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57-588: Wansbrough Paper Mill was a paper mill located in the town of Watchet , Somerset , when it was the UK's largest manufacturer of coreboard . Watchet, then a relatively isolated farming community with a major port on the Bristol Channel since Roman times, had a population with a need for income over the winter months. With access to ample supplies of wood in the Quantock Hills , the earliest records of paper making in

114-451: A dilute pulp suspension onto an endlessly revolving flat wire, this machine used a cylinder covered in wire as the mould. A cylindrical mould is partially submerged in the vat, containing a pulp suspension, and then, as the mould rotates, the water is sucked through the wire, leaving a thin layer of fibres deposited on the cylinder. These cylinder-mould machines, as they are named, were strong competition for Fourdrinier machine makers. They were

171-558: A number of VICs came into the coasting trade. The Innisgara was fitted with an internal combustion engine in 1912, and while puffers generally were steam-powered, after World War II new ships began to be diesel engined , and a number of VICs were converted to diesel. The coasting trade serving the islands was kept up by the Glenlight Shipping Company of Greenock until in 1993 the government withdrew subsidies and, unable to compete with road transport using subsidised ferries,

228-471: A puffer). The Pibroch , built at Bowling, West Dunbartonshire in 1957 as a diesel-engined boat for the Scottish Malt Distillers Ltd, had been lying at Letterfrack , County Galway , Ireland , in desperate need of restoration, since 2002. The Pibroch deteriorated further as time passed, and her bulkheads began to give way. In 2010 she was sold and was subsequently scrapped. A sister-ship,

285-470: A reference in al-Biruni in the 11th century to stones "fixed to axles across running water, as in Samarkand with the pounding of flax for paper," a possible exception to the rule. Hill finds the notice "too brief to enable us to say with certainty" that this was a water-powered triphammer. Thomas Glick warily concludes that "it is assumed but not proved" that Islamic Xàtiva had hydraulic papermills, noting that

342-466: A royal " molendinum ", a proper hydraulic mill, in the paper manufacturing center of Xàtiva . This early hydraulic paper mill was operated by Muslims in the Moorish quarter of Xàtiva, though it appears to have been resented by sections of the local Muslim papermakering community; the document guarantees them the right to continue the way of traditional papermaking by beating the pulp manually and grants them

399-412: A sheet of paper that can be used in diverse ways. Modern paper machines can be 150 metres (500 ft) in length, produce a sheet 10 metres (400 in) wide, and operate at speeds of more than 97 kilometres per hour (60 mph). The two main suppliers of paper machines are Metso and Voith . It has also become universal to talk of paper "mills" (even of 400 such mills at Fez !), relating these to

456-539: A water-powered paper mill in Samarkand , in the 11th-century work of the Persian scholar Abu Rayhan Biruni , but concludes that the passage is "too brief to enable us to say with certainty" that it refers to a water-powered paper mill. This is seen by Leor Halevi as evidence of Samarkand first harnessing waterpower in the production of paper, but notes that it is not known if waterpower was applied to papermaking elsewhere across

513-463: Is no papermaking in these documents, much less hydraulic mills. Clyde puffer The Clyde puffer is a type of small coal-fired and single-masted cargo ship, built mainly on the Forth and Clyde Canal , which provided a vital supply link around the west coast and Hebrides of Scotland. Built between 1856 and 1939, these stumpy little steamboats achieved an almost mythical status thanks largely to

570-451: Is the oldest surviving steam-powered puffer in existence she must be restored and preserved as part of Scotland's heritage afloat. VIC 72 , renamed Eilean Eisdeal , continued in operation as the last of the true working "puffers" into the mid 1990s. In 2006 she was again renamed as Vital Spark of Glasgow after the Inveraray writer Neil Munro's Para Handy stories. She is now accessible to

627-763: The Wansbrough Paper Company Ltd. , hence its modern name. On 31 March 1862, the West Somerset Railway was opened from Norton Fitzwarren to its terminus at Watchet . But it was not until 16 July 1874 that the Minehead Railway Company in extending the line also connected the mill to the railway. Both lines were operated by the Bristol and Exeter Railway , which became part of the Great Western Railway (GWR) in 1876. The Minehead Railway

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684-452: The gabbart , small single masted sailing barges, which took most of the coasting trade. The original puffer was the Thomas , an iron canal boat of 1856, less than 66 ft (20 m) long to fit in the Forth and Clyde Canal locks, powered by a simple steam engine without a condenser, since as it drew fresh water from the canal there was no need to economise on water use. Once steam had been used by

741-571: The 1920s when purely canal traffic decreased and the vast majority of coasters had to operate in sea water . A derrick was added to the single mast to lift cargo. From this basic type of puffer three varieties developed: inside boats continued in use on the Forth and Clyde canal, while shorehead boats extended their range eastwards into the Firth of Forth and westwards as far as the Isle of Bute and from there up

798-431: The 1920s, Nancy Baker Tompkins represented large paper manufacturing companies, like Hammermill Paper Company, Honolulu Paper Company and Appleton Coated Paper Company to promote sales to the distributors of paper products. It was said to be the only business of its kind in the world, and was started in 1931 by Tompkins. It prospered in spite of the business depression. " Log drives " were conducted on local rivers to send

855-551: The Chinese and Arabs used only human and animal force. Gimpel goes on to say: "This is convincing evidence of how technologically minded the Europeans of that era were. Paper had traveled nearly halfway around the world, but no culture or civilization on its route had tried to mechanize its manufacture."' Indeed, Muslim authors in general call any "paper manufactory" a wiraqah - not a "mill" ( tahun ) Al-Hassan and Hill also use as evidence

912-502: The Forth and Clyde canal at Kirkintilloch and Maryhill , Glasgow . During World War I these handy little ships showed their worth in servicing warships, and were used at Scapa Flow , and for World War II the Admiralty placed an order in 1939 for steamships on the same design, mostly built in England , with the class name of VIC, standing for " Victualling Inshore Craft ". After the war

969-456: The Islamic world at the time. Robert I. Burns remains sceptical, given the isolated occurrence of the reference and the prevalence of manual labour in Islamic papermaking elsewhere prior to the 13th century. Hill notes that paper mills appear in early Christian Catalan documentation from the 1150s, which may imply Islamic origins, but that hard evidence is lacking. Burns, however, has dismissed

1026-748: The Museos Municipales de Historia in the Instituto Municipal de Historia at Barcelona, has popularized a version of that thesis, in which Christian paper mills multiplied marvelously along the Catalan rivers "from Tarragona to the Pyrenees" from 1113 to 1244. His many articles and two books, valuable for such topics as fiber analysis in medieval paper, continue to spread this untenable and indeed bizarre thesis. As Josep Madurell i Marimon shows in detail, these were all in fact cloth fulling mills; textiles were then

1083-563: The Spanish books of property distribution ( Repartimientos ) after the Christian reconquest refer to any. Arabic texts never use the term mill in connection with papermaking, and the most thorough account of Muslim papermaking at the time, the one by the Zirid Sultan Al-Muizz ibn Badis , describes the art purely in terms of a handcraft. Donald Hill has identified a possible reference to

1140-457: The Thames and Medway estuaries. VIC 96 was built by Dunstons of Thorne, South Yorkshire in 1945, and after disposal, was restored at Maryport . The restoration was completed in 2009, retaining its steam engine, boiler and winch. On 8 August 2009, VIC 96 arrived at her new home, Chatham No. 1 Basin, after an epic 1,000 miles voyage from Elizabeth Dock, Maryport, which took five weeks. VIC 27

1197-544: The UK's largest producer of paper from recycled materials, acquired the UK and European assets of the St Regis Paper Company for £83million. With an annual capacity of 180,000 tonnes of product and employing 174 people, the mill was the UK's largest manufacturer of coreboard , whilst also producing testliner , recycled envelope , bag and kraft papers. The mill also backed up its sister-plant Kemsley Paper Mill in plasterboard liner production. In August 2015 it

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1254-636: The United States, with access to greater pulp supplies and labor. At this time, there were many world leaders of the production of paper; one such was the Brown Company in Berlin, New Hampshire run by William Wentworth Brown. During the year 1907, the Brown Company cut between 30 and 40 million acres of woodlands on their property, which extended from La Tuque , Quebec , Canada to West Palm , Florida . In

1311-451: The basic mechanized industry of the Christian west. Fabriano's claim rests on two charters - a gift of August 1276, and a sale of November 1278, to the new Benedictine congregation of Silvestrine monks at Montefano. In each, a woman recluse-hermit gives to the monastery her enclosure or "prison" - Latin carcer ; misread by Fabriano partisans as a form of Italian cartiera or paper mill! There

1368-458: The case for early Catalan water-powered paper mills, after re-examination of the evidence. The identification of early hydraulic stamping mills in medieval documents from Fabriano , Italy, is also completely without substance. Clear evidence of a water-powered paper mill dates to 1282 in the Iberian Crown of Aragon . A decree by the Christian king Peter III addresses the establishment of

1425-619: The community date back to 1652. In the 15th century, a flour mill had been established in the town near the mouth of the Washford River , by the Fulford and Hadley families. Taken over by Sir John Wyndham in 1616, he was keen to develop further milling facilities on his lands in the town. By 1587 the Wyndham estate had established a fulling and grist mill to the south west, on a farm called Snailholt (the site of today's paper mill factory), which

1482-482: The company's static steam engines, and on the return journey distributed paper products. The port also allowed for importation of additional supplies of wood fibre, plus esparto grass from Spain and rags from France for pulping, as well as international product distribution. A second ship, also a Clyde Puffer named SS Arran Monarch was added in 1953. Staying within the ownership of the Reed family from 1901, from 1974 it

1539-461: The engine, it was simply exhausted up the funnel in a series of puffs as the piston stroked. As well as the visual sight of a series of steam puffs following the boat, the simple engines made a characteristic puffing sound. By the 1870s similar boats were being adapted for use beyond the canal and fitted with condensers so that they no longer puffed, but the name stuck. Some non-condensing puffers (included those with compound engines ) were built until

1596-429: The factory employed 120, with a workforce mainly made up of widows, who: took less pay; didn't join unions and hence didn't strike; and reduced the poor relief on parish rates. Most of the mill was destroyed by fire in 1889, but less than ten years later five paper machines were operating, and the mill had become the largest manufacturer of paper bags in the UK. In 1896, the business became a limited liability company as

1653-548: The hydraulic wonders of Islamic society in the east and west. All our evidence points to non-hydraulic hand production, however, at springs away from rivers which it could pollute. European papermaking differed from its precursors in the mechanization of the process and in the application of water power. Jean Gimpel , in The Medieval Machine (the English translation of La Revolution Industrielle du Moyen Age ), points out that

1710-492: The installed Lancashire boilers had initial draughting problems being located in a shelter valley, in 1865 a square-shaped chimney was built of local red bricks from Wellington Brickworks. Its four-sections were each marked by a double-course of buff brick from Ebbw Vale , and further bound by iron-bands. Originally 75 feet (23 m) in height, two further sections were added totalling 15 feet (4.6 m) to provide additional up-draught. The chimney survived until 2011, when it

1767-667: The length of Loch Fyne , their length kept at 66 ft (20 m) to use the canal locks. Both these types had a crew of three. Puffers of a third type, the outside boats, were built for the rougher sea routes to the Hebrides islands with a crew of four and the length increased to 88 ft (27 m) still allowing use of the larger locks on the Crinan Canal , which cuts across the Kintyre peninsula. There were more than 20 builders in Scotland, mainly on

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1824-614: The logs to the mills. By the late 20th and early 21st-century, paper mills began to close, and the log drives became a dying craft. Due to the addition of new machinery, many millworkers were laid off and many of the historic paper mills closed. Paper mills can be fully integrated mills or nonintegrated mills. Integrated mills consist of a pulp mill and a paper mill on the same site. Such mills receive logs or wood chips and produce paper. The modern paper mill uses large amounts of energy , water , and wood pulp in an efficient and complex series of processes, and control technology to produce

1881-478: The pertinent Arabic description was "a press." Since the "oldest" Catalan paper is physically the same as Islamic Xàtiva's, he notes, their techniques "can be presumed to have been identical" - reasonable enough for Catalan paper before 1280. My recent conversations with Glick indicate that he now inclines to non-hydraulic Andalusi papermaking. Currently Oriol Valls i Subin't, director of the History of Paper department of

1938-619: The public, alongside the Arctic Penguin at the Inveraray Maritime Museum, and continues to make sailings. The Spartan , another diesel-engined "puffer", is on display at the Scottish Maritime Museum at Irvine . Spartan has recently undergone restoration work on her hull, and is still being refitted. The museum also features the diesel-powered motor coaster MV Kyles at Irvine (an early Clyde built coaster, not

1995-456: The raw materials. They were often situated near a port where the raw material was brought in by ship and the paper markets. By the end of the century there were less than 300 UK paper mills, employing 35,000 people and producing 650,000 tons of paper per year. By the early 20th century, paper mills sprang up around New England and the rest of the world, due to the high demand for paper. The United States, with its infrastructure and mill towns ,

2052-515: The right to be exempted from work in the new mill. The first permanent paper mill north of the Alps was established in Nuremberg by Ulman Stromer in 1390; it is later depicted in the lavishly illustrated Nuremberg Chronicle . From the mid-14th century onwards, European paper milling underwent a rapid improvement of many work processes. The size of a paper mill prior to the use of industrial machines

2109-515: The service ended. The short stories that Neil Munro first published in the Glasgow Evening News in 1905 appeared in the newspaper for over twenty years and achieved widespread fame, with collections issued in book form since 1931 still in print today. With the continuing popularity of these tales, the puffers became film stars in The Maggie , and Para Handy with his Vital Spark was

2166-508: The short stories Neil Munro wrote about the Vital Spark and her captain Para Handy , which produced three television series. Clyde puffers characteristically had bluff bows, crew's quarters with table and cooking stove in the focsle , and a single mast with derrick in front of the large hold. The funnel and ship's wheel stood aft above the engine room, followed by a small captain's cabin in

2223-740: The statement by Robert Forbes in his multivolume Studies in Ancient Technology that "in the tenth century [AD] floating mills were found on the Tigris near Baghdad." Though such captive mills were known to the Romans and were used in 12th-century France, Forbes offers no citation or evidence for this unlikely application to very early papermaking. The most erudite authority on the topography of medieval Baghdad, George Makdisi, writes me that he has no recollection of such floating papermills or any papermills, which "I think I would have remembered." Donald Hill has found

2280-523: The stern. When publication of the Vital Spark stories began in 1905 the ship's wheel was still in the open, but later a wheelhouse was added aft of the funnel giving the puffers their distinctive image. Their flat bottom allowed them to beach and unload at low tide, essential to supply remote settlements without suitable piers. Typical cargoes could include coal and furniture, with farm produce and gravel sometimes being brought back. The puffers developed from

2337-516: The subject of three popular BBC television series dating from 1959 to 1995. A small number of puffers survive as conservation projects, though most have diesel engines. VIC 32 is one of the last few surviving coal-fired steam-powered puffers and is based at The Change House, Crinan . She was built by Dunston's of Thorne, Yorkshire in November 1943 – a busy time for the Clyde Ship building yards. As

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2394-409: The term to refer indiscriminately to all kinds of mills , whether powered by humans, by animals or by water . Their propensity to refer to any ancient paper manufacturing center as a "mill", without further specifying its exact power source, has increased the difficulty of identifying the particularly efficient and historically important water-powered type. The use of human and animal powered mills

2451-526: The type of machine first used by the North American paper industry. It is estimated that by 1850 UK paper production had reached 100,000 tons. Later developments increased the size and capacity of machines as well as seeking high volume alternative pulp sources from which paper could be reliably produced. Many of the earlier mills were small and had been located in rural areas. The movement was to larger mills in, or near, urban areas closer to their suppliers of

2508-510: The wartime Admiralty needed 50, (later 100) victualling boats in a hurry, they were built in groups of three by various yards in England. No new designs were needed as the perfect boat existed in a Clyde Puffer. Steam sailings on VIC 32 have been available to the public from 1979, latterly as cruises on the Caledonian Canal . From 2004 she underwent extensive refitting at Corpach Boatyard at

2565-486: The west end of the canal near Fort William , funded by donations and lottery funds. After fitting of a new boiler by Pridham's Engineering and Corpach Boatbuilders, she steamed down from Fort William to Crinan, from where cruises on the Caledonian Canal have now re-commenced. VIC 56 was built by Pollock, of Faversham in 1945. She is preserved in working order at Chatham Historic Dockyard , regularly steaming in

2622-411: Was announced that the mill would close by the end of the year. No definitive reason was given as orders still remained on the companies books. The DS Smith group took a £30M write down to its books on closing the mill. Paper mill Historical investigations into the origin of the paper mill are complicated by differing definitions and loose terminology from modern authors: Many modern scholars use

2679-552: Was applied to papermaking at this time is a matter of scholarly debate. In the Moroccan city of Fez , Ibn Battuta speaks of "400 mill stones for paper". Since Ibn Battuta does not mention the use of water-power and such a number of water-mills would be grotesquely high, the passage is generally taken to refer to human or animal force . An exhaustive survey of milling in Al-Andalus did not uncover water-powered paper mills, nor do

2736-485: Was built at Rowhedge Ironworks . She was renamed Auld Reekie , and starred as the Vital Spark in the third BBC TV Para Handy series where she was berthed at Crinan Basin for 14 years, deteriorating. She was purchased (Oct 2006) by the owner of the Inveraray Maritime Museum who carried out some work on her. She has since been resold to a new owner who has already started on her major restoration work. As she

2793-491: Was described by counting the number of vats it had. Thus, a "one vat" paper mill had only one vatman, one coucher, and other laborers. The first reference to a paper mill in England was in a book printed by Wynken de Worde c.  1495 ; the mill, near Hertford, belonged to John Tate. An early attempt at a machine to mechanise the process was patented in 1799 by the Frenchman Nicholas Louis Robert; it

2850-428: Was initially produced by hand using the locally developed St Decumans process which utilised a vat, to produce one cart of paper product per week. In 1846 business partners James Date, William Peach and John Wansbrough bought the business from Wood's estate, and introduced mechanised-production via a water wheel powered pulley system. But from the 1860s, the factory started the process of converting to steam power. As

2907-586: Was known to Muslim and Chinese papermakers . However, evidence for water-powered paper mills is elusive among both prior to the 11th century. The general absence of the use of water-powered paper mills in Muslim papermaking prior to the 11th century is suggested by the habit of Muslim authors at the time to call a production center not a "mill", but a "paper manufactory". Scholars have identified paper mills in Abbasid -era Baghdad in 794–795. The evidence that waterpower

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2964-438: Was leased to Silvester Bickham. By 1652, the mill had started to produce some paper, which had been sold to John Saffyn of Cullompton , Devon . By 1727 the tenant of the mill was John Wood, the first of four generations of that family to work the mill until 1834. His son William Wood developed the first paper mill factory on the site from the 1750s. Converting an old apple - fruit press originally used for making cider , paper

3021-425: Was not deemed a success. In 1801, however, the drawings were brought to England by John Gamble and passed on to brothers Henry and Sealy Fourdrinier, who financed the engineer Bryan Donkin to construct the machine. Their first successful machine was installed at Frogmore Mill , Hertfordshire , in 1803. In 1809 at Apsley Mill , John Dickinson patented and installed another kind of paper machine. Rather than pouring

3078-602: Was part of the family-controlled public company Reed Smith Holdings . In 1977, employing 500 people, the company and mill were bought by the St Regis Paper Company of New York City . In 1979, the work force of 280 was producing 1,500 tonnes of product a week form mainly recycled pulp, including brown paper for use by the cardboard box industry, plus glazed and wet strength papers for bags, envelopes, wallpapers, and wrappings. After St Regis merged with Champion International Paper in 1983, in 1986 DS Smith plc, now

3135-468: Was replaced by a new stainless-steel structure and demolished. Having started producing paper bags from 1866, by 1869 Wansbrough's son A.C. Wansbrough was the sole owner. In the same year he introduced the factories first papermaking machine, and by 1871, 26 men, 23 women and 10 boys were employed at the mill. A devout Methodist , Wansbrough built a chapel within the factory grounds and insisted that his employee's worship there at least weekly. By this time

3192-598: Was taken over by the Great Western in 1897, but the West Somerset Railway remained an independent company until 1922 when it too was absorbed by the Great Western. The company was bought by W.H. Reed in 1901 to avoid bankruptcy , at which time it employed 350 people. In 1910 the factory purchased its own Clyde puffer steamboat SS Rushlight , which transported coal from the South Wales Coalfield to power

3249-462: Was the largest producer in the world. Chief among these in paper production was Holyoke, Massachusetts , which was the largest producer of paper in the world by 1885, and home to engineers D. H. & A. B. Tower who oversaw the largest firm of paper millwrights in the US during that decade, designing mills on five continents. However, as 20th century progressed this diaspora moved further north and west in

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