PAPER No. 003 THE PAPERMAKERS OF SNODLAND c.1740-1854 Updated 2016 Dr. ANDREW ASHBEE This paper has been downloaded from www.kentarchaeology.ac. The author has placed the paper on the site for download for personal or academic use. Any other use must be cleared with the author of the paper who retains the copyright. Please email
[email protected] for details regarding copyright clearance. The Kent Archaeological Society (Registered Charity 223382) welcomes the submission of papers. The necessary form can be downloaded from the website at www.kentarchaeology.ac 1 THE PAPERMAKERS OF SNODLAND c.1740-1854 ANDREW ASHBEE Preamble There are already two excellent studies of Snodland Paper Mill1, so it may seem presumptuous to add a third. Between them Alfred Shorter2, Michael Fuller and Kenneth Funnell have thoroughly researched the surviving records and there is probably little more to find in official documentary sources. It is very regrettable that the extensive Snodland Mill records, which had survived the devastating fire of 12 August 1906, were all pulped in the mid-twentieth century before they could be examined by historians. So this paper turns rather to genealogical sources concerning the early owners and papermakers, which reveal a fascinating web of connections between people and places. The arrival of the Hook family in 1854-5 makes a suitable end; they took the Snodland mill into expansive and profitable development. Papermakers seem to have moved regularly from mill to mill and Snodland mill (like many others) was often but a stepping-stone for both owners and employees. Movement between local mills is of course to be expected - and there were many in the Maidstone area, but so far as Snodland is concerned there are also strong links with the principal papermaking area in England: the Wye valley in Buckinghamshire, where more than thirty mills were active in the early nineteenth century.