Bull's Head and Mermaid - The Bernstein Project - Österreichische ...

Ill. 7: Watermark foolscap on the Ink-drawing ’The Ruin of Brederode’,
by Jan Lievens (ca. 1650–60)
sometimes also some land to the paper-makers. The right
was granted against payment of an annual charge. Although
the owner of the water rights had to pay a little
fee for these rights to the government, the annual rent
for the paper-maker was rather high. Some landowners
tried to posses the mills by refusing to extend the land and
water leases and forcing the paper-makers to sell the buildings.
The paper-makers had a high reputation, since they
were the only industrialists in the Veluwe villages and
they generated work. Most of them were well educated
and illiteracy was rare among them. They often also fulfilled
social functions. In general the paper-makers were
selfsupporting. They grew their own food and owned some
cattle. However, the work was heavy. The working conditions
were far from ideal in damp and cold surroundings.
The working hours were long about 12 hours a day.
One started at 6 a.m. and stopped in the evening at 6 p.m.
And also child labour was not an exception. About one
third of the labourers were children of eight years and
older.
It was custom for some of the workers to live with the
master, who was responsible for the paper production, and
having a joint meal. Hunter (1947) mentioned an anecdote
concerning the latter. According to him it was proper for
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the workers to cease eating when the master laid down his
spoon as a sign that the meal had finished. And that sometimes
in order to prevent that the workers eat too much,
the dishes were served steaming hot and that before they
had had time to cool sufficiently, the master laid down his
spoon ... But whether this is true or is only a myth is the
question.
The Zaan region and Waddinxveen
The other region in the Netherlands that played an important
role in the paper industry is the Zaan region near Amsterdam.
There are large differences with the papermaking
on the Veluwe. As said the sandy soil Veluwe region possessed
naturally pure water. Not so for the Zaan region.
There ingenuity was necessary to overcome the handicap of
low-quality water. However, advantage was the proximity of
Amsterdam as a new centre of international trade including
paper. The Veluwe paper mills, driven by water power, were
small operations with three or five, primarily family members.
The Zaan region mills were driven by wind power (Ill.
8) and ranked among the largest industrial installations of
that time, employing 40–50 workers. They supplied far less
energy than the watermills, but the building of a windmill
required two or three times the cost of a water mill. The
large capital investment required caused investors to reduce
their exposure to risk by forming ’partenrederijen’ (managed
partnership, a form of limited partnership originally
confined to ocean shipping and fishing. On the Veluwe the
mill owners were often the landlords, who leased them to
the paper-makers.
The Zaan region’s first wind-driven paper mill dates from
shortly after 1600, and by 1630 there were 5 of them. All
of Holland then counted 14 or 15. However, after 1650 this
dispersion gave way to concentration, as the number of
mills in the Zaan region grew to 12 in 1660, 21 in 1680 and
36 in 1700. The number of large Zaan paper mills reached
about 40 by the 18 th century, while the smaller Veluwe paper
mills totalled about 171 at the peak in 1740.
There was also a third centre of Dutch paper industry;
Waddinxveen in South-Holland. Also there it concerned
wind-powered paper-making (Ill. 9). But the scale there was
limited. At the peak in 1775 there were 16 paper mills.
They employed about 10 workers each and produced mainly
gray and blue paper.
The Hollander
There is one Dutch major technological innovation that
stood behind the rapid expansion of the paper industry after
1650. One tried to develop a method for macerating
rags that would require less power than the stamping
method and at the same time be more productive by making
a much finer and more even distribution of the fibres.
This machine is known as the “Hollander” (Ill. 10). It was
invented in 1673–4 by a Dutchman, whose name is unknown
unfortunately. Instead of stampers cylinder beaters
were used. The Hollander is an oblong wooden vat, round-