A HISTORY OF SURREY 



Of the engineers and manufacturers of ma- 

 chinery in Surrey the greater number are to 

 be found about Southwark. The following 

 firms may be more especially noted in con- 

 clusion of this account of the metal and 

 machinery works of Surrey as typical of the 

 various branches of the trade which are now 

 carried on in the county : Messrs. Thomas 

 Green & Sons, Limited, in Southwark Street, 

 are makers of gas and steam engines, garden 

 and agricultural implements, chopping 

 machines, and machines of every description ; 

 they have also works in Leeds. Messrs. 



Shand, Mason & Co., of Upper Ground 

 Street, Blackfriars Road, devote themselves to 

 the manufacture of steam fire engines. In 

 Lamjjeth are the works of the Brush Elec- 

 trical Engineering Co., Limited, who make 

 steam engines for electric light in addition to 

 being contractors for electrical lighting and 

 tramway works. At the works of the Vaux- 

 hall Ironworks Co., Limited, in the Wands- 

 worth Road, steam yachts and launches are 

 built, and single and twin screw engines and 

 paddle engines are made for light draught 

 steamers. 



PAPER 



Paper mills at a comparatively early date 

 seem to have existed in Surrey along the 

 course of the river Wey. Howes in his 

 AnnaUs (1631) states that coarse paper, com- 

 monly called brown paper, was first made in 

 England in the reign of James I., especially 

 about Windsor and Surrey, where the paper 

 was called white brown paper and served for 

 grocers and such like. Aubrey, writing at 

 the end of the seventeenth century, connects 

 this manufacture more particularly with God- 

 aiming, which he had frequently heard bore 

 the bell from all the county for its excellence.' 



The mills at Eashing, which had long 

 previously been used for the grinding of corn, 

 were probably in part converted into paper 

 mills about the year 1658, for on 3 August 

 of that year John Keene conveyed his four 

 corn mills called Eashing mills to William 

 West, a papermaker of Wraysbury, co. Bucks.' 

 It is not however until 23 December 1704, 

 that we have any definite notice of the 

 Eashing paper mills. By his will of that 

 date ' Thomas Hall of Eashing, miller, left 

 to his wife Elizabeth amongst other things 

 the rents of his corn mills and paper mills in 

 Eashing, until his son Thomas should have 

 attained the age of twenty-one years. By 

 his will dated 20 April 17 13,* Thomas Hall 

 of Midhurst, miller, late of Witley, the father 

 of the preceding, left to his granddaughter, 

 Ann Hunn, a legacy of jr20, being parcel of 

 the arrears of rent due to him out of the paper 

 and corn mills in Eashing. The paper mill 

 seems to have been continued throughout the 

 eighteenth century until some date in the 

 latter half of the last century. In 1823 ^^• 



I Sat. Hilt, and Antiquities of Surrey, iv. 1 6. 



' Close R. 1658, pt. 14. 



' Prob. P.C.C. 26 Jan. 1704-5. 



• Ibid. 18 June 1713 {Leeds, 135). 



Richard Smith was a paper maker at Eashing.' 

 About 1833 the mills were purchased by 

 Messrs. Pewtress,' who were carrying on the 

 manufacture of paper in Surrey in the year 

 1850.' 



John Evelyn visited some paper mills at 

 Byfleet in 1678, where he found a coarse 

 white paper being made. He gives the 

 following interesting account of the pro- 

 cess :' — 



They cull the rags which are linen for white 

 paper, woollen for brown ; then they stamp them 

 in troughs to a pap with pestles or hammers like 

 the powder-mills, then put it into a vessel of 

 water, in which they dip a frame closely wired 

 with wire as small as a hair and as close as a 

 weaver's reed ; on this they take up the pap, the 

 superfluous water draining through the wire ; this 

 they dexterously turn, shake out like a pancake on 

 a smooth board between two pieces of flannel, 

 then press it between a great press, the flannel 

 sucking out the moisture ; then taking it out, 

 they ply and dry it on strings, as they dry linen 

 in the laundry ; then dip it in alum-water, lastly 

 polish, and make it up in quires. They put some 

 gum in the water in which they macerate the 

 rags. The mark we find on the sheets is formed 

 in the wire. 



At Catteshall near Godalming paper is still 

 made. Mills existed here both for corn and 

 fulling at an early date, but it is uncertain 

 when one or more of them were first used as 

 paper mills. It is possible that John Wilde 

 of Farnecombe, who is described as a paper- 

 maker in 1699, was employed at Catteshall." 



' Pigot & Co. London and Provincial Commercial 

 Directory (1823-4). 



» Ex inf. P. Woods, Esq. C.B. 



' Brayley and Britten, Hist. ofSurr. v. App. 34- 



" Diary, 24 Aug. 1678. 



» Ex inf P, Woods, Esq. 



418 



