John Dickinson (1782-1869)

John Dickinson (29 March 1782 – 11 January 1869) invented a continuous mechanised papermaking process and founded the paper mills at Croxley Green, Apsley and Nash Mills in England, which evolved into John Dickinson Stationery Limited.

Dickinson built and lived at Abbots Hill, Nash Mills, on a hillside site looking down upon his mills in the valley bottom.

Dickinson was the eldest son of Captain Thomas Dickinson RN and his wife Frances born de Brissac. Thomas Dickinson was the superintendent of the Ordnance Transports at Woolwich and Frances Dickinson was the daughter of a French silk-weaver in Spitalfields.

At the age of fifteen, Dickinson started a seven-year apprenticeship as a stationer with Messrs Harrison and Richardson in London. He was admitted to the Livery of the Stationers' Company in 1804 and began to trade, in stationery, in the City of London.

He demonstrated his resourceful nature by inventing a new kind of paper for cannon cartridges. This type of paper did not smoulder after the cannon had fired, which had been the cause of constant accidental explosions in the artillery. Until his time, paper was produced using rag and esparto, instead of the conventional wood pulp Dickinson patented his invention, and it was taken up by the army. It was said to have been of great value in the battles against Napoleon, increasing the British firing rate while simultaneously reducing premature firing accidents.

In an age of technical innovation, attempts had already been made to build a machine capable of the continuous manufacture of paper to replace the handmade techniques then used, notably by the Frenchman Henry Fourdriner.

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