Mill End Mill

The text that follows is due in large part to the work of Eric Finerty, 'The history of paper mills in Hertfordshire', which apperard in successive issues of The Papermaker and British Trade Journal in Apirl, May and June 1957. It remains the definitive work on the subject.

In some respects Mill End and Solesbridge Mills form a pair, for during two long periods they were worked together.

From the documentary evidence available Mill End was already making paper in 1755. In an apprentice register George Andrews and William Sands, both of Rickmansworth, each took an apprentice, but which of them was at Mill End and which at Scots Bridge cannot be determined. In Richard Johnson's list of addresses of paper makers, found in one of his note­books now in the possession of the Stationers' Com­pany and compiled about 1793, Mill End was occupied by Howard and Dell; in 1796 a Mary Dell attended a meeting of Hertfordshire paper makers at Rickmans­worth.

The next occupant was, presumably, Lewis Munn, who was running mills in Kent and Hertfordshire according to the list of makers drawn up when the United Society of Master Paper Makers in Great Britain was founded in 1803. He continued to work the mill for many years and references to him are found in the Hertfordshire County Records and the Excise Lists. In the former it is recorded that at the Epiphany Sessions 1808 he prosecuted Charlotte Wil­son for stealing "a great quantity of linen rags, being foreign rags” (rags were the basic raw material for paper making); she was committed for trial. In the Excise List of 1816 the mill was assigned the number 434 and was grouped in the Uxbridge Collection.

By 1832 John Magnay was in occupation. He be­longed to a family who owned a large, flourishing wholesale business on College Hill, London. This had been founded by Christopher Magnay in the early part of the century, and its importance may be gauged by the civic honours he gained in the City of London - alderman in 1813, then sheriff, and finally Lord Mayor in 1821. William suc­ceeded his father, not only as a paper merchant and liveryman of the Stationers' Company, but as a civic dignitary too, becoming Lord Mayor himself in 1843 and a baronet in 1844. Though primarily wholesale station­ers they found it desirable to run paper mills; in 1816 they had three in Buckinghamshire, and after giving these up some time before 1830, they acquired three more near Guildford, in Surrey, and another at Mill End. This may well have been the sale advertised in the County Press on 11 April 1835, which related that it was a 'powerful water paper mill... driving sixengines [big beaters to grind the rags into pulp] and two paper machines, with drying cylinders ... two steam boilers ... blanching and boiling houses.' Mechanical paper making produced so much paper that it had to be quickly dried in a loft heated by steam.

The 1839 tithe survey shows William Magnay as both owner and occupier of Mill End mill and other property nearby, but by 1842 Charles and Frederick Arthur Magnay, William's half brothers, were there. However, in 1845 Fred­erick's wife died, and it seems likely that this caused him to go with his father-in-law, William Frederick Augustus Delane, to much larger mills at Taverham, near Norwich, which produced for the next 40 years much of the paper for "The Times," of which at one time Delane had been the financial manager.

Thereafter for a number of years Mill End was worked by James and Charles Alcock. According to the "Paper Mills Directory" of 1860 it was occupied by George Austin, son of James Austin, who was already at Solesbridge. With the appearance of annual directories a little more light is shed on the mills. Mill End produced paper known as "fine small hands," and for this two 60-inch machines were in use by 1871 - we don't know the size of the ones mentioned in 1835.

In his "History of Hertfordshire" (published 1879) Cussans commented on Mill End, "The mill is now a paper mill, belonging to Mr. George Austin. Adjacent to it, on the south side, as the tannery of Mr. Alfred Wild. These two manufactories afford employment to such of the working population as are not engaged in agriculture. In Mill End are but seventeen trades­men, of whom three are blacksmiths, one is a brewer, and nine are publicans. It is evident that much beer, as well as water, is required in the making of paper and leather."

Business declined and eventually in 1888 with lia­bilities of about £3,000 George Austin went bankrupt. The mill was advertised locally for several months and late in 1890 it was started up again by the Mill End Paper Co., owned by Albert J. Wells and with George Austin jr. as manager. Extensive alterations were made, and the mill, now with one 60 in. machine, be­gan production of “blottings". Its peak output was 8-10 tons per week, using only rag pulp. But it could never be described as a thriving mill and in 1905 it was advertised for sale. This was the end, for a few years later it was acquired by Mr. P. Clutterbuck, a local landowner, and finally demolished.

Little now remains of the mill except the old mill race and the supports for the mill wheel. But it was an important feature of this end of Rickmansworth.