University of Virginia Library

I

By the beginning of the 1790s much British paper (still all hand-made)
was being produced in wove moulds, which had been gradually supplanting
laid moulds from the late 1750s. Wove paper—made, it is assumed, by James
Whatman snr.—appears to have been used for the first time in a British publication,
John Baskerville's edition of Virgil's Bucolica, Georgica et Æneis,
published in 1757 though the paper itself was presumably available as early
as 1754.[2] The use of wove paper had become the norm by the end of the
century, even if the demand for laid paper was never to be eclipsed entirely.
Not only were moulds increasingly wove; there was a tendency towards the
use of moulds without watermarks. At all periods a certain proportion of

hand-made paper—both laid and wove, and not always paper of the poorest
quality—was produced without watermarks; for volumes printed on wove
paper without watermarks it may therefore be impossible to determine their
format, given the lack also of chain lines and especially in the likely absence
of such alternative determinants as deckle/cut edges, point holes, press figures
or sheet numbers.

The dilemma for the modern bibliographer is, however, largely resolved
by the paper-makers' adherence to the provisions of `An Act for repealing
the duties on paper, pasteboard, millboard, scaleboard, and glazed paper;
and for granting other duties in lieu thereof, (34 George III, c.20), which
came into effect 5 April 1794. Among other things, it provided that British-made
paper used for writing, drawing and printing (`first class' paper) was
to be taxed at the rate of 2½d. per lb. For present purposes the key provision
of the Act was that printed books—whether bound or unbound—were, on
export, eligible for a drawback (a refund of part of the duty already paid)
amounting to 2d. per lb., with the proviso that `any such printed books . . .
shall have visible in the substance thereof a mark commonly called a Water
Mark, of a date of the present year of our Lord in the following figures 1794,
or in a like manner of some subsequent year of our Lord.'[3]

The `or' in this provision of the Act of 1794 is ambiguous, with the result,
it is sometimes maintained, either that some paper-makers misunderstood
the requirement to use the current year or that it allowed them to continue
using moulds dated `1794', thus saving themselves the bother of changing
the date in their moulds at the beginning of the new year.[4] Indeed, Thomas
Balston notes of the Whatman mills, the largest and most highly regarded
paper-making concern in the country, that

In addition, D. C. Coleman observes[6] that at most times wholesale stationers
were willing to buy virtually all the paper that the paper-makers could
produce, in the knowledge that, despite fluctuations in demand, they would
soon be able to sell it in a market which was continuing to expand—in other

words it is possible that a batch of paper could have remained in the stationer's
warehouse for an indeterminate time.[7] Hence (a) the date appearing
in a sheet of paper (whether `1794' or some other year) cannot be taken as
unequivocal evidence of the date of manufacture of the paper containing it,
and (b) paper supplied for a particular job may have been made (and accurately
dated) some years earlier than the date of printing. Nonetheless, despite
the qualifications just adverted to, observation of the typical intervals
between dates in title-page imprints and those appearing in the paper used
by James Ballantyne in Edinburgh in printing the works of Sir Walter Scott
suggests that by and large the paper was used within a year or two of its
manufacture. It might also be noted that there was a `mechanical' reason
why moulds were likely to incorporate a current date: a mould in regular use
might need replacing in as little as six months, by one presumably bearing
the current date.[8] Broadly speaking, therefore, it can be asserted that the date
found in British paper used for the printing of books in the years from 1794
is, after all, likely to be not far removed from the year of manufacture. The
Act of 1794 was repealed in 1811 (51 George III, c.95),[9] meaning that there
was henceforth no requirement that a date be included, but individual paper-makers
continued to produce dated paper for some years beyond 1811, possibly
until the time came to replace their vats and hand-held moulds by
machines.[10] For the purpose of claimng the drawback paper-makers placed
the date close to the longer edge(s) of the mould, so that it would be visible
close to the edge(s) of the resulting sheet and, ideally, visible in a margin of
a printed leaf, though, truth to tell, the watermark has often enough to be
read through the letterpress, particularly in volumes in octavo and smaller.

What follows is a series of illustrations of the disposition of dates (and
other watermarks) in paper made in wove moulds between 1794 and the
1820s.[11] All examples are identified by details of the publication and a note
of the gathering/sheet in which the particular watermark is located,[12] with,
where appropriate, brief comments on the volumes in which the particular
examples have been found and more general observations suggested by the
particular examples (the location of the copy from which the example is
drawn is recorded in a footnote).

First there are examples of the date being attached to a laid mould which
also contains a watermark and countermark in the conventional positions,
resulting in a sheet of paper such as that illustrated in figure 1,[13] which is
found in: "A Lady" [Mary Julia Young], A sketch of modern France. In a
series of letters to a lady of fashion. Written in the years 1796 and 1797, during
a tour through France, ed. C. L. Moody (London: Printed for T. Cadell jun.
and W. Davies, 1798), 8°: a4 B-2K8 2L4 χ1, gathering F. This volume is a little
unusual in that all the paper, whatever the watermark, is laid. Here the date
`1794' is likely to be `genuine', in the sense of having been attached to the
mould in that year, rather than the consequence of a misunderstanding or
misrepresentation of the provisions of the Act—i.e. gathering/sheet F appears
to be the remnant of a paper used in an earlier publication. It is found
in Monash copy 1 in gatherings F-H only and in copy 2 in gatherings R 2A
2D only; the major run of paper in both copies has the `fleur-de-lys/IV'
accompanied by `97' in all four corners, while the final four gatherings
(2H-2L) and the preliminary gathering (a) have a paper without watermarks
except for `1796' in two corners. Whether the dates were added to existing
moulds or not cannot be known, though the `1796' and `97' dates would
imply not, I think, given that an undated mould would have been unlikely
to survive in use for the two years beyond 1794. The `W' within the fleur-delys
suggests that all but four sheets (if not all thirty-three) came from the
same paper-maker, whose practice it was to follow the spirit of the Act. More
frequently, however, dated laid moulds do not have watermarks in the traditional
location(s)—i.e. in the centre of one half of the mould—and from
my limited observation I can cite no instance of a laid mould with a maker's
name in addition to the date.[14]

As has already been noted, by the early 1790s much British paper was
wove, and often enough without watermarks, thus lacking the traditional
indicators of format. Hence the Act of 1794, in requiring the inclusion of a
watermark, in the form, at a minimum, of a date, has provided the modern
bibliographer with the means of undertaking the analysis of printed volumes,
in particular the means of determining format. The Act had the effect of
encouraging the migration of all watermarks (now increasingly paper-makers'
names or initials) to the edges of the sheet, often accompanying the date. I
am not aware, however, that there has been any systematic illustration of
the form of watermarks in wove paper from around the turn of the century
or their disposition within the sheet.[15] But since a familiarity with the various
patterns may be an aid in determining format (or in undertaking other forms
of analysis), I have selected a number of examples from the period for illustration
here.[16] (It is likely that further patterns will be revealed with the use
of a differently constructed sample.)

Throughout I have illustrated the outer forme of the paper (not the imposed
type); dotted lines represent folds, solid lines cuts. The watermark
would be sewn or welded onto the mould in reverse so that it could be read
in the finished sheet from the mould (or `right') side, and in some instances—
depending on whether the watermark lay to the vatman's left or right on the
mould—the watermark, though correctly placed in the illustration, would
be read from the other side of the sheet from that shown and sometimes
actually run in the opposite direction. To give some idea of the resulting
location of watermarks within gatherings I have added type-pages to the
sheet, using the signature `A' to represent sheets, regardless of how in fact
signed, rather than the generally applicable `$' or the actual signature of the
sheet from which the example is drawn. Particularly in the earliest years the
date might be fairly crudely formed by a single wire, but thereafter it is usual
to find a much finer open lettering, an approximation of which I have used
throughout.

The simplest way of meeting the requirements of the Act of 1794 was to
place a single date at one corner of the mould. However, it is certainly commoner
to find the date appearing twice (at diagonally opposite corners) or
four times (at all corners). Often enough, the paper-maker's initials accompany
one of the dates, as in figure 2:[17] Walter Scott, The lay of the last
minstrel, 4th ed. (London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme,
and A. Constable and Co. Edinburgh; by James Ballantyne & Co. Edinburgh,
1806), T/B14Ag;[18] 8°: [A]8 B-U8 X4 Y2. This sheet is another remnant,[19]

found only in gathering/sheet Q in two of the three Melbourne copies;
otherwise the paper is uniformly watermarked `D & A C | 1805 | 1 [2]', gathering/sheet
Q in the third copy being on the paper with the vat number `2'.
(On vat numbers see further below.)

Common, too, is to find the maker's full name plus date in one corner—
see figure 3:[20] Anthony Hamilton, Memoirs of Count Grammont [ed. Walter
Scott], new ed., 2 vols (London: Printed for William Miller, and James Carpenter,
1811), quarto issue, T/B53Ab; vol. 1, 4°: π4 2π1 a-d4 e4(-e4) A-2K4,
gathering 2H. This example also shows how part of the watermark may be
lost in cutting, here at the head of A1, as it is in all gatherings/sheets in the
copy examined, with nothing surviving beyond the `C'. In this publication
the dates in the paper may suggest that the bibliographer should at least entertain
the possibility that there was an interruption in the printing of the
volume. Gatherings A-2C are watermarked `1802' (no maker's name); gatherings
2D-2G `1804' (no maker's name); gatherings π-e and 2H-2K in the way
illustrated—that is, only the last three gatherings of the text and the six
gatherings of the prelims (presumably printed last) are on the paper dated
`1810'. Volume 2 collates π2 A-2X4 2Z2, and gatherings A-2A are watermarked
`1802', 2B-2P `1804', with the `Dickinson 1810' paper in gatherings π and
2Q-2X only, thus implying that the two volumes were going through the
press simultaneously.[21] In this instance the order of the dated papers within
the volume provides a strong indicator of the progress of the work through
the printing house, an incidental virtue which suggests that, where feasible, a
precise record of the incidence of particular papers should be given for at
least those volumes on dated paper. The `1804' paper is employed throughout
for the octavo edition (in French and published concurrently with the two
issue of the English edition),[22] except that gathering e is on the `Dickinson |
1810' paper. On the basis of the paper one might therefore hazard that the
printing of the French edition began when the English edition was well
under way but that the French was finished first, though no doubt other
explanations could be advanced, particularly as the papers may be different
(T/B records the English edition as on Royal, the French on Demy).

The value of dates as watermarks in providing clues to the progress of a
work through the press may be further, and more amply, illustrated by Scott's
nineteen-volume edition of The works of Jonathan Swift, commenced in mid

1808 and finally published 6 August 1814, nearly four years after the date
originally projected. The progress of the work can be followed in Scott's
letters, as well as in the volumes themselves—in printers' imprints, press
figures and the form of signatures, but more obviously in the paper, where
the dates are a ready guide to the breaks in production. Take, for example,
volume 9, which collates π4 A-2I8 2K4(-2K4) *2L8 *2M4 *2N1. Most of the
volume was worked off by 1809: gatherings/sheets A-2I are dated `1808', and
2K `1809'. It is clear from the asterisks that 2L-2N constitute an addition,
while the date in the paper (`1813') suggests that the interval may well have
been four years.[23]

Other paper includes the maker's name and the mill name (plus the date),
as in figure 4:[24] Sir Walter Scott, Provincial antiquities and picturesque
scenery of Scotland (London: John and Arthur Arch; Edinburgh: William
Blackwood, 1826), T/B132Ab; 4°: [a]1 b-g4 h1 A-H4 I2 x I1 K-M4 N1 χ1 O-Q4
R2 x R1 S-T4 U2 X-Y4 Z2 2A1 2B-2E4 2F4 [2G]1, gathering Y. This gathering is
the only one to contain the mill name; the remaining gatherings are watermarked
`J WHATMAN | 1817 [1818, 1819, 1820, 1821, 1822, 1825]'; the sequence
of dates is to be explained by the fact that the work was published in
ten parts, the first 1 May 1819, the last 14 December 1826, before being issued
in volume form. It would seem that the inclusion of a mill name was unusual:
in the several hundred volumes of Scott in Melbourne[25] there is apparently
only one other publication containing paper bearing a mill name (`J WHATMAN
| TURKEY MILL | 1822').[26] Perhaps a different sample would provide
a different picture; for example, I have noticed `IVY MILL | 1812' as the
watermark in all but one gathering in George Colman the Younger, Poetical
vagaries (London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown,
1814).[27]

Yet other paper includes, in addition to the maker's name and date, a
vat number, such as that illustrated in figure 5:[28] [Walter Scott], Tales of my
landlord [First series], 4th ed., 4 vols (Edinburgh: Printed for William Blackwood;
and John Murray, London, 1818), T/B98Ad; vol. 1, 12°: π2 A12 (±A1)
B-P12 Q2, gathering B. The appearance of these numbers is explained by
Balston: `When more than one vat was engaged in the making of a paper,

FIGURE 1. Laid paper; watermark and countermark centred in half-sheets, and date
in four corners.

FIGURE 2. Wove paper; maker's initials and date in one corner, commonly with date
also in the diagonal corner or in all corners.

FIGURE 3. Wove paper; maker's full name and date in one corner.

FIGURE 4. Wove paper; maker's name, mill name, and date in one corner.

FIGURE 5. Wove paper; maker's name, date, and vat number in one corner.

FIGURE 6. Wove paper; maker's name in middle of one long side, and date in one or
more corners.

FIGURE 7. Wove paper; maker's name (or initials) and date centred in separate half-sheets.

FIGURE 8. Wove paper; maker's name in middle of one long side, and date in one or
more corners; imposed for three gatherings in 18°.

the vat's number was frequently included in the countermark in order to
identify the maker of each sheet.'[29] Just as the range of press figures found in
the work of a particular printing house will suggest the number of presses in
that establishment so will the range of vat numbers suggest the number of
vats in the particular paper-mill, though in both instances caution must be
exercised in concluding that all—presses or vats—were always in use. For
example, during a slump in demand in 1809 the paper-makers Keys commended
Balston for having `discharged 3 [of his ten] Vats',[30] which I take to
mean that he had temporarily taken them out of commission. If the `M' preceding
the date in this paper also stands for `Mavor' it is redundant, but the
inclusion of the maker's name suggests that other paper of the period, with
a watermark in the form `M1816' plus a vat number but no maker's name,[31]
may well have also been made by Mavor. In all three Melbourne copies of
volume 1 of this fourth edition the paper is a mixture of `MAVOR | M1816 |
5' and `MAVOR | M1817 | 6'.[32]

More unusual is it to find the paper-maker's name in the middle of one
long side, plus dates in one or more corners, as in figure 6:[33] Joseph Addison,
Addisonia, 2 vols ([London:] Printed for Richd. Phillips, by T. Davison,
[1803?]), vol. 1, 8°: b8 c4(-c4[=R1?]) B-Q8 R1 χ1, gathering B. The same paper
is used throughout, except that what are presumably the last four gatherings
to be printed (P Q b c) are on a paper watermarked simply `1802', the date
appearing about a quarter of the way along a long edge—i.e. it appears in the
inner margin of $2.7 in those four sheets in the copy seen.

Occasionally sheets of wove paper contain an additional number the explanation
for which is not obvious: in two publications there are sheets containing—as
well as the watermark `W BALSTON | 1812'—a further number
below a vat number, in the form `5 | 2022'. One of these publications is the
fourth edition of Scott's Rokeby, 1813 (T/B64Af),[34] in which the additional
number appears only in gathering/sheet T. The other is Richard Porson,
Tracts and miscellaneous criticisms (London: Printed by Richard and Arthur
Taylor, for Payne and Foss, 1815),[35] which collates [a]4 b-g8 [B]8 C-2C8 2D4
and in which the additional number appears in gatherings/sheets B-S Z. At
first sight the additional number suggests itself as a mill excise number. These

numbers were first allocated in 1712, when a duty was imposed on paper;
but by 1861, when the last remaining tax on paper was removed and the
practice of allocating excise numbers abandoned, the number had reached
only 694.[36] Alfred H. Shorter provides a possible clue to the interpretation
of higher numbers when he reports that `Some mills which were founded
after 1861 have long been known by a distinctive trade number which is
obviously not of Excise origin; examples are Broad Dumers (888) and Withnell
Fold (3009).'[37] What I have not established is whether `trade numbers'
were assumed before 1861, whether `2022' was a Balston trade number. Nor,
it should be said, have I found a number below 695 as part of a watermark—
i.e. I do not know whether excise numbers were in fact ever added to a mould.

There is even the occasional wove paper with a maker's name (or initials)
and a date in the traditional (pre-1794) positions of watermark and counter-mark,
an arrangement quite surprising in emanating from a large mill (D.
and A. Cowan) and in being so late (1806)—see figure 7:[38] Joseph Strutt,
Queenhoo-Hall, 4 vols (Edinburgh: Printed by James Ballantyne & Co. for
John Murray, London: and Archibald Constable & Co. Edinburgh, 1808),
T/B32Aa; vol. 2, 8°: π1 2π1 A-P8 Q4, gathering A. The four volumes are all
on the same paper, except that the cancellantia and preliminary leaves are
on a paper in which the watermark appears to be `C S | 1806'. In the uniformity
of its paper a publication of this extent is unusual in the output of James
Ballantyne, though it should be allowed that the particular form of watermark
may well obscure any number of vats (and moulds).

Shorter reports that `All the available evidence as to the size of paper mills
in England during this period [1701-1800] points to the conclusion that the
small mill, equipped with only one or two vats, was typical.'[39] He calculates
that in 1800 there were just over 400 mills in England,[40] more than eighty
per cent of which had only one vat; fifty-five had two vats, eight had three,
three had four, and two had five. The two largest were both in the Maidstone
district, the Whatman Turkey Mill and Clement Taylor's Upper Tovil Mill.[41]
Numbers increased in the early years of the nineteenth century; among large

establishments with known complements of vats were D & A Cowan (eleven
vats, 1808)[42] and T. Balston (ten vats, 1811).[43] The highest vat number that
I have seen is `14', a single instance, found in gatherings/sheets A and B in
some copies of volume 1 of Scott's edition of Swift, this volume printed by
George Ramsay in Edinburgh. Elsewhere, in Ballantyne's printing of Scott, vat
numbers of `10'-`12' are found, in paper dated `1811'-`1814';[44] it would seem
that by the later date many of the largest paper mills were about to become
mechanised, given that vat numbers did not, on the evidence of the paper
used by Ballantyne, go any higher. Unfortunately none of this paper contains
a maker's name, so that we cannot know who had such a large complement
of vats. The fact that a maker's name was not included in some
paper confirms that vat numbers (whether or not accompanied by the papermaker's
name) were included in the watermark as a means of internal `quality
control', of concern to the paper-maker only, in identifying the individual
workman or team.[45]

As stated at the outset, the underlying interest in this study has been in
the determination of format, by implication of volumes printed on wove
paper. For a worked example of using the evidence of watermarks for determining
the format of a post-1793 volume printed on wove paper I have
chosen Jonathan Swift, The works, new ed., ed. Thomas Sheridan, rev. John
Nichols, 24 vols (London: Printed [by T. Bensley] for J. Johnson [and 23
others], 1803), vol. 11.[46] With a cut leaf measuring 155 × 95 mm it collates
[A]6(A1+1) B-2H6 2I4(2I3+1),[47] suggesting that the format is likely to be 12°,
18° or 24°, but not 16°. There are press figures only on E6r H4r Q6v X6v 2D6v
—not enough to be useful for deriving format—and ploughing has removed
all point holes, along with all deckles save for a trace at the foot of a few
leaves. Watermarks, however, are sufficient to determine the format. Gathering
A has no watermark, but from B to T (after which a different paper is
used) `L MUNN' appears in CS3.4 (i.e. leaves 3.4 in gatherings C and S) and
FIMP1.6, with `1801' in BEH3, DGK6, LOR1 and NQT4. On the basis of
the distribution of the watermarks the volume may be identified as an
eighteenmo, with a typical printed sheet arranged as in figure 8. Since the
sheet was imposed in such a way as to produce three gatherings, actual signatures
(B C D) are used for clarity, but in the illustration the sheet has been
turned 180° from its actual orientation in gatherings B-D in this copy in

order to show the effect that would result from inverting it.[48] Two further
variant patterns to that illustrated would be achieved by turning the paper
over on its long axis, so that the date would appear in B3 and D6 and the
maker's name in either C3.4 or C1.6.[49] That the scheme derived from the
evidence of the watermarks is correct is confirmed by a second, uncut, copy
in the Monash collection,[50] which exhibits these characteristics:

• a deckle on the outer edge of B1-3 and D4-6;

• a deckle at the foot of BCD1 3 4 6;

• a tear on the outer edge of B4-6, C1-6 and D1-3;

• a cut or a tear at all heads and at the foot of BCD2 5;

• point holes in the outer edge of B4 and B6.

What this exercise has done is to show that the watermark evidence is sufficient
of its own in determining format, that familiarity with the patterns of
watermarking dated paper should enable the bibliographer to establish format
independently of any other evidence—just as, of course, the patterns of
watermaking pre-1794 wove paper may.

Determining the format of a volume in hand on the basis of the disposition
of dates and names in the paper may be achieved by reference to the
illustrations. The process is to some extent circular, but the resulting determinations
will, in my experience, withstand scrutiny, except that a single
date in a gathering in a cut copy could just as well indicate a half (or quarter)
sheet as a full sheet, though in such instances size and shape, as well as the
number of leaves in a gathering, should be a good guide to the relationship
between the original sheet and that portion of it represented by the gathering.