No 41, January 2002

The Quarterly, No 41 - January 2002

Irish Watermarks: Swiftbrook watermarks found in the Yeats Archive at the National Gallery of Ireland - Zo?eid

The Yeats Archive contains nearly 200 sketchbooks of the Irish artist Jack B. Yeats, most are commercially manufactured, however, there is a series which have been identified as coming from Swiftbrook Paper Mills, Saggart. There is also a series of correspondence to Jack from the American journalist Anna Russell on Swiftbrook paper. The article gives details of the Swiftbrook watermarks in the archive and brief histories of the Saggart and Swiftbrook Paper Mills.

5  pages, illustrated

The End of an Era: Grover & Co Ltd close - Leslie Wilkinson

Short account of the activities of Grover & Co Ltd, Stratford, London, an engineering firm established in 1875 and manufacturers of stamp and other perforating machines since 1912. Unlike many other firms they have kept all the working records on perforating machines, the majority of which has now gone to the Royal Philatelic Society where it is available for research.

2 pages, illustrated

A Visit to the De Montalt Mill - Richard Hills

An account of the author's visit to this mill near Bath which details its current condition and gives a description of the site. The mill is a scheduled Ancient Monument but the legislation contains no powers to enforce the current owners to keep the buildings in proper repair. For further information on this mill and the connection with the papermaker George Steart see The Quarterly, No. 40.

Editor's Note: The De Montalt site is currently being surveyed by the Bath Archaeological Trust prior to the re-development of the site. As further information becomes available we will publish it in The Quarterly.

2 pages, illustrated

The Illusive Silver Lining: The Rise and Fall of the Lancashire Limited Paper Company between 1860 and 1880 part one - Mike Malley

The first part of an investigative article into the factors influencing the demise of several mills in Lancashire. Claims made of the losses within the industry by two influential papermakers: John Mitchell of Higher Primrose Mill, Clitheroe and John Carlisle, also of Clitheroe, are used as a starting point. The article goes on to investigate the role of company promoters in the foundation of mills and highlights the high number of mills founded in the area many of which failed in a relatively short time.

8 pages, illustrated, tables

Letters

Decorative Writing Paper
As a collector of ephemera, and particularly of that having a connection with letter writing and travel, my interest in the paper itself tends to be ancillary rather than primary. As I am sure many of your readers will know, decorative writing paper was often sold in special souvenir envelopes which included up to a dozen sheets with different views of the town or city in question. While most such sheets seem, in my experience, to have been printed in unwatermarked paper, some are more revealing and a set which I purchased in America this summer reveals an interesting diversity of paper supplied to the publisher in question.

I illustrate a typical example with a fine engraving of The Royal Crescent in Bath, which itself needs no introduction, and which reveals that the various scenes of the city were all 'Engraved on Steel & Published by J. Holloway, 10 Union Street, Bath'. This particular sheet is one of five differing views which are printed on unwatermarked paper but four others bear the following watermarks:

'Pultney Bridge, Town Mill etc Bath':
TASSELL & SMITH 1838.

'Queen Square, Bath':
R. TASSELL 1837.

'View of Bath, taken near Prior Park':
J WHATMAN 1838.

'Cavendish Place, Lansdown Crescent etc Bath':
R TURNER, CHAFFORD MILLS, 1836.

I am sure that you, or other members, can fill me in on the paper mills in question and particularly on the apparent change of ownership of the Tassell concern between 1837 and 1838 but the variety does suggest a very competitive market and/or a large turnover by this provincial publisher.

John Scott

Chlorine Bleaching
Congratulation on the latest issue of The Quarterly. Your readers may like to know of an article on the Early years of Bleaching history in the British Isles: S. M. Edelstein, "Two Scottish Physicians and the Bleaching Industry: the Contributions Home and Black", published in the American Dyestuff Reporter, volume 44, number 20, September 26 1955, pp 35-38. The article covers the work and publications of Joseph Black (1728-1799) and Francis Home (1719-1813) in particular their researches into bleach.

Barry Watson

Editor's Note: The article on Hector Campbell in the last issue of The Quarterly produced some fascinating material from readers. Besides the Edelstein article sent in by Barry Watson (which we hope to publish at a later date) both Richard Hills and Alan Crocker also sent in important material (see this issue, the next two articles). Any further contributions on this subject will be gratefully received. The Editor.

8 pages, colour & b/w illustrations

Some Notes on the Introduction of Chlorine Bleaching - Richard Hills

Number 40 of The Quarterly contained the text of Hector Campbell's patent for using the gas which we now call chlorine for bleaching. Bower commented that

Campbell was only one of the many bleachers who "seem to start up like mushrooms" in the 1790's and his patent was strenuously objected to by several paper-makers, many of whom were already conducting their own experiments and objected to having other people take out patents on things they were themselves already doing.

This article briefly outlines the historical background of the introduction of chlorine bleaching to papermaking and identifies some of the sources which give more detailed information.

3 pages

Hector Campbell: Bleaching at Neckinger Mill, Bermondsey - Alan Crocker

Hector Campbell was a pioneer of chemical bleaching at the end of the eighteenth century. This article gives a summary of the history of the traditional methods of bleaching, particularly in Bermondsey and at the Neckinger Mill site, of the evidence for Campbell's association with this site and of some later related events. One of these is the possible connection between Campbell and the work by Mathias Koops carried out later at Neckinger in ink extraction from recycled paper and the use of alternative materials including straw.

5 pages, illustrated

Book Review

Looking at Paper: Evidence & Interpretation. Edited by John Slavin, Linda Sutherland, John O'Neill, Margaret Haupt & Janet Cowan.

The London Papers (part three)

In a move away from past practices and in order to catch up on publishing the backlog of past BAPH conference papers it has been decided to include the conference papers as partworks within The Quarterly. The first of these to appear are The London Papers, the Proceedings of the British Association of Paper Historians Sixth Annual Conference, held at Imperial College London in 1995.

A Czech Family Mill Reclaimed - George Mandl

The author's family had owned the board mill in Merklin, near Carlsbad, in the western tip of Bohemia for three generations. He took over the management in 1945 following his return home after military service. Unfortunately this was short lived as the mill was expropriated by the Communists in 1948. Thirty five years were to pass before he set foot there again and this article traces the struggle to regain control of the mill.

4 pages, illustrated

A Handmade Papermaking Site in Southeast China - Russell Jones

A well illustrated personal account of a visit to Hokkien (Fujian) Province in China where the author investigated the manufacture of "spirit paper" or "gold paper". Spirit paper is a rather coarse paper used in religious festivals and can also be found made into a diverse variety of articles. The workshops where the paper was made are located in remote rural locations close to where the raw material, bamboo, is in abundance.

5 pages, illustrated

Splitting Tibetan Banknotes: An Investigation into the Structure of the Notes - Peter Bower

Tibetan paper currency was only produced between 1912 and 1959 when the Dalai Lama fled the country. The notes are unusual in that they contain a security feature little seen in other paper currencies; they are made up of two sheets of paper laminated together, and prior to lamination one of the sheets is printed with a short text. The article describes the process of investigation to determine the nature of the fibres and the number of laminations of a sample of these notes.

8 pages, illustrated

History of Papermaking Fibre Supply to the UK - Geoff Youd

This article records the history of paper making fibre supply to the UK from the start of paper making in this country (ca. 1495) to the present day. By way of introduction the very early materials used for communication are mentioned and the article starts by tracing the development of paper making fibrous materials from the invention of paper in China to its introduction to Europe.

6 pages, illustrated

The Reuse of Waste Paper in Great Britain during the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries: An Introduction to a Complex Subject - Lorraine Finch

For the purpose of this article waste paper has been defined as that which has been printed or written upon. Reasons for the use of such material in the production of new paper, and the methods used to manufacture such paper will be examined. The timescale over which the main sources examined range cover the early nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries.

8 pages, illustrated, table

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Last modified: July 24, 2008