sugar bakers and others.” The trade received a great impetus on account of the presence of Huguenots who had fled to England from France in consequence of the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685.
In 1695 a company was formed in Scotland for the “manufacture of white and printing paper.”