News 38, Spring 2000

News No 38, Spring 2000

Ivy Mill

Follow-up on the item in BAPH NEWS Winter 1999, page 6 by Alan Crocker on Ivy Mill, Maidstone, Kent.  He asks us to include details on the identification of this mill, kindly clarified by member Mr.J.N.Balston.
The reference to Ivy Mill is to Great Ivy Mill.  Although Little Ivy Mill was operating at the same time, it was as a corn mill and not converted to papermaking until 1808/9.

At Great Ivy Mill Robert Edmeads and Thomas Pine had insured the mill on 27th February, 1788 (SFIP 541482); the insurance policy noted in the previous NEWS is one year later. (SFIP 550170) (Balston 1992 Vol.1, p.316, Table XII, col.1)

When Ivy Mill was converted to papermaking in 1808/9 by William Edmeads & Co. there was an important change, so the designation Great or Little is not just a matter of pedantry. (Balston 1992 Vol.1, p.318, n.234).

Mr Balston is the author of The Elder James Whatman: England's Greatest Paper Maker (1702-1759): A Study of Eighteenth Century Papermaking & its Effect on a Critical Phase in the History of English White Paper Manufacture. Published 1992, in two volumes.

Sir William Congreve's Triple Paper Experiment

Hand made, White & Red, White & Blue, wove with line marks.  1818 Laverstoke Mill, Hampshire.
Four samples were produced in the search for the 'inimitable' bank note.  They show signs of destructive testing by the Bank of England to find out how they were made.
Sample a - has an interesting centre piece, which shows dark blue against dark backgrouds and disappears when backlit.
Sample b - here the red note is printed inside the paper.
Samples c and d - use the design of the ?5 watermark introduced in 1801, although their printed value is ?1.

Watermarks in Jane Austen's Letters

In her general notes on Jane Austen's Letters, Diedre Le Faye the collector and editor comments on the watermarks in the paper.
'The device which appears on many of the letters of a coronet above an elaborate escutcheon upon which is a post-horn, sometimes with initials or monogram below (Heawood Nos. 2752-62), was used by a number of different paper makers at the end of the 18th century.'
Fifteen different paper makers can be identified from other watermarks, ten of which are from Kent.

Millspaugh Ltd.

In a 1971 publication reporting the likelihood that a Sheffield papermaking machinery company founded in 1933, Millspaugh Ltd., would become wholly Swiss-owned by Escher Wyss Ltd., if Hadfields Ltd. and Walmsley (Bury) Group Ltd. accepted offers for their ordinary stock units, we glean some history of their products.  With Sir Robert Hadfield, famous for metallurgical inventions, W.H.Millspaugh perfected centrifugal casting of steel shells, that became the basis of the companys worldwide business with the papermaking and shipbuilding industries.  The firm subsequently designed and supplied complete papermaking machines including stock preparation plants. (Quality of Sheffield Vol.18, July 1971)
Noted by Tanya Schmoller.

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Last modified: October 25, 2008