498 PAPER, MANUFACTURE OF 



The quantity of paper mimufiicturecl in this country at the commencement of the 

 eighteenth century appears to have been far from sufficient to meet the necessities of 

 the time. Even in 1721 it is supposed that there were but about 300,000 reams 

 of paper annually produced in Great Britain, which were equal merely to two-thirds oi 

 the consumption. But in 1784, the value of the paper manufactured in England 

 alone is stated to have amounted to 800,0002. ; and that, by reason of the increase in 

 price, as also of its use, in less than twenty years it nearly doubled that amount. 



It may be well to append some extracts from various Parliamentary returns relating 

 to the Excise duties levied upon paper : 



In one return, specifying the rates of duty and amount of duty received upon each 

 denomination of paper since 1770, it appears that the total amount of duty on paper 

 manufactured in England for the year 1784 was 46.8672. 19- \d., the duty at that 

 time being divided into seven distinct classes or rates of collection ;' while twenty 

 years after, when the mode of assessing the duty was reduced to bxit three classes, it 

 had risen to 315,8022. 4s. 8d. ; in 1830, fifteen years after, to 619,8242. 7. lid.; in 

 1835, for the United Kingdom, to 833,8222. 12s. 4d., or, in weight, to 70,655,287 Ibs., 

 which was, again, within so short a period as fifteen years, very nearly doubled. 

 Since 1859 it has not been possible to collect any exact information as to the quan- 

 tity of paper made ; with the cessation of the duty all means of obtaining returns 



The latest returns of the paper-mills in working order in England give the number 

 as 272 ; the mills in Scotland as 57 ; and those in Ireland as 21. 



The character of the production in the English mills is given as follows : 



Making writing papers (hand-made) . . 21 



(machine-made) 

 Printing News and Long Elephants . 



Cartridges 



Grocery papers (white and coloured) 

 Small hands and caps . . , 

 Browns 



22 

 96 

 29 

 48 

 50 

 108 



Considering the enormous extent of the paper-manufacture, and the vast improve- 

 ments which have taken place in connection therewith, it is not a little remarkable 

 that, with the exception of the unfortunate Fourdriniers, who sacrificed their all to 

 present to mankind the bare principles of the art, as in the main they now exist, no 

 other name should rest upon the page of history as being similarly associated with 

 those many introductions and improvements which have successively raised the paper- 

 manufacture to the apparently perfect standard which it has at length attained. It is 

 true there would be no difficulty in recording the names of very many who, by the 

 employment of the wealth which they have inherited, are now altogether unsurpassed 

 as paper-manufacturers ; and it is equally true that if we turn to the Eeports of the 

 Jurors of the Great Exhibition of 1851, we shall find many other names more or less 

 distinguished by the greater or lesser importance of the materials or means for which 

 they have themselves applied for and obtained the security of a patent. Still we 

 search in vain for any name upon record as indicating the true genius to whom is 

 chiefly owing the surpassing beauty of the finest specimens of the paper fabric. 



Undoubtedly the most enterprising and successful paper-manufacturer of his day 

 was Mr. William Joynson, of St. Mary Cray, Kent, who by individual effort succeeded 

 in working his upward way from a poor and uneducated journeyman, in a humble 

 paper-mill, to the level of the most respected, and probably the most wealthy of paper- 

 manufacturers. 



But Mr. Joynson, distinguished as he was for the superior finish of his writing 

 papers, was not the originator of the process by which that finish was attained. At 

 the cost of much time and some thousands of pounds, Mr. Joynson laboured to acquire 

 a knowledge of the means by which that peculiar character and surface was so suc- 

 cessfully accomplished, which, it is said, was first given to writing papers at the Helo 

 paper-mills, near Collumpton, Devon, by the late Mr. John Dewdney. Not only in this 

 respect, but in many others, Mr. Dewdney rendered very distinguished service to the art 

 of paper-making ; probably BO man more so, and yet throughout his entire life as a 

 paper-manufacturer ho never once patented a single invention, or refused admitting to 

 his mill any person who wished to go over it. Whether the same kind-hearted 

 and generous spirit that appears uniformly to have prompted Mr. Dewdney 

 in the conduct of his business would be consistent now-a-days, many may 

 question, as indeed in practice most do ; but with Mr. Dewdney it certainly 

 answered no bad end, for after acquiring a competency for himself and each 

 member of a large family, he quietly retired from the paper-manufacture ; and in 

 the early part of the year 1852, immediately after the Commissioners of the 



