Paper-Making
an account of paper-making from its earliest
known record down to the present time by
J.W. Butler Paper Company 1901
introduced into France. At that time the French people were far in
advance of the English in cultivation and in regard to the
refinements of life. They were energetic, and took great delight in
construction, manufacturing, and building. Profiting by their new
knowledge, they } prosecuted this art with such zeal and industry
1 that they were soon in a position to supply not P only the
wants of France, but those of surrounding countries as well. The
people of the Netherlands were stimulated by the example of
France, and for a long period the French and Dutch were the best,
and indeed almost the only papers produced in Europe.
No reliable record can be established as to the first paper-making
in England. It is stated that in the personal expense account of
Henry VII. of England, in 1498, there appears the following entry:
cc For a reward at the paper mylne, 16s. 8d." This would indicate
that some kind of paper, which gave the name of cc paper mylne"
to the establishment where it was handled or manipulated,
existed in England nearly two hundred years before any patent
was issued for its manufacture. It was almost two centuries later
on in this chapter was granted,
which stated that no such industry
had previously existed in the
kingdom. In an old book, Wynken de
W orde's "De Proprietatibus Rerum"
(About the Properties of Things),
issued in 1498, appear these
significant lines:
"And John Tate, the Younger,joye
mote he brok! " Whiche late hathe in
England, doo make this paper
Thynne " That now in our Englysh,
this book is printed Inne."
This mill is said to have been located
at Hartford, England, and the print of
the watermark used is given in
Herbert's" Typographic Antiquities,"
Vol. I, page 20, as an eight-pointed
star surrounded by a circle. John
Tate died in 1498.
In the year 1558 appeared "Sparks
of Friendship," a book by Thomas
Churchyard, who was born in 1520
and died in 1604, and who bore the
"Progress of Queen Elizabeth," in 1 565, has the title, "A Description and Playne Discourse of Paper and the whole
Benefits that Paper Brings, with Rehearsal and Setting forth in verse a Paper-myll Built near Darthforth, by a High
Germaine, called Master Spillman, Jeweler to the Queen's Majestie." This is often said to have been the first mill in
England, but if the quotation with regard to John Tate is intended to imply that the paper was made by him in
England, then certainly there must have been a paper-mill in operation in that country nearly a hundred years before,
and this, taking the entry of King Henry VII. as proof of an English mill, must have been the second, if not the third, of
its kind. It is said that Spielman, or Spillman, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth as 1 a fitting honor and reward for the
noble work of ~ having built a paper-mill at Dartford, England, in 1588. A lease recorded in the Land Revenue Records
of England, in 1591, reads, "Penlifton Co., Cambridge, lease of water, called paper-mills, late of Bishopric of Ely to John
George, dated 4th. July, 34th. Elizabeth," which would seem to indicate a third or fourth mill in 1594.