A Visit to the Paper Trail

Apsley, Hemel Hempstead

January 2009

Paper making has been a major local source of employment in the Gade Valley from the late 18th century until the late 20th century, but in recent years most of the factories have been demolished and replaced with housing and other commercial developments (the Sainbury's supermarket occupies part of the former John Dickinson's works). The industry is therefore important for anyone researching their family history in the area, but is also internationally important because of the development of the Fourdrinier paper making machine in the early 19th century.

One of the huge Victorian Fourdrinier machines is still in full working condition and a few years ago work started to include it as part of a working museum called the Paper Trail. It is now open, thanks to a large Heritage Lottery grant, which also covers other community related activities in the historic buildings that still survive. However there has recently been newspaper reports of funding difficulties caused by the current economic depression and while I had visited the site some years ago I decided to visit it again to seen how the work towards developing the museum had progressed.

The Web site (www.thepapertrail.org.uk)  includes the following description:

Frogmore Mill is the very heart of The Paper Trail project and the 'jewel in its crown'. So why is this site so unique? - It was at Frogmore that the world's first machine for making a continuous roll of paper was built (the birth of paper's industrial revolution) and Frogmore Mill is still producing paper today.

The primary objective of The Paper Trail is to conserve, restore and maintain Frogmore as a working paper mill using a 'Fourdrinier' paper machine which dates back to 1895 (and is driven by steam!) and to make this unique industrial heritage accessible to the public.

A tour round Frogmore Mill is fascinating. Not only can you see paper actually being made on the machine (unlike most modern machines which are fully enclosed) but it is almost like walking back in time to the Victorian era.

I found the visit very interesting - and particularly the tour round the mill. The is an initial exhibition area, with some interesting exhibits, including a large bust of John Dickinson, and a case containing a selection of paper products produced by John Dickinson & Co. There is also a video to watch while waiting for a tour around the mill, and a work area where children can be shown the principles of making paper. You then come to a window which allows you to see a large letterpress shop - which is still used to print some House of Commons documents. It may be one of the last working letterpress shop in the UK as the technology has almost totally been replaced by computer typesetting world wide. On the way to the working mill you pass the pre-war works Dennis fire engine before coming the the working machinery.

The mill currently recycles paper and the visit starts with a view of where the original undershoot water mill was - and it is planned to re-install a water wheel. The visit continues with a series of machines which shred the paper and convert it first into a crumb and finally into a very watery suspension ready to be fed to the paper making machine. As you will see from the following diagram of a similar machine, which shows human figures to scale, the machine is huge - the model at Frogmore mill having eighteen drying cylinders.

When I visited the machine was in operation making a red-coloured paper - which was then being cut into sheets from the huge rolls than come off the machine. It is currently has a full order book for speciality papers. I understand that school parties regularly visit the mill and I am sure it provides them with memories that they will never forget. I remember, as a child, being very impressed on a school visit, to the scale of the machinery in our local gas works.

After your visit there is a pleasant little cafe and a shop which sells copies of the useful booklet The Early History of Machine Paper-Making (which was printed on paper made in the mill) and the book The Endless Web: John Dickinson & Co Ltd. I was perhaps a little disappointed that I could not see a poster (possibly on a long narrow strip) illustrating the Fourdrinier machine - such as shown above. I am sure that such would be wow with school children who have visited the museum - particularly if they were required to write an account of their visit when they returned to school. A booklet on the letterpress office, printed in the office, with illustrations and including various type sizes and type faces, would be a useful addition.

All in all a very satisfactory visit which I can strongly recommend for anyone whose ancestors were involved in paper making, especially if they lived and worked in the area.

The Paper Mills, Apsley End
Valentine Card 54390 JV, posted 1911

However the visit raised the whole problem of preserving our industrial heritage. In almost every town and village you can visit the old parish church, and even those which are no longer in regular use are often preserved and protected. However there are few surviving relics of the industrial revolution which played such an important part in the life of many of our ancestors. In some cases the mill buildings still stand, but have long been stripped of the machinery and are used as small industrial units (such as the silk mill in Tring) or converted to flats. Factories of all types have been stripped of machinery and while a few samples have ended up as static displays in museums there are very few places where large fixed Victorian machines have survived and are still being used and every effort needs to be made to keep these running to help people learn to understand the past - and the great advances in manufacturing technology that became possible with the coming of steam power.

However there are many difficulties - and it is important that all interested in our history keep the machines, such as the Fourdrinier machine in Frogmore Mill, running for future generations to see, in the area which pioneered their use. For most people the only working 19th century equipment which they can see are railway engines and there are now many preserved lines. But railways are a special case. The steam railway engines were very visible, used by everyone, and glamorised by children's toys and books - and are still  in books like Thomas the Tank engine. Railway engines are portable - so they can be moved to suitable locations - and most restored lines with working engines run through attractive countryside in tourist areas.

Specialised industrial machines are much harder to preserve - and I don't think there is a single town gas works surviving anywhere in England - much less with its machinery in working condition - despite the fact that 50 years ago there must have been thousands of them in operation. Machines such as the one in Frogmore Mill are far too big to move, are located in unglamorous industrial buildings, and are often far from the regular tourist haunts. When such machines were constructed they were hidden from the eyes of the public and it is possible that many of the people who worked in the paper mills at Apsley never saw the paper being made. There was never a market for children's books about "Foury the Paper Making Machine" although there were simple printing sets for children which could make the letterpress shop attractive. Any project trying to preserve such machines has difficulties in generating public interest - however historically important the machinery is.

For such reasons the museum has had problems in attracting enough individual visitors and needs more support. It is a must for school visits to allow them to get a feel for large scale Victorian technology at work - and would appeal as an outing for societies with an interest in history - or the printing industry - which made use of the paper. It is equally important that people whose ancestors worked with paper support the project - and I urge you all to give the museum a visit if you want to see (and your children and grandchildren to be able to see) one of the marvels of 19th century engineering skills at work.

5.30 P.M. at Apsley Mills
"Art Series" card, photo by H. W. Flatt, Boxmoor - circa 1910

To illustrate how important the paper industry is to people whose ancestors come from the Hemel Hempstead area I have added an extract from the 1851 census of people who lived in the Two Water/ Apsley area whose occupations suggest that they worked in one of the paper mills. This is clearly incomplete as I have excluded people who worked on the canal or canal wharfs - some of whom would undoubtedly worked at the paper mills. I have also excluded people such as carpenters (although it is known that the mills employed some) and those whose occupation is simply described as labourer, errand boy, etc. I have also not included people from Boxmoor and the rest of Hemel Hempstead who might have had to walk a mile or more to work.

If your ancestor is listed above make a date to visit the Mill and see how and where the paper was made.