The Shortage of Raw Materials for the English Paper Industry in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

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  • 18世紀および19世紀前半におけるイギリス製紙業の原料問題―トマス=グリーヴズと芸術・工業・商業奨励協会を中心に―
  • 18セイキ オヨビ 19セイキ ゼンハン ニ オケル イギリス セイシギョウ ノ ゲンリョウ モンダイ トマス グリーヴズ ト ゲイジュツ コウギョウ ショウギョウ ショウレイ キョウカイ オ チュウシン ニ

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Abstract

The paper industry in England that began to develop actively from the end of the seventeenth century suffered persistently from a shortage of linen and cotton rags which were its main raw materials, with accompanying increases in price till the middle of the nineteenth century. Without dealing with the shortages the industry could not grow into the modern great industry based on the factory system. In the face of such a critical shortage of raw material, the paper industry tried, from the early eighteenth century onwards, to find a new vegetable substance to replace linen and cotton rags. In this paper, I show how new raw materials for paper manufacture were discovered by the middle of the nineteenth century by reference to reports of experiments with new raw materials excluding the use of linen and cotton rags, and by looking at proposals to the paper industry published at that time in England. It was only in the second half of the nineteenth century that, after many attempts to find new materials, the paper industry succeeded in substituting abundantly available esparto and wood-pulp as raw materials for scarce supplies of linen and cotton rags. Therefore, it is possible to suggest that the conversion from old raw materials to new ones was one of the important contributory factors to the industrial revolution in England.

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