Still, it appears to me far less probable that Shakspeare alluded to this mill, although established at a period corresponding in many respects with that of occurrences referred to in connection, than to that of Sir John Spielman’s, which, standing as it did in the immediate neighbourhood of Jack Cade’s rebellion, and being esteemed so important at the time, as to call forth the marked patronage of Queen Elizabeth; while the extent of the operations carried on there, if we may judge from the remarks of a poet of the time, were equally calculated to arouse undivided national interest; one can hardly help thinking, that the prominence to which Shakspeare assigns the existence of a paper mill, coupled as such allusion is with an acknowledged liberty, inherent in him, of transposing events, to add force to his style, as also with very considerable doubt as to the exact year in which he wrote the play, that the reference made was to none other than that of Sir John Spielman’s establishment of 1588, concerning which we find it said—
“Six hundred men are set to work by him,
That else might starve or seek abroad their bread,
Who now live well, and go full brave and trim,
And who may boast they are with paper fed.”
Be the introduction or establishment of the invention, so far as this country is concerned, when it may; little progress appears to have resulted therefrom, even so late as the middle of the 17th century. In 1695, a company was formed in Scotland “for manufacturing white writing and printing paper,” relating to which, “Articles concluded and agreed upon at a general meeting at Edinburgh, the 19th day of August,” in the same year, may still be seen by those who are sufficiently curious, in the Library of the British Museum. It is also recorded in the Craftsman (910), that William the Third granted the Huguenots refuged in England a patent for establishing paper manufactories, and that Parliament likewise granted to them other privileges, amongst which, in all probability, that very unsatisfactory practice of putting up each ream with two quires composed entirely of sheets spoiled in course of production. Their undertaking, however, like that of many others, appears to have met with very little success.
In fact, the making of paper here scarcely reached any high degree of perfection until about 1760-5, at which period the celebrated James Whatman established his reputation at Maidstone.
The report of the Juries of the Great Exhibition of 1851—a work from whence information might very naturally be sought, and which one would have supposed to be unexceptionable in point of authenticity,—contains, I regret to say, a very unfortunate misstatement with reference to the position of Mr. Whatman at that time. It is there stated that he gained his knowledge of the manufacture prior to establishing these well-known mills “by working as a journeyman in most of the principal paper manufactories of the Continent,” which is altogether an erroneous assertion; for Mr. Whatman previously to his being engaged as a manufacturer, was an officer in the Kent Militia, and acquired the information, which eventually rendered him so successful, by travelling in the suite of the British Ambassador to Holland, where the best papers were then made, and the insight thus obtained enabled his genius to effect the great improvements afterwards so universally admitted.
At the present time, Whatman’s papers (so called) are manufactured at two mills, totally distinct, both of which are still worked by the descendants of Mr. Whatman’s successors; the paper in the one case being readily distinguished by the water-mark, “J. Whatman, Turkey Mill,” and in the other, by the water-mark simply “J. Whatman,” but bearing upon the upper wrapper of each ream the original and well-known stamp, containing the initials L. V. G., which are those of L. V. Gerrevink, as celebrated a Dutch manufacturer prior to Mr. Whatman’s improvements, as Mr. Whatman’s name has since become in all parts of the world.
In making so marked an allusion to this particular manufacture, I am bound, perhaps, to qualify it in some measure by directing attention to the comparatively recent application of continuous or rotatory motion which has, indeed, effected no more wonderful or extraordinary results than in the singular conversion of pulp into paper.