THE ENDLESS WEB. John Dickinson & Co. Ltd 1804-1954
Jonathan Cape 1955. 274 pages + 49 plates. Hardback and Dust-jacket Very good. 4:o!
England can boast of a number of industrial firms whose records goes back to the Napoleonic Wars; their archives provide material for a continous economic history of the last century and a half. John dickinson, a "character" of volcanic energy, first set up as a manufacturing stationer in 1804, and soon afterwards bought mills for the manufacture of paper by machinery of his own invention, later building others at Croxley and Home Park. The coming of railways, the introduction of envelopes, and the institution of the Penny Post greatly increased the scope of his business.
John Dickinson´s great-niece, Dr Joan Evans, has celebrated the 150th anniversary of the foundation of the firm of Messrs. John Dickinson & Co by writing its history to the present time. An abundance of family letters and diaries, a full documentation from the mills, and the survival of many old photographs have made it possible for her to write a book that will interest social and economic historians as well as students of the history of paper-making.
