John Tate was the first English

papermaker Papermaking is the manufacture of paper and cardboard, which are used widely for printing, writing, and packaging, among many other purposes. Today almost all paper is Pulp and paper industry, made using industrial machinery, while handmade pape ...

. According to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography he was born about 1448. A businessman based in London, he was a member of the

Mercers Company The Worshipful Company of Mercers is the premier Livery Company of the City of London and ranks first in the order of precedence of the Companies. It is the first of the Great Twelve City Livery Companies. Although of even older origin, the c ...

Early life

The Tates were a successful business family with international trading connections. The subject was known to contemporaries as "John Tate the younger", Tate, called "the yonger", is mentioned by Wynkyn de Worde in the colophon to a book he produced in 1496, an encyclopaedia, ''De Proprietatibus Rerum'' by Bartholomeus Anglicus (in

John Trevisa 350px, John Trevisa (or John of Trevisa; la, Ioannes Trevisa; fl. 1342–1402 AD) was a Cornish writer and translator. Trevisa was born at Trevessa in the parish of St Enoder in mid-Cornwall, in Britain and was a native Cornish speaker. He w ...

's translation). This book has been claimed to be the first printed on English paper. and is believed have been the son of the John Tate who served as Lord Mayor of London in 1473. Neither father nor son is to be confused with a third

John Tate John Tate may refer to: * John Tate (mathematician) (1925–2019), American mathematician * John Torrence Tate Sr. (1889–1950), American physicist * John Tate (Australian politician) (1895–1977) * John Tate (actor) (1915–1979), Australian act ...

, apparently a cousin of the subject, who was knighted and who served as Lord Mayor in 1496-97 and 1514–15.

Papermaking

Tate acquired a long-established watermill called

Sele Mill Sele Mill is a late 19th-century mill building in Hertford, England. It has been converted into apartments. A blue plaque on the building () commemorates an earlier mill on the site, the country's first paper mill. History For most of its hist ...

. At that time it was just outside

Hertford Hertford ( ) is the county town of Hertfordshire, England, and is also a civil parish in the East Hertfordshire district of the county. The parish had a population of 26,783 at the 2011 census. The town grew around a ford on the River Lea, ne ...

which has since grown to include the suburb of Bengeo. Sele Mill is on the River Beane, a chalk stream, near its confluence with the

River Lea The River Lea ( ) is in South East England. It originates in Bedfordshire, in the Chiltern Hills, and flows southeast through Hertfordshire, along the Essex border and into Greater London, to meet the River Thames at Bow Creek. It is one of t ...

. This facility was converted into a

paper mill A paper mill is a factory devoted to making paper from vegetable fibres such as wood pulp, old rags, and other ingredients. Prior to the invention and adoption of the Fourdrinier machine and other types of paper machine that use an endless belt, ...

. Paper was produced there in the 1490s, and possibly earlier. The catchment of the Beane was a rural area, but there is evidence that Tate found customers locally with some of his paper being used for record-keeping by the Woodhall estate a few miles upstream.The document in question was a court roll. See ''Papermaking in Britain 1488-1988: A Short History''. Richard Leslie Hills Importantly for his business plan, the mill was less than 30 miles from the capital which could be accessed via Ermine Street or the River Lea (see note). One London-based customer was Wynkyn de Worde, who took over

Caxton Caxton may refer to: Places * Caxton Street, Brisbane, Australia * Caxton, Cambridgeshire, a village in Cambridgeshire, UK ** Caxton Gibbet, a knoll near the village * Caxton Hall, a historic building in London, UK * Caxton Building, a historic ...

's print shop in the 1490s. Another London-based customer was Henry VII of England. The king, who had given Hertford Castle to his wife in 1487, visited the mill in 1498. He is known to have made a return visit the following year. It has been suggested that one of the watermarks used by Tate, a Tudor rose, was designed with royal use in mind. The quality of the paper was good, but the mill seems to have ceased producing it at the beginning of the 16th century for reasons which are not clear. Tate mentioned the building in his will of 1507 along with a stock of white paper he had there. Possibly he could not get a good enough price for his paper, although, as far as is known, there were not any other British producers.

Final years

Tate wrote his will in 1507 and died that year or the following. He had been living at Mincing Lane in the City of London and was buried at

St Dunstan-in-the-East St Dunstan-in-the-East was a Church of England parish church on St Dunstan's Hill, halfway between London Bridge and the Tower of London in the City of London. The church was largely destroyed in the Second World War and the ruins are now a publi ...

.Richard L. Hills, ‘Tate, John (c.1448–1507/8)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 200
accessed 24 June 2015
Subscription or UK public library membership required.

Legacy

Sele Mill was rebuilt at the end of the 19th century. It is now used as apartments. After Tate's time a paper industry was reestablished in Hertfordshire. The valley of the River Gade proved a suitable site and, in a significant break-through, a continuous paper making machine was installed at Frogmore Mill in 1803.

Notes

:1. The first Act of Parliament for navigational improvement of the River Lea was granted in 1425.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tate, John Papermakers 15th-century English businesspeople 16th-century English businesspeople 1500s deaths Burials at St Dunstan-in-the-East