Written by Peter Allen. Drawings by Claire Stocker. © Peter Allen, 1983
There has probably been a mill at Colthrop since the time of the Domesday Survey in 1086, but references to it are few and far between until more recent times. The earliest records of Colthrop Mill are held today at Winchester College, which owned the 'manor' (estate) of Colthrop in the fifteenth century. Among the records is a reference to a "grist" (corn) mill at Colthrop in 1421, when it was valued at forty shillings a year - at that time it provided flour for all the inhabitants of the manor of Colthrop. There are records of expenditure incurred in rebuilding Colthrop Mill in 1472. It remained a corn mill but the new premises consisted of two district mills. In 1498 the miller was a man named Thomas Yonge.
In 1540 a lease on Colthrop Mill was granted to Thomas White and his wife, Agnes. By this time the premises were described as "... a fulling (cloth) mill, lately new built, together with a tenement (house) adjoining"; there was also some land mentioned in the lease. In 1541 the annual rent of the mill, the tenement and the land was stated to be £4. About 1560 the fulling mill at Colthrop was purchased by Thomas Dolman, the Newbury clothier, who became the owner of the manor of Colthrop in 1553; he paid £88 for the property. The Dolman family held Colthrop manor and its mill until 1718, when Brigadier General Richard Waring of "Dunstan House" in Thatcham purchased the estate.
After this date, the mill became separated from the rest of the manor of Colthrop and was sold to a succession of owners. By the 1740's, Colthrop Mill had become a paper mill (at this time, paper was also made at Newbury, Bagnor and Theale). Immediate possession of the paper mill at Colthrop was offered in an advertisement in the "Reading Mercury" of Monday, 21st July 1746. The mill had "lately" been in the occupation of Joseph Lane: he had taken possession of it in 1744 but died in 1746. The mill was then described as "New-built, containing two Water Wheels, two Engines, etc. all complete with the Utensils belonging". Elsewhere, there is a reference to "Hollanders" (or 'rag-engines'), used as beaters in the manufacture of paper at that time.
Although the fortunes of the paper mill at colthrop fluctuated from year to year, it is on record that some 50 people were in employ there in 1834. About that time it was in the possession of Louis Munn but the 1847 Post Office Directory states the occupier as Edmund Shaw. The actual ownership of the mill now rested with William Mount of "Wasing Place", who had acquired large estates at Thatcham and Colthrop in 1801. Then, in 1861, Colthrop Mill was rented from Mr. Mount by John Henry, who was given the option to buy the paper mill, which he did in 1864. John Henry - with the assistance of two of his sons, John Maclean and Matthew, worked Colthrop Mill for over half a century. When he took the mill over in 1861 it employed only 25 people and produced only eight tons of paper a week. By the time of his death in 1905, the mill employed two hundred people and produced eighty to a hundred tons of paper a week.
Many technical improvements were made at Colthrop Mill under the Henry family. In 1894, a new 170 horsepower gas engine was installed to drive the pulp-beaters; it was guaranteed to use less than half the coal of a steam engine. During 1908, the Henry brothers bought up a paper mill at Lee Mill Bridge, near Ivybridge in Devon, and when this mill was closed in 1911 the machine there was moved to Colthrop and became "Number One" paper machine. In 1915 a railway siding was put in from Thatcham station to the paper mill at Colthrop. At this time, a large number of bags were made at Colthrop (and many were made by women, working at home in Thatcham). At one time the manufacture of bags consumed half of the output of paper from Colthrop, being chiefly brown paper and sugar bags as used by grocers, drapers and warehousemen.
During the First World War, Colthrop supplied paper, which after laminating was converted into cartons by Cropper and Co. Ltd. of London. In 1918, Croppers took a financial interest in Colthrop Mill and a new company was formed - "Colthrop Board and Paper Mills Ltd.".
After the takeover, several changes occurred at Colthrop. A major innovation was the manufacture of folding cardboard boxes, for packaging goods, and based on an American practice. In 1919, a new board machine, of 1,600 horsepower and with 97 cylinders, was purchased from Black-Clawson. To accommodate the new work, a huge new building, 880' by 100', was built during 1921-22 (the South Board Mill). In 1922 Croppers transferred their entire operation from London to Thatcham the new venture, "Containers Limited", offered employment to 600 people and many of the London employees moved to the Newbury area and remained with the firm. By this time, Colthrop was producing six hundred tons of paper and cardboard a week, and output was still rising. John Maclean Henry remained at Colthrop as 'Managing Director' until his death in 1950.
In 1956 the Reed Paper Group Limited took over the whole Colthrop site. Paper sack manufacture had been started at Colthrop in 1927 in 1930 this operation had been transferred to Aylesford and sold to Albert.E.Reed and Company in 1932. Then in 1950 the Reed Company took a financial interest in the Colthrop site, subsequently taking over completely. In May 1955, work was started on a new building, (the North Board Mill), and completed in May, 1958, at a cost of £5 million; a third board machine was then inita1 led in it. The two paper-making machines were later shut down, one in 1966 and the other in 1971, so that paper-making effectively ceased at Colthrop from the latter date and only cardboard is made there today. By 1981 Colthrop employed some 950 people and produced over 110,000 tones of hoard a year. In 1970 the Reed Group changed its name to "Reed International Limited" and Reed Paper Group became one of the major divisions. The other divisions are W.P.M., Reed Building Products, Mirror Newspapers Limited, international Publishing Company and Reed Overseas.
© Peter Allen, 1983
