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Dr Martin Maw entertained us with a talk on the history of the Wolvercote paper mills. He explained that there was a reference to the area in the doomsday Book and that a mill and weir were established there in the 12th century belonging to Godstow Abbey. When the Dissolution of the monasteries saw the disposal of religious houses in the 16th century the mill was sold off and became a private secular enterprise. The Tudor monarchy, however, had already started to have an effect upon the business with a growth of bureaucracy and an increased demand for paper.
The 17th century saw the real beginnings of paper industry and Thomas Quelch acquired the mill and produced paper with a watermark. In the early part of the 18th century the mill passed to the Beckforth family and several different members, including a Mrs Beckworth, had control for several years. By the middle of the century the business was very patchy and other products were milled, including corn. Eventually the Duke of Marlborough acquired the property.
In 1792 the business was taken over by John and James Swan who rebuilt the mill in 1802. The brothers were extremely successful for many years and in 1814 they made a profit of £14,000, a huge sum at that time. Nevertheless fortune did not continue to shine and by 1848 the business was bankrupt.
Much of the paper produced was supplied to the Oxford University Press for bibles and in 1855 the university printer, Thomas Combe, bought the mill for approximately £2000. The purchase proved to be a very good buy as it made him a very rich man. In 1858 he sold £18,000's worth of paper to the OUP. With his wealth he was able to build churches, schools and other items for the community. He also became a patron of the Pre-Raphaelite painters. He sold the mill back to the university in 1872, only about three weeks before his death. The price he received was a great deal more than he had paid.
He was very ambitious and willing to experiment with new ideas. The water from the weir had been the power-source for the simple operation through a water wheel. However, new machinery was added and eventually a steam engine supplemented the water driven wheel. He also saw that the growth of education was bringing a demand for smaller books which the traditional rag based paper could not supply. He introduced a very strong but thin material which he called India Paper which was, in fact, a material made from the hemp in ships' rope, used to protect china porcelain used in the Staffordshire potteries. The production of this material as a paper involved large quantities of lime which caused too much pollution and so made local production less than desirable and so he never developed the process locally preferring to contract the manufacture out to firms in the Midlands.
Large numbers of people were employed in the sorting the rags collected. They had to remove any buttons and other fixings before the often-filthy pieces were steamed and turned to pulp. Wood pulp was introduced to make the reliance on rags and the India paper less.
The 20th century saw the introduction of electrical powered machinery although the steam power was still used. New buildings were added as well as some older ones replaced. During the Second World War ink extraction process was used to enable recycling of old paper and the Press produce codebooks for the Royal Navy. In the 1960's computerisation was introduced and during the 70's production was at 300 tons per week.
Unfortunately global economics intervened during the 1980's and in 1989 the OUP closed the local print shop. They contracted the printing side of the publishing business out, mostly to firms in the Far East. With its main purpose for existing gone the mill had to stop paper production. Although the property is still owned by the university any work done there now is for firms who lease the buildings and papermaking is non-existent.
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