INDUSTRIES 



refuse paper. 13 Other inventions for bleach- 

 ing rags for paper were registered by Hector 

 Campbell on 28 November 1792 (No. 1,922) 

 and by John Bigg on 28 February 1795 

 (No. 2,040). 



In 1804 Henry and Sealy Fourdrinier, 

 stationers and paper manufacturers of London, 

 erected their first paper-making machine at 

 Boxmoor, Herts. This, with many improve- 

 ments by subsequent inventors, continued to 

 be for many years the principal type of paper- 

 making machinery. The excise returns for 

 1 835 M show that seventy London manufac- 

 turers of stained paper paid a total duty of 

 35,012 9*. 7^., while the total for all 

 England was 49,746 8f. 



Wall Papers. The manufacture of paper 

 hangings in England is said to have begun 

 about 1746, when it was started by Potter 

 of Manchester. Paper-staining as an in- 

 dustry has long been carried on in Old 

 Ford. About the beginning of the igth cen- 



tury the founders of the firm of John Allan 

 & Son came up from their native county of 

 Elgin in Scotland and settled in the East 

 of London. Here they created a large busi- 

 ness which in 1876 employed 150 hands 

 and produced wall paper of every kind, suit- 

 able for the cottage, the mansion, or the 

 palace. 14 There is no industry in which the 

 influence of the artistic revival in England has 

 been more apparent than in this manufacture. 

 Among the firms who have taken a prominent 

 part in the production of paper hangings of 

 good quality are those of Jeffrey & Co., 

 Morris & Co., and Crace. There are more 

 than twenty other trades connected with the 

 paper industry. Among the more important 

 paper-makers in Middlesex at the present day 

 are the Colnbrook Paper Mills, Ltd., Poyle 

 Mill, Colnbrook ; Isaac Warwick & Co., 

 Wraysbury Mill, near Staines ; the Patent 

 Impermeable Millboard Co., Ltd., Sunbury 

 Common ; and the West Drayton Millboard 

 Co., Ltd. 



PRINTING 



The City of Westminster enjoys the honour 

 of being the place where a printing press was 

 first set up in this country. 



Of William Caxton it is unnecessary to 

 speak at length. Sprung from an old Kentish 

 family, he was born, probably in London, 

 about the year 1422, and was afterwards ap- 

 prenticed to Robert Large, an eminent mem- 

 ber of the Mercers' Company, and Lord 

 Mayor. On the expiration of his indentures, 

 in 1446, he went to Bruges, where he 

 engaged in business and became the Governor 

 of the Company of Merchant Adventurers. 

 In March 1468-9 he began an English trans- 

 lation, ' as a preventive against idlenes ' (he 

 tells us) of the Recuyell of the Historyes of 

 Troye, which he continued at Ghent, and 

 finished at Cologne, in 147 1. The book being 

 in great demand Caxton set himself to learn 

 the newly-discovered art of printing in order 

 to multiply copies. The Recuyell probably 

 appeared in 1474, and was the first book 

 printed in English. Caxton learnt the art of 

 printing from Colard Mansion, who set up a 

 press at Bruges about 1473. He ' e ^ Bruges 

 in 1476 and returned to England. 



Caxton's claim to be the first English 

 printer has been opposed by some older writers, 



who considered that Oxford was the first seat 

 of printing in England. It is now generally 

 agreed that Oxford's claim to have had a press 

 in 1468 cannot be sustained, and rests only on 

 a typographical blunder in the printing of a 

 date. Caxton's first printed works were 

 small treatises and short poems by Lydgate and 

 Chaucer ; many of these are probably lost ; 

 his first dated book is The Dictes and Sayinges 

 of the Philosophers, printed in 1477. The 

 chief work from his press was The Golden 

 Legend, a large folio volume illustrated with 

 rude woodcuts, and containing the lives of the 

 English saints. His press was set up in the 

 Almonry at Westminster, where the Guards' 

 Memorial now stands. 



Caxton remained a parishioner of St. Mar- 

 garet's until his death in 1491. The parish 

 accounts for 1490-2 state that 6;. 8d. was 

 paid for four torches ' atte burreying of Wyl- 

 liam Caxton,' and ' 6d. for the belle atte same 

 burreying.' A memorial tablet was erected 

 to his memory in 1820 by the Roxburghe 

 Club, and in 1883 a stained glass window was 

 also set up in his honour by the London 

 printers and publishers. Caxton's life was a 

 busy one. To his work as a translator we 

 are indebted for twenty-one books from the 

 French and one from the Dutch ; besides 



11 J. Munsell, Chronology (1870), 43. 

 14 Excise Commiiiitmers' Rep. xiv, 44-5. 



" Crory, East Lund. Industries, 1 7. 



197 



