It is much to be regretted that in tracing the origin of so curious an art as that of the manufacture of modern paper, any definite conclusion as to the precise time or period of its adoption should hitherto have proved altogether unattainable. The Royal Society of Sciences at Gottingen, in 1755 and 1763, offered considerable premiums for that especial object, but unfortunately all researches, however directed, were utterly fruitless. The most ancient manuscript on cotton paper appears to have been written in 1050, while Eustathius, who wrote towards the end of the 12th century, states that the Egyptian papyrus had gone into disuse but a little before his time. To reconcile, however, in some measure contradictory accounts, it may be observed, that on some particular occasions, and by some particular persons, the Egyptian paper might have been employed for several hundred years after it ceased to be in general use, and it is quite certain, that although the new invention must have proved of great advantage to mankind, it could only have been introduced by degrees. Amongst the records which are preserved at the Tower of London I have seen a letter addressed to Henry the Third, and written previously to 1222, which appears to be upon strong paper, of mixed materials. Several letters of the following reign, which are there preserved, are evidently written on cotton paper. Were we able to determine the precise time when paper was first made from cotton, we should also be enabled to fix the invention of the art of paper making as it is now practised. For the application of cotton to the purposes of paper making, requires almost as much labour and ingenuity as the use of linen rags. Some have conceived, and I think with sufficient reason, that China originally gave birth to the invention. Certain it is, that the art of making paper from vegetable matter reduced to pulp was known and understood there long before it was practised in Europe, which did not take place until the 11th century, and the Chinese have carried it to a high degree of perfection. Several kinds of their paper evince the greatest art and ingenuity, and are applied with much advantage to many purposes. One especially, manufactured from the inner bark of the bamboo, is particularly celebrated for affording the clearest and most delicate impressions from copper plates, which we ordinarily term india proofs. The Chinese, however, make paper of various kinds, some of the bark of trees, especially the mulberry tree, and the elm, but chiefly of the bamboo and cotton tree, and occasionally from other substances, such as hemp, wheat, or rice straw. To give an idea of the manner of fabricating paper from these different substances, it will suffice, (the process being nearly the same in each,) to confine our observations to the method adopted in the manufacture of paper from the bamboo,—a kind of cane or hollow reed, divided by knots, but larger, more elastic, and more durable than any other reed. The whole substance of the bamboo is at times employed by the Chinese in this operation, but the younger stalks are preferred. The canes being first cut into pieces of four or five feet in length, are made into parcels, and thrown into a reservoir of mud and water for about a fortnight, to soften them; they are then taken out, and carefully washed, every one of the pieces being again cut into filaments, which are exposed to the rays of the sun to dry, and to bleach. After this they are boiled in large kettles, and then reduced to pulp in mortars, by means of a hammer with a long handle; or as is more commonly the case, by submitting the mass to the action of stampers, raised in the usual way by cogs on a revolving axis. The pulp being thus far prepared, a glutinous substance, extracted from the shoots of a certain plant, is next mixed with it in stated quantities, and upon this mixture chiefly depends the quality of the paper. As soon as this has taken place the whole is again beaten together until it becomes a thick viscous liquor, which, after being reduced to an essential state of consistency, by a further admixture of water, is then transferred to a large reservoir or vat, having on each side of it a drying stove, in the form of the ridge of a house, that is, consisting of two sloping sides touching at top. These sides are covered externally with an exceedingly smooth coating of stucco, and a flue passes through the brickwork, so as to keep the whole of each side equally and moderately warm. A vat and a stove are placed alternately in the manufactory, so that there are two sides of two different stoves adjacent to each vat. The workman dips his mould, which is sometimes formed merely of bulrushes, cut in narrow strips, and mounted in a frame, into the vat, and then raises it out again, the water passing off through the perforations in the bottom, and the pulpy paper-stuff remaining on its surface. The frame of the mould is then removed, and the bottom is pressed against the side of one of the stoves, so as to make the sheet of paper adhere to its surface, and allow the sieve, (as it were) to be withdrawn. The moisture, of course, speedily evaporates by the warmth of the stove, but before the paper is quite dry, it is brushed over on its outer surface with a size made of rice, which also soon dries, and the paper is then stripped off in a finished state, having one surface exquisitely smooth, it being seldom the practice of the Chinese to write or print on both sides of the paper. While all this is taking place, the moulder has made a second sheet, and pressed it against the side of the other stove, where it undergoes the operation of sizing and drying, precisely as in the former case.
The very delicate material, which is brought from China in pieces only a few inches square, and commonly, but erroneously, termed rice paper, is in reality but a membrane of the breadfruit tree, obtained by cutting the stem spirally round the axis, and afterwards flattening it by pressure. That it is not an artificial production may very readily be perceived by contrasting one of the more translucent specimens with a piece of the finest manufactured paper, by the aid of the microscope.
The precise period at which the manufacture of paper was first introduced into Europe appears to be rather a matter of uncertainty. Paper mills, moved by water power, were in operation in Tuscany at the commencement of the fourteenth century; and at Nuremberg, in Germany, one was established in 1390, by Ulman Stromer, who wrote the first work ever published on the art of paper making. He seems to have employed a great number of persons, all of whom were obliged to take an oath that they would not teach any one the art of paper making, or make it on their own account. In the following year, when anxious to increase the means of its production, he met with such strong opposition from those he employed, who would not consent to any enlargement of the mill, that it became at length requisite to bring them before the magistrates, by whom they were imprisoned, after which they submitted, by renewing their oaths. Two or three centuries later, we find the Dutch in like manner, so extremely jealous with respect to the manufacture, as to prohibit the exportation of moulds, under no less severe a penalty than that of death.
Fuller makes some exceedingly curious observations respecting the paper of his time, which may, perhaps, be introduced here with advantage. He says—“Paper participates in some sort of the character of the country which makes it; the Venetian being neat, subtile, and court like; the French light, slight, and slender; and the Dutch thick, corpulent, and gross, sucking up the ink with the sponginess thereof.” He complains that the paper manufactories were not then sufficiently encouraged, considering the vast sums of money expended in our land for paper out of Italy, France, and Germany, which might be lessened, were it made in our nation. “To such who object,” says he, “that we can never equal the perfection of Venice paper, I return, neither can we match the purity of Venice glasses, and yet many green ones are blown in Sussex, profitable to the makers, and convenient to the users, our home-spun paper might be found beneficial.”
With reference to any particular time or place at which this inestimable invention was first adopted in England, all researches into existing records contribute little to our assistance. The first paper mill erected here is commonly attributed to Sir John Spielman, a German, who established one in 1588, at Dartford, for which the honour of knighthood was afterwards conferred upon him by Queen Elizabeth, who was also pleased to grant him a license “for the sole gathering for ten years of all rags, &c., necessary for the making of such paper.” It is, however, quite certain that paper mills were in existence here long before Spielman’s time. Shakspeare, in the second part of his play of Henry the Sixth, the plot of which appears laid at least a century previously, refers to a paper mill. In fact, he introduces it as an additional weight to the charge which Jack Cade is made to bring against Lord Saye, “Thou hast most traitorously corrupted,” says he, “the youth of the realm, in erecting a grammar school, and whereas, before, our forefathers had no other books but the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to be used, and contrary to the king, his crown and dignity, thou hast built a paper mill.”
Understanding that some five-and-thirty or forty years since it was asserted by the then occupier of North Newton mill, near Banbury, in Oxfordshire, which at that time was the property of Lord Saye and Sele, that such was the first erected in this country for the manufacture of paper, and also that it was to that mill Shakspeare referred in the passage just quoted, I recently communicated with Lord Saye and Sele as to the plausibility of the supposition; remarking at the same time as I would now, that although it was of course quite impossible to award the immortal bard great credit for chronological accuracy, it must, I thought, be admitted, that so marvellous an invention, unless really in existence, could not by any possibility of conception have been conjured up even to supply the unlimited necessities of the poet’s strain. His Lordship, however, at once terminated the probability of this mill taking the precedence, even of Sir John Spielman’s, by informing me that the first nobleman succeeding to that title who had property in Oxfordshire, which he acquired by marriage, was the son of the first Lord Saye, to whom Shakspeare makes reference.
The earliest trace of the manufacture in this country occurs in a book printed by Caxton, about the year 1490, in which it is said of John Tate—
“Which late hathe in England doo make thys paper thynne,
That now in our Englyssh thys booke is prynted inne.”
His mill was situate at or near Stevenage, in Hertfordshire, and that it was considered worthy of especial notice is evident from an entry made in Henry the Seventh’s Household Book, on the 25th of May, 1498—“For a rewarde geven at the paper-mylne, 16s. 8d.” And again in 1499—“Geven in rewarde to Tate of the mylne, 6s. 8d.”