Post by Les on Apr 21, 2021 5:48:18 GMT
James Whatman was Born in 1702
James Whatman was the last child and only son of Mary and James Whatman. His father was a tanner and his son inherited the business in 1726 when his mother died. This Whatman continued the tanning business but in 1733 he was starting to make paper at the Old Mill in Hollingbourne.on the river Len I think this was down Caring Lane as there was a water mill there.
James Whatman made revolutionary advances to the craft of papermaking in England.
He assisted James Harris who built a new paper mill there. Harris died in 1739 and Whatman married his widow Susan and gained Harris's business.
James Whatman is noted as the inventor of wove paper (or Vélin), an innovation used for high-quality art and printing.
The techniques continued to be developed by his son, James Whatman the Younger .
At a time when the craft was based in smaller paper mills his innovations led to the large scale and widespread industrialisation of paper manufacturing.
This James Whatman and his wife had a child in 1741 who was also named James Whatman and who would later be another innovative paper manufacturer. His wife Susanna Whatman would run his house; her writing on household management would come to notice about 200 years later.
The business, in addition to producing the finest paper, is probably responsible for the invention of the wove wire mesh used to mould and align the pulp fibres. This is the principal method used in the mass production of most modern paper. The Whatmans held a part interest in the establishment at Turkey Mill, near Maidstone, after 1740; this was acquired through the elder Whatman's marriage to Ann Harris.
Turkey Mill was fulling clothin the seventeenth century and was recorded as a fulling mill between the years 1629 and 1671.
Not much is known about its history prior to this time and one cannot be certain how it acquired the name ‘Turkey’ Mill.
How it got it's name is unsurtain but Turkey red dye processing was used in connection with fulling .
The mill could also have used for grinding Turkey wheat, a corn from India.
It had several other fairly shortl ived names at various times; Powle Mill 1629, Overloppe Mill 1640 and Gill’s Mill 1732 but the name Turkey first appears in the will of Richard Harris in 1739.
The development of ‘wove’ paper, producing paper on a smooth, regular-surfaced, woven mesh material was pioneered by James Whatman at Turkey Mill. It resulted in a sheet with a much smoother, less irregular surface than previously found in 'laid' paper.
This evolvement of paper manufacturing immeasurably improved the quality of printed work and the range of printing techniques possible.
The more robust surface found in wove paper also allowed for the growth of experimentation of more vigorous and expressive techniques by artists.
James Whatman’s wove paper trials were conducted in 1754 in conjunction with the famous printer William Baskerville.
Laid paper has lines running through the structure of the sheet. The lighter areas are where there is less pulp than the darker areas.
The ribs or furrows found in laid paper caused pigment to puddle on the page. Wove paper did away with this problem.
Whatman's invention of wove paper without lines running through the structure.
J Whatman's wove paper was stronger than laid paper as it was thicker throughout the entire sheet. Visible laid lines are areas where there is less paper material; the lighter areas are where the paper is thinner than the darker areas. In addition it was soaked in a gluey gelatine bath of cooked up hoofs and bones which made it extremely strong and less absorbent.
The strength of this type of paper and the strong gelatine sizing allowed paint to move easily over its surface and multiple layers could be applied and then wiped, scratched, or scraped away without damaging the surface of the paper.
These complicated subtractive techniques were brought to the highest level of virtuosity by J M W Turner who worked regularly on Whatman paper.
In 1739 war broke out between France and Spain which stopped the importing of fine notepaper from the continent. The war ended in 1748 but by then English papermakers had secured the market. At the time of Whatman’s death in 1759, J Whatman had become the largest paper producer in the country.
Unusually, James Whatman's widow, Ann, continued to run the mill until their son, also called James, reached 21. Like his father he too was associated with many important developments in the field of papermaking; the use of blue smalts a ground blue potassium glass containing cobalt to improve the brightness of white paper and the use of chlorine to bleach coloured rags.
James Whatman the Younger also introduced the use of metal 'Hollander' beaters to reduce the high power consumption synonymous with the crucial stage of fibre treatment in beaters.
Under his leadership, Turkey Mill’s importance continued to grow until the name of Whatman was respected around the world.
As early as the 1760’s when wove paper was not yet widely available to artists, Thomas Gainsborough was anxious to use it for his watercolours.
In 1767 he wrote to bookseller James Dodsley in hope of obtaining some “it being what I have long been in search of for making wash’d Drawings upon … There is so little impression of the wires, and those so very fine, that the surface is like vellum”
In the same year, 1767, aged only 26, James Whatman became High Sheriff of Kent and completed the extension to Turkey Court by adding a West Wing comprising two large rooms, a dining room and drawing room, for entertaining.
James Whatman had married Sarah Stanley who was much above him socially and they had two daughters, Camilla and Laetitia but after her death in 1776 James re-married Susanna Bosanquet, daughter of a Hamburg Merchant and a Director of the East India company, Jacob Bosanquet. They had one son, also called James. In 1774 Whatman took on an apprentice, William Balston, a student at the Writing School of Christ’s Hospital, whom he trained as a papermaker. Whatman thought highly of Balston and looked upon him as his successor.
However, in 1790 James Whatman II suffered a stroke and his protégé, William Balston, took over managing much of the mill. But in 1794 and much to the surprise of everyone including Balston, James Whatman decided to sell the business and Turkey Mill was sold to brothers Thomas, Robert and Finch Hollingworth of Maidstone for £32,000, a substantial sum at the time.
William Ballston had a new Mill built at Springfield an Ideal spot so maned as the field was full of spring of Fresh water from the downs and this was the first paper Mill to be derived by Steam installed by Robert Stevenson. this was 1804 and had Springfied mantion built as his home.
William Ballston continued to uses the Whatman Whatman water Mark before it closed down they made filter paper for scientific reserch.
Gainsborough wrote, “I beg you to accept my sincerest thanks for the favour you have done me concerning the paper for drawings. I had set my heart upon getting some of it, as it is so completely what I have long been in search of... upon my honour I would give a guinea a quire for a dozen quires of it”.
Whatman paper was used by JMW Turner, John Robert Cozens, John Sell Cotman and Cornelius Varley.
William Blake used it for four of his illuminated books, the public being informed that they were printed on “the most beautiful wove paper that could be procured”.
Many of the watercolour masterpieces in the early nineteenth century are on paper bearing the “J. Whatman” or “J. Whatman/Turkey Mill” watermarks.
Throughout history Heads of State and world leaders have shown a particular penchant for Whatman paper.
Napoleon used Whatman paper for writing his will; George Washington signed many state documents on Whatman paper and Queen Victoria chose Whatman for her personal correspondence.
Up untill the mid 1800s rag,old ropes sails off cuts from taliors were used for making paper then they started using wood pulp.
The rags were boiled then beatered
In the 1930’s Soviet leaders used Whatman paper to publish their five year plan for the future of the USSR, while the peace treaty with Japan was signed on Whatman paper at the close of World War II.
In 1804, after a series of retirements, deaths and complicated business and licensing arrangements, J Whatman paper production was moved to Springfield Mill, Maidstone Kent.
A sample book from the 1930s contains almost 300 different types of handmade paper for writing, record keeping and fine-art. This is astonishing when you consider the work required to produce just one type of paper by hand now or even by machine. It demonstrates the mastery Whatman had in this field of manufacture.
Like many other crafts, papermaking by hand on a commercial basis eventually became non viable due to the costs of energy, raw materials, retiring expertise, the ending of the apprenticeship tradition and a more upwardly mobile working population.
Handmade paper was discontinued by Whatman in the mid 1950s and machine and mould-made paper manufacturing ended in the mid 1960's.
In the 1930s Whatman began making scientific filter papers. Production of this material continued at Springfield Mill until 2009 when its owners, GE Healthcare sold the site.
The mill was cleared and demolished in 2018 and is now a housing estate.
Today, handmade paper is made around the world commercially by individuals or teams of 2 to 4 craftspeople producing a narrow range of paper for watercolour, printmaking and conservation bookbinding. These individuals or small teams oversee every aspect of making a sheet of paper from choosing the fibre to drying and packing their product.
In the Golden Age of papermaking this was very different, this process was a semi industrial one which dozens of time-served apprentices specialising in one process of the craft.
The first process in traditional papermaking was preparing rags.
Recycled linen and cotton rags were used to make paper long before trees were the main source of pulp, hence the term "rag paper".
Huge bundles of rags were bought from specialist dealers who sourced old, worn out clothing, bed linen, rope (as in "money for old rope") yacht sails etc.
Women were employed at paper mills as "rag sorters", their job to remove all impurities such as buttons, rivets, pins, rubber and to sort them into their types; linen or cotton.
In the very early days, rag would be allowed to rot down a little (retted) to soften before further processing but retting allowed the rag to naturally heat up and was a fire hazard!
The process was modernised when washing the rags in a weak bleach solution proved to soften them enough as well as make the fibre much cleaner.
Once the rags were sorted, washed and shredded, they were placed in mechanical Hollander beaters with water which washed out the bleach and broke down the rag pieces into a much finer, porridge-looking material - rag pulp, from which beautiful paper was made.
In ancient times pulp was slowly and laboriously beaten with wooden stamping mallets powered by a waterwheel.
During the era of the industrial revolution and steam powered engines, the Dutch invented the Hollander beater, superseding stamping mallet beaters.
Hollanders clean, grind and beat papermaking fibres with adjustable revolving steel-toothed wheels in a revolving bath of water which can be drained and refilled ensuring the water is always clean, an important aspect when making good quality paper.
So effective was the Hollander beater that it is still used today by hand papermakers in an unchanged format electric motors replacing steam driven engines .
In papermaking, a beater man was considered as important as the Vatman - the person who formed the sheets from the pulp.
The beater man was responsible for ensuring the fibres were the correct consistency and grade for the particular type of paper being produced that day.
For example, imitation parchment paper was made from linen fibres beaten for hours until they were made hot from through friction. Printmaking paper was made from softly beaten fibres. Get this wrong and you'll end up with rubbish paper.
Once rags had been beaten in the Hollander Beaters the pulp mix was no longer called pulp but instead "Stuff". Yes, stuff.
Once the pulp had been beaten to the correct grade and became stuff it was pumped directly from the Hollander beaters through a series of pipes to Stuff Chests.
These Stuff Chests are large, round storage containers with a set of revolving agitating arms. The agitating arms ensure the stuff remains suspended in water and doesn't settle to the bottom of the chests and solidify.
From the Stuff Chests the stuff could be pumped into the papermaking vats where the vatman would create sheet after sheet of paper.
Most of the paper you'll use today is machine-made on a huge roll which is subsequently cut into sheets; the drying process is carried out at as part of the production process - all by machine. It's very efficient.
In the days where paper was most commonly made by hand, one sheet at a time, all paper was dried in a loft suspended over ropes or poles or laid out on shelves of hessian sacking.
The deckle and mould is dipped into a vat (hence the term Vatman) of water and paper pulp. Whatman deckle and mould for making paper
Watermarks were created with wire shapes and letters sewn onto the mould. The raised areas meant less pulp could settle making that area of the paper thinner.
Whatman's pre-eminence as a paper maker was attracting considerable interest, and in 1770, the Society of Antiquaries was commissioned to make a large copper engraving of an old painting depicting Henry VIII meeting Francis I at eh Field of the Cloth of Gold.
The necessary paper had to be 49 1/4 x 27 inches - slightly bigger than the Double Elephant size which was the largest made by Whatman.
James Whatman, ever the creative problem solver wrote: "I have no doubt but a Contrivance I have thought of will enable me to make it, although that will draw on a certain expense of at least £50 for things which cannot be of use to me on any other occasion".
Whatman built his Contrivance to make Antiquarian-size paper, which took 11 men to operate. The resulting sheets were so heavy that they had to be transported to London by a small sailing vessel called a hoy.
James Whatman was the last child and only son of Mary and James Whatman. His father was a tanner and his son inherited the business in 1726 when his mother died. This Whatman continued the tanning business but in 1733 he was starting to make paper at the Old Mill in Hollingbourne.on the river Len I think this was down Caring Lane as there was a water mill there.
James Whatman made revolutionary advances to the craft of papermaking in England.
He assisted James Harris who built a new paper mill there. Harris died in 1739 and Whatman married his widow Susan and gained Harris's business.
James Whatman is noted as the inventor of wove paper (or Vélin), an innovation used for high-quality art and printing.
The techniques continued to be developed by his son, James Whatman the Younger .
At a time when the craft was based in smaller paper mills his innovations led to the large scale and widespread industrialisation of paper manufacturing.
This James Whatman and his wife had a child in 1741 who was also named James Whatman and who would later be another innovative paper manufacturer. His wife Susanna Whatman would run his house; her writing on household management would come to notice about 200 years later.
The business, in addition to producing the finest paper, is probably responsible for the invention of the wove wire mesh used to mould and align the pulp fibres. This is the principal method used in the mass production of most modern paper. The Whatmans held a part interest in the establishment at Turkey Mill, near Maidstone, after 1740; this was acquired through the elder Whatman's marriage to Ann Harris.
Turkey Mill was fulling clothin the seventeenth century and was recorded as a fulling mill between the years 1629 and 1671.
Not much is known about its history prior to this time and one cannot be certain how it acquired the name ‘Turkey’ Mill.
How it got it's name is unsurtain but Turkey red dye processing was used in connection with fulling .
The mill could also have used for grinding Turkey wheat, a corn from India.
It had several other fairly shortl ived names at various times; Powle Mill 1629, Overloppe Mill 1640 and Gill’s Mill 1732 but the name Turkey first appears in the will of Richard Harris in 1739.
The development of ‘wove’ paper, producing paper on a smooth, regular-surfaced, woven mesh material was pioneered by James Whatman at Turkey Mill. It resulted in a sheet with a much smoother, less irregular surface than previously found in 'laid' paper.
This evolvement of paper manufacturing immeasurably improved the quality of printed work and the range of printing techniques possible.
The more robust surface found in wove paper also allowed for the growth of experimentation of more vigorous and expressive techniques by artists.
James Whatman’s wove paper trials were conducted in 1754 in conjunction with the famous printer William Baskerville.
Laid paper has lines running through the structure of the sheet. The lighter areas are where there is less pulp than the darker areas.
The ribs or furrows found in laid paper caused pigment to puddle on the page. Wove paper did away with this problem.
Whatman's invention of wove paper without lines running through the structure.
J Whatman's wove paper was stronger than laid paper as it was thicker throughout the entire sheet. Visible laid lines are areas where there is less paper material; the lighter areas are where the paper is thinner than the darker areas. In addition it was soaked in a gluey gelatine bath of cooked up hoofs and bones which made it extremely strong and less absorbent.
The strength of this type of paper and the strong gelatine sizing allowed paint to move easily over its surface and multiple layers could be applied and then wiped, scratched, or scraped away without damaging the surface of the paper.
These complicated subtractive techniques were brought to the highest level of virtuosity by J M W Turner who worked regularly on Whatman paper.
In 1739 war broke out between France and Spain which stopped the importing of fine notepaper from the continent. The war ended in 1748 but by then English papermakers had secured the market. At the time of Whatman’s death in 1759, J Whatman had become the largest paper producer in the country.
Unusually, James Whatman's widow, Ann, continued to run the mill until their son, also called James, reached 21. Like his father he too was associated with many important developments in the field of papermaking; the use of blue smalts a ground blue potassium glass containing cobalt to improve the brightness of white paper and the use of chlorine to bleach coloured rags.
James Whatman the Younger also introduced the use of metal 'Hollander' beaters to reduce the high power consumption synonymous with the crucial stage of fibre treatment in beaters.
Under his leadership, Turkey Mill’s importance continued to grow until the name of Whatman was respected around the world.
As early as the 1760’s when wove paper was not yet widely available to artists, Thomas Gainsborough was anxious to use it for his watercolours.
In 1767 he wrote to bookseller James Dodsley in hope of obtaining some “it being what I have long been in search of for making wash’d Drawings upon … There is so little impression of the wires, and those so very fine, that the surface is like vellum”
In the same year, 1767, aged only 26, James Whatman became High Sheriff of Kent and completed the extension to Turkey Court by adding a West Wing comprising two large rooms, a dining room and drawing room, for entertaining.
James Whatman had married Sarah Stanley who was much above him socially and they had two daughters, Camilla and Laetitia but after her death in 1776 James re-married Susanna Bosanquet, daughter of a Hamburg Merchant and a Director of the East India company, Jacob Bosanquet. They had one son, also called James. In 1774 Whatman took on an apprentice, William Balston, a student at the Writing School of Christ’s Hospital, whom he trained as a papermaker. Whatman thought highly of Balston and looked upon him as his successor.
However, in 1790 James Whatman II suffered a stroke and his protégé, William Balston, took over managing much of the mill. But in 1794 and much to the surprise of everyone including Balston, James Whatman decided to sell the business and Turkey Mill was sold to brothers Thomas, Robert and Finch Hollingworth of Maidstone for £32,000, a substantial sum at the time.
William Ballston had a new Mill built at Springfield an Ideal spot so maned as the field was full of spring of Fresh water from the downs and this was the first paper Mill to be derived by Steam installed by Robert Stevenson. this was 1804 and had Springfied mantion built as his home.
William Ballston continued to uses the Whatman Whatman water Mark before it closed down they made filter paper for scientific reserch.
Gainsborough wrote, “I beg you to accept my sincerest thanks for the favour you have done me concerning the paper for drawings. I had set my heart upon getting some of it, as it is so completely what I have long been in search of... upon my honour I would give a guinea a quire for a dozen quires of it”.
Whatman paper was used by JMW Turner, John Robert Cozens, John Sell Cotman and Cornelius Varley.
William Blake used it for four of his illuminated books, the public being informed that they were printed on “the most beautiful wove paper that could be procured”.
Many of the watercolour masterpieces in the early nineteenth century are on paper bearing the “J. Whatman” or “J. Whatman/Turkey Mill” watermarks.
Throughout history Heads of State and world leaders have shown a particular penchant for Whatman paper.
Napoleon used Whatman paper for writing his will; George Washington signed many state documents on Whatman paper and Queen Victoria chose Whatman for her personal correspondence.
Up untill the mid 1800s rag,old ropes sails off cuts from taliors were used for making paper then they started using wood pulp.
The rags were boiled then beatered
In the 1930’s Soviet leaders used Whatman paper to publish their five year plan for the future of the USSR, while the peace treaty with Japan was signed on Whatman paper at the close of World War II.
In 1804, after a series of retirements, deaths and complicated business and licensing arrangements, J Whatman paper production was moved to Springfield Mill, Maidstone Kent.
A sample book from the 1930s contains almost 300 different types of handmade paper for writing, record keeping and fine-art. This is astonishing when you consider the work required to produce just one type of paper by hand now or even by machine. It demonstrates the mastery Whatman had in this field of manufacture.
Like many other crafts, papermaking by hand on a commercial basis eventually became non viable due to the costs of energy, raw materials, retiring expertise, the ending of the apprenticeship tradition and a more upwardly mobile working population.
Handmade paper was discontinued by Whatman in the mid 1950s and machine and mould-made paper manufacturing ended in the mid 1960's.
In the 1930s Whatman began making scientific filter papers. Production of this material continued at Springfield Mill until 2009 when its owners, GE Healthcare sold the site.
The mill was cleared and demolished in 2018 and is now a housing estate.
Today, handmade paper is made around the world commercially by individuals or teams of 2 to 4 craftspeople producing a narrow range of paper for watercolour, printmaking and conservation bookbinding. These individuals or small teams oversee every aspect of making a sheet of paper from choosing the fibre to drying and packing their product.
In the Golden Age of papermaking this was very different, this process was a semi industrial one which dozens of time-served apprentices specialising in one process of the craft.
The first process in traditional papermaking was preparing rags.
Recycled linen and cotton rags were used to make paper long before trees were the main source of pulp, hence the term "rag paper".
Huge bundles of rags were bought from specialist dealers who sourced old, worn out clothing, bed linen, rope (as in "money for old rope") yacht sails etc.
Women were employed at paper mills as "rag sorters", their job to remove all impurities such as buttons, rivets, pins, rubber and to sort them into their types; linen or cotton.
In the very early days, rag would be allowed to rot down a little (retted) to soften before further processing but retting allowed the rag to naturally heat up and was a fire hazard!
The process was modernised when washing the rags in a weak bleach solution proved to soften them enough as well as make the fibre much cleaner.
Once the rags were sorted, washed and shredded, they were placed in mechanical Hollander beaters with water which washed out the bleach and broke down the rag pieces into a much finer, porridge-looking material - rag pulp, from which beautiful paper was made.
In ancient times pulp was slowly and laboriously beaten with wooden stamping mallets powered by a waterwheel.
During the era of the industrial revolution and steam powered engines, the Dutch invented the Hollander beater, superseding stamping mallet beaters.
Hollanders clean, grind and beat papermaking fibres with adjustable revolving steel-toothed wheels in a revolving bath of water which can be drained and refilled ensuring the water is always clean, an important aspect when making good quality paper.
So effective was the Hollander beater that it is still used today by hand papermakers in an unchanged format electric motors replacing steam driven engines .
In papermaking, a beater man was considered as important as the Vatman - the person who formed the sheets from the pulp.
The beater man was responsible for ensuring the fibres were the correct consistency and grade for the particular type of paper being produced that day.
For example, imitation parchment paper was made from linen fibres beaten for hours until they were made hot from through friction. Printmaking paper was made from softly beaten fibres. Get this wrong and you'll end up with rubbish paper.
Once rags had been beaten in the Hollander Beaters the pulp mix was no longer called pulp but instead "Stuff". Yes, stuff.
Once the pulp had been beaten to the correct grade and became stuff it was pumped directly from the Hollander beaters through a series of pipes to Stuff Chests.
These Stuff Chests are large, round storage containers with a set of revolving agitating arms. The agitating arms ensure the stuff remains suspended in water and doesn't settle to the bottom of the chests and solidify.
From the Stuff Chests the stuff could be pumped into the papermaking vats where the vatman would create sheet after sheet of paper.
Most of the paper you'll use today is machine-made on a huge roll which is subsequently cut into sheets; the drying process is carried out at as part of the production process - all by machine. It's very efficient.
In the days where paper was most commonly made by hand, one sheet at a time, all paper was dried in a loft suspended over ropes or poles or laid out on shelves of hessian sacking.
The deckle and mould is dipped into a vat (hence the term Vatman) of water and paper pulp. Whatman deckle and mould for making paper
Watermarks were created with wire shapes and letters sewn onto the mould. The raised areas meant less pulp could settle making that area of the paper thinner.
Whatman's pre-eminence as a paper maker was attracting considerable interest, and in 1770, the Society of Antiquaries was commissioned to make a large copper engraving of an old painting depicting Henry VIII meeting Francis I at eh Field of the Cloth of Gold.
The necessary paper had to be 49 1/4 x 27 inches - slightly bigger than the Double Elephant size which was the largest made by Whatman.
James Whatman, ever the creative problem solver wrote: "I have no doubt but a Contrivance I have thought of will enable me to make it, although that will draw on a certain expense of at least £50 for things which cannot be of use to me on any other occasion".
Whatman built his Contrivance to make Antiquarian-size paper, which took 11 men to operate. The resulting sheets were so heavy that they had to be transported to London by a small sailing vessel called a hoy.