No 34, May 2000

The Quarterly, No 34 - May 2000

John Abbot Dusautoy, 1764-1846 - Ian Dye

Over a century and a half after his death, the place of John Abbot Dusautoy in papermaking history is neither well known nor well documented.  His claim to recognition rests largely on his efforts to quantify and make more cost efficient the work of hand papermakers at precisely the time when the Fourdrinier machine was about to revolutionise the industry.  This article attempts to trace Dusautoy's career as a papermaker, from Hampshire to Norfolk and then back to Hampshire, and explores the nature of his work as a pioneer quantifier of papermaking cost accounting.

10 pages, illustrated, tables

The Hall & Kay Paper Maturing Plant

Short account of the development of the Hall & Kay Paper Maturing Plant, first introduced in 1934, for the artificial maturing of paper making it available for fine register printing a few hours after manufacture with details of some of the problems encountered by using unmatured paper and the methods used to overcome them.

3 pages, illustrated

British Paper Mills: Baskerville's Windmill - John Goss

The old notion that Baskerville 'invented wove paper' has been comprehensively disproved by many historians over the past half century, and it is now assumed that John Baskerville never made paper himself.  However, the author offers us the fascinating possibility that perhaps Baskerville did make paper, perhaps not on a commercial scale, but enough for us to have to revise our thinking yet again.  Both the author and the editor would be grateful for any further information that could shed more light on this complex problem. Editor.

4 pages

Vegetable Parchment, part one - Philip Harris

This article is about a fascinating substance, usually called 'vegetable parchment'.   Today the substance is hardly known, but it is still being manufactured and used for purposes which are both interesting and banal, and it may yet be very important in the future.  But the original wonder and rapture at vegetable parchment has long since evaporated.  Perhaps it will return.  The question arises: Was this one of the great inventions like the railway engine or the telephone, or indeed paper, or one of the disasters like the airship, or the Brabazon aeroplane, or one of the mediocre inventions like the hovercraft?

7 pages, illustrated

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Last modified: July 24, 2008