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I have been unable to establish any details of Joynson’s early life. He certainly owned a mill in Snodland in Kent which he sold prior to buying or starting the Mill at St. Mary Cray (I’m still researching the origins of SMC mill). As a mill owner he was obviously successful having built a church in Snodland and a few years later (when he was operating SMC) underwriting the costs of building the London Tabernacle for the Victorian evangelist, Spurgeon. The sum he guaranteed was £20,000 -which would equate to about £1.4 million today!

The Mill in Snodland produced hand made paper and although the paper machine was invented in 1803, I have been unable to find SMC as being one of the pioneer mills for the new technology. Thus it is likely that Cray produced all hand made paper. SMC specialised in the production of high quality writing and art papers (e.g. drawing and watercolour grades) and would therefore have only used high quality rags.

Joynson also aspired to making the best quality printing papers which were required to be very smooth. He was frustrated in this ambition by Devon Valley Mill, at Hele in Devon, England. Hele had perfected a method of producing an ultra smooth paper and it was this grade that was chosen as the official paper for the great Exhibition of 1851 (Crystal Palace). A few years later Joynson purchased Hele Mill and learnt the secret of making the finest quality smooth papers.

The papermaking process:

The rags would have been delivered to the mill and left in the yard to ret (start to decay by the action of rain and sun). Women and children were employed to sort the rags in to type (e.g. cotton, flax, hemp, etc.) and to cut them in to squares of about 100mm (4”). At this stage any buttons would be removed and thrown away. In the case of SMC they were dumped on the riverbank where local children sorted through them in the hope of finding something saleable!

Pulping was carried out in one of two ways: For centuries stamp mills were used to crush and break up the fibres but in the middle of the 1700’s a new type of system was devised in Holland. The engine as it was commonly called in England was also known as a beater or Hollander. I do not know what form of fibre preparation was used in the 1840’s but it was probably the Hollander engine as this produced higher volumes of pulp, which was of good quality. Both stamp mills and Hollanders would have been driven by waterpower. SMC still had a millrace and the building that housed the waterwheel when I worked there in 1969.

The prepared pulp (known as stuff a term used by the Chinese 1900 years ago when they invented paper) was delivered to the papermaker who would make up his stock from it. The Stuff would have been about 5% consistency (i.e. 95% water 5% fibre); the papermaker would dilute this to about 1% in a vat for making the sheets.

Mould were used to produce hand sheets, these were of avast range of sizes but were essentially of two types:

The Laid mould consisted of metal wires or spars positioned close together across the wooden frame. These wires were held in position by sewing them together (with horse hair) and then sewing this mesh to the wooden frame. The metal spars and horsehair gave a characteristic watermark known as chain and laid (mimicked in up-market business stationery today).

The Wove Mould was produced using a fine mesh woven on a loom. Again it would be fixed to a wooden frame to make the mould.

Both types of mould would have used a top frame called a deckle, which acted as a reservoir during the paper making process, measuring a constant volume of water and fibre on to the mesh. The deckle would then have been removed to facilitate peeling the sheet from the wire to dry it.

To make a sheet, the papermaker would dip a mould into the vat, carefully lift it out, give it a slight shake to consolidate the fibres together and hand the mould and newly formed sheet to the Couch boy. The Couch boy’s job was to remove the deckle, invert the mould on to a felt (a rough woollen blanket) and remove the sheet. During this latter operation the papermaker would be using a second mould to make a sheet, by which time the first mould would have been emptied and ready for use again.

In this way a stack of paper, interleaved with felts would be made and, when about 4ft high would be taken to a press to remove excess water. The press was probably based on an Italian Olive press but is not dissimilar to an old cider or grape press (do they have those in Tasmania?).

When the sheets were pressed, they would be hung to dry on clothes lines in the drying loft. Sheets would subsequently be sized with gelatine or starch if they were to be used for writing or painting purposes. This was accomplished by simply dipping the sheets in a vat of the sizing solution then re- drying them.

A Fourdrinier paper machine was installed in the 1920’s at SMC and the mill was taken over by a Belgium company (Delcroix) who started producing Vegetable Parchment (the type of paper used for wrapping butter). Wiggins Teape purchased the Belgium operation and the name was changed to The Vegetable Parchment Mills (V PM). The mill finally closed in January 1969.

I cannot throw very much light on your particular relatives (they pre-dated my time at the mill! ! ) but as a general observation.

William Barrows, as paper maker had a highly skilled job. He would probably have served and articled apprenticeship, which would have taken between 7 and 12 years to complete.

The second most important job was probably that of the Couch boy who would have aspired to be a papermaker one day.

Women and children did the menial task, which although they required some knowledge and manual dexterity would not have commanded high wages, nor would they have had job security or chance of improvement. Generally the women got the rough jobs such as feeding the stamp mills you were either quick in this job or crushed by the continually stamping hammers!

In the 1600’s when plague was rife in England the life expectancy of rag sorters was around 25 years old frequently the rags were infested by rats and fleas that carried the virus.