A HISTORY OF HERTFORDSHIRE 



partly by outside labour. They also buy and 

 finish work already sewn. The outdoor hands 

 mainly do trimming and finishing at their own 

 homes. Gentlemen's hats are the principal 

 articles made at St. Albans, but the small 

 factors, especially at Markyate, sew ladies' 

 hats for manufacturers at Luton, the chief seat 

 of this branch of the trade. Many of the St. 

 Albans manufacturers block and trim a quantity 

 of imported goods. In St. Albans alone over 

 eleven hundred persons are employed in the 

 trade at the height of the season.*^ 



Several of the firms at St. Albans are of 

 old standing.*' The present firm of T. H. 

 Johnson & Sons was founded in 1834 by the 

 late Mr. Thomas Johnson. Other manufacturers 

 then existing in the town were Heywood & 

 Harris, W. Johnson, T. Richardson, G. Slade 

 and J. Morris. Mr. Thomas Johnson first 

 began business in weaving by hand looms, the 

 materials used being cotton, straw and Senneck 

 horsehair (Lima) which were made up into a 

 kind of plait or trimming in lo-yard lengths. 



This was employed for making ladies' hats and 

 bonnets. In or about 1836 an American of the 

 name of Smith introduced the Brazilian hat 

 industry to St. Albans. The material used 

 was a kind of palm grass, which had to be 

 washed and cleaned and then bleached or 

 dyed to any required shade, being afterwards 

 reduced and split into various widths for direct 

 plaiting into hats. Other manufacturers to 

 take up this trade were G. Slade, S. West, 

 T. Harris, J. Morris, W. Keightly, J. Webdale 

 and Thomas Johnson ; but, as already men- 

 tioned, the French hat makers produced finer 

 goods to compete with the St. Albans manu- 

 facturers, and thus obtained the bulk of their 

 trade of that kind. Hand sewing was largely 

 superseded by the invention, about 1875, °f a 

 machine for stitching hats by Mr. Bland, of 

 Luton. It was called the 'Fifteen Guinen 

 machine.' Further improvements have since 

 been made, and the best stitching machine in the 

 market is that known as the ' Thirty-two 

 Guinea machine.' 



PAPER-MAKING 



The chief manufacturing industry with the 

 history of which Hertfordshire has been promi- 

 nently associated in modern times is paper- 

 making. The manufacture of paper was prob- 

 ably introduced into Europe from the East by 

 four routes : in the 6th century through Greece, 

 and early in the 7th century through Italy 

 from Arab sources, by the Moors to Spain in 

 the 8th century and through Venice into Ger- 

 many in the 9th; but it is certain that the 

 manufacture of white paper was not established 

 in England until almost the end of the 15th 

 century, though possibly the coarser grades of 

 paper might have been made in this country at 

 a somewhat earlier date. 



The first English paper-maker of whom we 

 have any definite record was John Tate the 

 younger, son of Sir John Tate, Mayor of London 

 in 1496, who had a mill at Hertford, probably 

 ' Sele Mill.' Of this mill no record now remains 

 beyond the names of ' Paper Mill Ditch ' and 

 ' Meadow,' appUed to a channel and field not 

 far from the old Hertford water-works. 



That the making of fine paper in England 

 was considered a matter of national importance 

 is shown by the fact that in the household book 

 of Henry VII appear the following two entries. 

 On 25 May 1498, when staying at Hertford 

 Castle, the king visited Tate's mill, and an 

 item appears in the accounts, ' For a rewarde 

 geven at the Paper Mylne, 16s. Sd. ' ; and in the 



« Inform, from Mr. G. E. Bullen. 

 *3 Inform, from Mr. T. H. Johnson and Mr. G. E. 

 Bullen. 



following year a somewhat similar entry, ' Geven 

 a rewarde to Tate of the Mylne, 6s. 8d.' 



In an edition of the De Proprietatibus Rerum 

 of Bartholomaeus Anglicus, printed by Wynkyn 

 de Worde about 1495, occur the following 

 words : ' And John Tate the younger loye mote 

 he broke | whiche late hathe in Englond doo 

 makes this paper thynne | that now in our 

 Englysshe this boke is prynted inne.' Tate's 

 paper was also used for an edition of Chaucer 

 in 1498, and for the ' Golden Legend ' in 1498, 

 also for a large bull of Alexander VI of 1494, 

 now in the Lambeth Library, and for the 

 supplement to it of 1495, now in the British 

 Museum and the Bodleian Library. 



The water-mark Tate used was a two-line 

 circle, the outer ring just over i J in. in diameter, 

 and the inner, which 

 is slightly oval, 

 ijVin. to ij in. con- 

 taining an eight- 

 pointed star, 

 possibly represent- 

 ing St. Katherine's 

 wheel. The illustra- 

 tion of this mark 

 is taken from a 

 blank leaf after the 

 eleventh book of the 

 De Proprietatibus 

 Rerum. This early _ . 



Hertford paper-mill had a short life, and it is 

 likely that the output could not compete suc- 

 cessfully with cheap foreign paper from abroad. 

 Tate died in 1507, and his will contains definite 



Watbr-mark or Johm Tati 



2£b 



