Artifacts wererequired to tell the papermaking part of the exhibition. I visited WhatmanTurkey Mill in Maidstone, Kent in southeast England over a period of threeyears, meeting with my co-authors, doing research at the local archive andmuseum, and meeting descendents of the Whatmans, their papermakers, as well asthe last living manager of Turkey Mill. I also consulted with Maureen and SimonBarcham Green who allowed me access to their fabulous archive of Hayle Millpapers.
Few original artifacts and images survive fromTurkey Mill. I decided that we would borrow what we could from Turkey Mill andsupplement our papermaking materials with rich resources that were kindly lentby Turkey Mill Investments, Simon Barcham Green, the Robert C. Williams PaperMuseum in Atlanta, the Crane Paper Museum, and the Arts of the Book andBeinecke libraries at Yale University. Most of the artwork were secured fromthe Yale Center for British Art.
To simplify the presentation we decided fromthe outset to place the papermaking equipment and the watercolors in separateareas of the exhibition. I might share a few tips for those undertaking similarventures. To make the process accessible and come alive in the museum, weshowed a DVD of hand papermaking as it was practiced at Hayle Mill in Kent in1976 and one of making Antiquarian paper at Springfield Mill in 1930. Wedisplayed papermaking
moulds on the wall. Without back lighting, themoulds’ structures were difficult to see. To compensate, we inset white matboard behind the back of the moulds which provided contrast. Rare books wereused extensively throughout the exhibition to illustrate the manufacturingtechnology of eighteenth-century paper. In addition to exhibiting threeoriginal volumes of Denis Diderot’s Encyclopedia of Arts and Industries, I useddigital enlargements from the Encyclopedia illustrating the papermakingprocess. From a design standpoint, I felt that the combination ofthree-dimensional papermaking artifacts, film, rare books, and graphic worksmade for an educational and compelling installation.
Telling the Story of Mr. Whatman’s Paper Mill theresafairbanks harris papermaking and the art of watercolor in eighteenth-centurybritain: paul sandby and the whatman paper mill Theresa Fairbanks Harris andScott Wilcox, with essays and contributions by Stephen Daniels, Michael Fuller,and Maureen Green. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006. 192 pages,
10 x 8 ¾ x 1 inches, with 72 color and 20black-and-white illustrations, a glossary of papermaking terminology, andbibliography. $50 hardcover.
Installation view (detail) of exhibition withpapermaking equipment, photographs, and rare and artist books aboutpapermaking. Objects included: Dard Hunter’s model of the papermakers from theCrane Museum (1930); and drawings, photographs, and artifacts from Turkey andSpringfield Mills. Photo: Richard Caspole. All photos courtesy of the authorunless otherwise noted.
The focus of theexhibition is a watercolor entitled A View of Vinters at Boxley, Kent, with Mr.Whatman’s Turkey Paper Mills by Paul Sandby, one of Britain’s foremostwatercolor painters. The watercolor, on Whatman paper, was commissioned in 1794by the papermaker James Whatman the Younger (1741–1798) as a record of hisestate and celebrated paper mill. Today, the painting remains a valuabledocument of an important eighteenth-century paper mill. It was our goal toplace this watercolor in the larger context of Sandby’s work, hand papermaking,and the art of watercolor.
First, we considered how Sandby representedthe mill and estate and what the commission tells us about Whatman’s stature asa businessman on the eve of the Industrial Revolution. We also examined therole of James Whatman the Elder (1702–1759) and his son in the evolvingpapermaking industry, and the innovations and improvements that made Whatmanpapers famous throughout the world. Whatman’s most important technicalcontribution to Western papermaking was the invention of wove paper by coveringthe traditional laid-paper mould with a smooth, woven-wire cloth.1 Whatmancreated this paper for the printer John Baskerville, who sought asmooth-surfaced paper. This new paper was first used in Paul Sandby, Baskerville’s1757 publication of Publii Virgilii Maronis Bucolica, Georgica, et Aeneis.Benjamin Franklin was so taken with this paper that he bought six copies of thebook and introduced it to the French. This new paper became highly prized byprinters and artists, including J.M.W. Turner and Thomas Gainsborough. detailof A View of Vinters at Boxley, Kent, with Mr. Whatman’s Turkey Paper Mills, 26½ x 40 inches, opaque and transparent watercolor and pencil on wove paper countermarkedJ WHATMAN, laid down on canvas on a wooden strainer, 1794. Collection YaleCenter for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund. Photo: Richard Caspole. right: Laid(left) and wove (right) papers, viewed close-up with backlighting. Photo:Theresa Fairbanks Harris.
James Whatman theYounger perfected his father’s wove paper and made Whatman’s Turkey Mill thelargest and most influential paper mill in England. Whatman II was also knownfor the creation of the largest sheet of Western handmade paper which was namedAntiquarian for the Society of Antiquaries who commissioned the product. Thisenormous sheet (53 x 31 inches) required nine men to produce, employing a leversystem referred to as the gallows or contrivance. This paper became a popularwatercolor support through the early twentieth century and was marketed by Winsorand Newton as Griffin Antiquarian. Very hard, gelatin-sized J Whatman wovepapers were developed especially for watercolorists. These gelatin-sizedpapers, hardened by the addition of alum, could bear up to the abusive subtractivescraping, sponging, and washing watercolor techniques popularized by J.M.W.Turner. For the exhibition, Mr. Wilcox selected beautiful artworks on Whatmanpaper to show the importance of the smooth, wove, hard-sized paper to the artof transparent watercolor. The specialization of papers for artists’ userequired very careful drying due to the finicky nature of the gelatin sizing.During my research, one of the discoveries I made was the identification of oneof the buildings pictured in Sandby’s watercolor. The long, single-story, whitebuilding on the right side of the painting is a drying shed for paper. Englishmills typically used tall drying lofts with vertical shutters, but the buildingnoted has horizontal shutters. It was probably based on Dutch drying shedswhich were single story to avoid obstructing the wind that powered thewindmills. Photograph from Springfield Mill in the 1930s showing the team ofmen required to make Antiquarian paper. The vat and “contrivance” are to theleft. Collection of Whatman PLC. Another finding that remains to be researchedis the existence of stone beating troughs at Turkey Mill which are probablynineteenth-century. I found them on my first trip to Kent. Beating troughs inEngland were commonly made of wood. There is only one other documentation ofstone troughs in England, at Otham Mill located a half-mile upstream fromTurkey Mill.3 Other than the stone troughs, there is little left of theoriginal papermaking equipment. The facility was closed as a paper mill in 1977and converted to a business and office complex.
To learn moreabout the processes and raw materials used at Turkey Mill, we analyzed Whatmanpapers themselves. In the eighteenth century, rags, mainly linen, were used tomake fine Whatman papers. Rags were in short supply in England. In theexhibition, we illustrated this dearthof raw material with a copy of a 1687 Act of Parliament by King James thatforbade the exportation of rags. We demonstrated the search for new papermakingfibers by displaying one of Jacob Christian Schäeffer’s seminal volumes from1765 which outlines experiments using non-rag papermaking fibers, and MatthiasKoops’ important publication on new raw materials for papermaking, firstprinted in 1800 on straw paper. By the nineteenth century, with the advent ofthe papermaking machine, alternative fibers such as esparto and wood pulp were used.These early machine-made, wood-pulp papers were harshly bleached, resulting inpoor quality which led to a renaissance in hand papermaking during the Arts andCrafts Movement initiated by William Morris in the latter half of thenineteenth century. Hand papermaking may have come to an end at Turkey Mill in1859, but it survived in other mills in Kent. Dard Hunter (1883–1966) madeseveral trips to the region and visited Turkey and Hayle mills. This contactwith English papermakers launched Hunter’s lifelong pursuit of fine paper,which inspired future generations of papermakers. Printers, artists,bookmakers, and conservators are the main supporters of hand papermaking. Allof these crafts have a common bond: they look to the past for knowledge andinspiration for the future. Today, a growing number of artisans continue thetradition of making paper by hand, based on historical methods.
In this age of impersonalized, mass-producedmaterials, many artists value handmade papers. Machine-made papers cannot matchthe beauty, subtle textures, or the surface quality of handmade, gelatin-sizedpapers. One hopes that this ancient and noble craft survives for futuregenerations. The critical importance of paper to the art of watercolor isreflected in J.MW. Turner’s advice to painters: “First of all, respect yourpaper.”4 ___________
notes 1. Wove paper had been invented in theFar East at a much earlier date. 2. Theresa Fairbanks Harris et al.,Papermaking and the Art of Watercolor in Eighteenth-Century Britain: Paul Sandbyand the Whatman Paper Mill, 79–83. 3. Michael Fuller, “British Paper Mills:Otham Mill, Kent,” The Quarterly: The Review of the British Association ofPaper Historians 11 ( July 1994): 1–5. 4. Peter Bower, Turner’s Papers: A Studyof the Manufacture, Selection and Use of his Drawing Papers, 1787–1820 (London:Tate Gallery, 1990), 11. Mary Lloyd, “A Memoir of J.M.W. Turner, R.A. by‘M.L.,’” Turner Studies 4, no. 1 (Summer 1984): 22–23. Reprinted from [MaryLloyd], Sunny Memories (London: Women’s Printing Society Limited, 1880), 31–38.Detail of the drying shed at the right of the mill complex in Sandby’s A Viewof Vinters and Turkey Mill. Note, in the foreground, the woman, the boy inmilitary costume, and the dog. top left: Turkey Mill in 2005. bottom left:Stone beating trough (c. 19th century), Turkey Mill, 2005. All photos thispage: Theresa Fairbanks Harris.
