Description
Herbert Edward Sydney Simmons
Studies in British Paper History: Volume VI
Herbert Edward Sydney Simmons gathered information on UK watermills and windmills over a forty year period. His collection is one of a number held by the Science Museum, and it is without doubt the largest ad hoc compilation of such data relating to UK milling. As such The Simmons Collection of Records Relating to British Windmills and Watermills is of national importance as a repository of historical information about UK mills, albeit one on which relatively little order has been imposed, and for which no index exists.
Included within this vast collation of information is an important subset of data relating to Paper Milling operations. This two volume set contains that information, which relates to paper and pulp production, and board manufacture (including fibreboard, leather board, millboard, pasteboard and scaleboard). All of the information collected by Herbert Simmons has been retained, and order has been imposed to give both structure and definition to the work. In addition, the vast majority of references have been verified, and more importantly, mistakes have been corrected. Finally, a detailed set of indexes has been added that clarify links between different mills, paper makers and even regions.
Although the mills have been chosen on the basis of their reported relationship with paper manufacture, information about other milling operations performed at the site, which may pre- or post-date paper manufacture, has been retained. As such the paper manufacturing history is given context within the wider industrial history of each site. Again, the use of these sites for non-paper manufacturing activities is fully referenced in the indexes.
In conclusion, these two volumes together contain information on hundreds of mills, and provide paper historians in particular with a valuable source of references that can be used alongside Alfred Shorter´s seminal Paper Mills and Paper Makers in England 1495-1800 to provide a basis for producing narrative historical essays on individual paper makers and paper mills, as well as on regional and national subjects.
Two volumes, A4, Hardback, Sewn binding. 800 pages, ISBN 978-0-9525757-5-7.
