The Industrial Revolution changed English life, and no aspect of book printing escaped its touch. Processes that had remained basically the same since Gutenberg began modern European printing in the fifteenth century suddenly underwent radical changes around the turn of the nineteenth century. Paper was no exception.
Although the machine-made paper used in Day Dreams doesn’t have all the little tells and interesting marks of handmade paper, making it harder to trace, much can still be inferred about the book's paper.
Papermaking machines were only successfully introduced into papermills in the early 1800s, but once they were production of paper skyrocketed. In 1864, when this book was published, paper was made primarily by using rags, beaten into a pulp. The pulp was strained on wire mesh, the water draining away, and then it was pressed and dried, then cut into sheets. From the samples to the left you can see that although the paper is fairly smooth (especially compared to handmade paper) manufacturing marks are still apparent. On one side of the paper are many parallel lines in the texture of the paper, mostly in one direction but some perpendicular, perhaps from where the paper lay on the wire mesh. The other side of the paper is smoother, perhaps from the pressure of a dandy roll. A modern piece of paper has similar marks, but at an even finer scale. |
This video from The Paper Trail gives a quick introduction to hand-making paper and to the steam-powered Fourindiner machine of the kind that the paper of Day Dreams was probably made on.
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And yes, that was rags as the main component of the paper. Early paper of quality was always made from rags, putting pressure on rag supplies (white rags were needed to make white paper, and most of Britain’s rags were imported, a problem in wartime). In the 1860s serious experiments tried to use esparto grass and wood pulp as alternatives, but the technology wasn't yet at the point it could make book-quality paper. Wood pulp wasn’t used to mass-manufacture paper until 1870.
Scotland’s Water of Leith, near Edinburgh, was a popular location for papermills, as there was a good supply of water (for powering the machines and for manufacturing material) and it was close to and able to support the Edinburgh printing industry. Having a good local supply suggests the paper for Day Dreams was sourced locally – surely that would be easier than importing it! The printer T. Constable is known to have sourced paper from both Alexander Cowan & Sons Limited and from Kinleith Mill (the Scottish one, not the New Zealand one!).
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In fact Alexander Cowan was related by marriage to Constable, making yet another knot in the close-knit family tree of this company, and had close financial connections. In the 1860s both Kinleith and Cowan & Sons were experimenting with using esparto grass (Kinleith at T. & A. Constable’s request), so it's possible the paper of this book is made from esparto grass. However, given that esparto grass wasn't an immediate success it seems likely this book was made of rag paper. Also, given that it was esparto grass that took T. & A. Constable to Kinleith (especially if this was after the “& A.” had been added), it is perhaps more likely the paper came from a Cowan & Sons papermill.
For more information see:
British Association of Paper Historians. http://baph.org.uk/ukpaperhistory.html
Good site for information about paper.
The Paper Trail. http://www.thepapertrail.org.uk
Information about paper-making and letterpress in the industrial age.
Penicuik Papermaking. http://www.penicuikpapermaking.org/index.html
Scottish site devoted to the history of paper and papermills in the Penicuik area.
British Association of Paper Historians. http://baph.org.uk/ukpaperhistory.html
Good site for information about paper.
The Paper Trail. http://www.thepapertrail.org.uk
Information about paper-making and letterpress in the industrial age.
Penicuik Papermaking. http://www.penicuikpapermaking.org/index.html
Scottish site devoted to the history of paper and papermills in the Penicuik area.