Welsh Journals

Paper sorter, 17 years of age, female 3s. per week Paper sorter, 16 years of age, female 2s. 6d. per week Rag cutter, 17 years of age 3s. 6d. to 4s. per week Engineer, 13 years of age 2s. per week The mill foreman, who earned 24s. per week, started working at the mill at the age of ten. Then, he earned 2s. a week for picking bits of dirt out of the vat. It is unfortunate that no evidence exists to indicate the wages of the various skilled and semi-skilled men who were concerned with the main production process at the mill. The Turkey paper-mill emerged from the Children's Employment Commission Inquiry of 1843 with a satisfactory record. The workers were reported to be 'healthy, well-clothed and very respectable', although they were considered to be 'very ignorant, except in what relate[d] to their own occupations'. Nevertheless, it was not until the Factory Acts were applied to the paper-industry in 1867 that conditions improved in the paper-mills. What follows is a survey of the evidence for the existence of paper- mills and paper-makers in Wales to the year 1900. BRECKNOCKSHIRE LLANGENNI There was some paper-making in Llangenni in 1790. A. H. Shorter has noted that 'George Window, paper-maker, took an apprentice, William James'11 in that year. The mill was held by George Window after 1800 and it was on paper supplied by the concern that William and George North printed the first volume of Theophilus Jones' History of the County of Brecknock in 1805: 'Mr Jones, in the patriotic ardour of his heart, caused not only the printing of his book, but even the manufacture of the paper to be carried out in his own county, the latter being executed at the Llangenny Paper Mills'.12 The mill was also known to Walter Davies in 1814 when he referred to the manufacture of brown paper 'at Glan Grwyney, near Crickhowell'.13 In 1816 the mill held by James Window was listed as No. 440 in the Customs and Excise General Letter Book.14 The Llangenni paper-mill survived the post-war depression under different ownerships. After 1840 it became known as the Golden Grove Mill and under the style of James Jacob and Company, it turned to the manufacture of millboards.15 They were the mill's chief product in 1892 when the owners agreed to experiment with the manufacture of millboards from spent hops at the request of the Mayor of Burton-on- Trent, who intended setting up the industry in his home-town. The Mayor received the following report from James Jacob & Son:16