July 1, 1864.] THE TECHNOLOGIST. 



MANUFACTURE OF PAPER-HANGINGS. 533 



owe much for the improvement of this manufacture. To some points 

 under this head we have already referred. To them mainly we owe 

 embossed flocks and the shading of flocks, the perfect imitation of 

 chintz, improvements in the satin grounds, and the introduction of work 

 printed from engraved cylinders. It is now about twenty-two years 

 since machine printing was first introduced. With this enormous 

 change came greater productive power, greater economy in the work, 

 cheaper paper-hangings, and a vastly extended basis for the general 

 trade. 



As early as 1851 there were shown in the London Exhibition of 

 that year, by Messrs. Heywood, Higginbottoiu, and Co., of Manchester, 

 patterns whereon were printed twenty colours made by fourteen rollers. 

 J. Woolams and Co., London, a firm which may be regarded as repre- 

 senting the trade in England, in the Paris Exhibition of 1855 were 

 represented as producing goods soundly made and well printed, at 

 moderate prices. In their higher efforts, they exhibited in the style of 

 the Italian renaissance, pilasters, corners and borders, cornice and frieze, 

 together with some panels of various flock gold damasks in the 

 mediaeval style, and a cornice and mouldings from the Alhambra, all of 

 which were from drawings made in England. At this period — eight 

 years ago — English paper-hangings of the more pretentious kinds were 

 sadly wanting in that refinement of colour which we believe to arise 

 in the French papers mainly from the use of better whiting, more 

 colourless size, finer pigments, cleaner vessels, better light, careful over- 

 looking, and, above all, scrupulous delicacy of manipulation, and a 

 measured and moderate pace in the speed of working. As compared 

 with 1851, the English makers in 1855 were seen to have made great 

 advancement ; and in London in 1862 the improvement, where formerly 

 defective, was still more decided. The manufacture of paper-hangings 

 is spread pretty widely over England. We find it in Manchester, in 

 Leeds, and Southampton, as well as in London. From Scotland the 

 representation was limited to the successful imitation of woods and 

 mouldings, showing good evidence of taste and executive skill, by Mr. 

 E,. Dow, of Perth. Among the best attempts in this walk shown in the 

 Exhibition of 1862, and which had any connexion with Scotland, was 

 the complete decoration of the walls of a drawing-room and of a dining- 

 room, by Messrs. Purdie, Bonnar, and Carfrae, of London and Edin- 

 burgh. These were of full dimensions and done up in the highest 

 example of the French style, and illustrated admirably the legitimate 

 scope and resources of the art of paper-hanging, associated as it was in 

 the instances with the cognate industries of the artistic painter, carver, 

 and gilder ; and for the full effect of each these must go together for 

 the effective decoration of the leading apartments of the houses of the 

 affluent. 



We purposely adduce these picked examples as pointing out thereby 

 the true tendency of this new industry for Scotland, in order to impress 



