Lewis Hobday
Lewis Hobday was born in 1875 at Snodland, Kent in the Mill Manager’ s house. The family moved to Dover in 1879 when Henry Hobday entered into a partnership with Charles Ashdown at Buckland Mill. At that time Buckland was almost a separate village from the town of Dover and there were few houses between Lower Buckland Paper Mill and Buckland Bridge. There were no houses in what is now Buckland Avenue and Barton Road, the road serving this area being a narrow country lane bordered by agricultural land. It went by the name of ‘Back of Barton.’ the name being derived from Barton Farm. Opposite the Mill, where the old tram sheds stand (now Hollis Motors), was Buckland Farm.
Lewis Hobday attended the local Church of England school in London Road a few minutes walk from the mill with a brother and a sister. The boys of the family all started their education at a village school and completed it by either receiving private tuition or at a private school. They all seemed to start working at a young age however. Lewis was the ‘baby’ of the family and, at the age of twelve his father, now ‘well established at Buckland, decided to send him to Dover College where he stayed for five terms leaving at the age of fourteen and a half to start work at Buckland Mill where his initial training was that of a millwright. He maintained in later life that Dover College taught him little of value and he considered that the education afforded him at the village school proved to be an excellent foundation on which to build his subsequent career.
He started work in the Engineers Shop under his eldest brother john with whom he had only a shadowy acquaintance up to that date, at five shillings a week. John was not an ideal man to work under and the next five years with him were not always happy ones, or devoid of incident, but during the years that followed when John worked under him as Chief Engineer of Buckland Mill there grew up a bond of affection and regard between them which lasted throughout their lives. The Engineers shop occupied the space which afterwards became the Case Makers Shop but in 1892 a new Engineers shop was built just inside the gate by Buckland church to deal with the building Of the No. 2 machine.
The Board of Directors of Wiggins Teape at the time the decision was taken to install a second machine were E P Barlow, who was Chairman, Herbert end Ernest Parke of Withnell Fold, H, Ralph Prendergast, a solicitor, John Hare who had been head traveller end Export Manager and Clayton, the manager for many years of the office end warehouse at 10 Aldgate. The machine they purchased was installed at Hollingbourne Paper Mills and had been idle for some time, the owning company being in liquidation. The water supply at Hollingbourne was quite inadequate to support the mill and from Mill records it appears to have been shut down for a half to two thirds of the time due to lack of water. The machine had only three drying cylinders and an enormous Air Dryer consisting of 72 drums, 6 feet in diameter, the idea being to air-dry .the waterleaf paper followed by tub sizing and. loft drying. The operation was a complete failure as only at ridiculously low speeds could the water-leaf paper be dried. The papermaker at Hollingbourne was Obidiah Chapman, he bad a brother who occupied the position of examiner of paper at the India Office. It is believed. that some collusion may have taken place between the brothers involving financial exchange to promote the passing of paper for quality for the India Office.
The task of dismantling the plant was entrusted to Lewis Hobday, then just over seventeen years of age, whose weekly wage had risen to seven shillings and six pence a week. He had an elderly millwright to assist him from Dover and two labourers. The complete machine from chests to cutter, two rag boilers and two sets of plate glazing rolls had to be dismantled and loaded on to rail or in trucks for road haulage by traction engines to Dover. This was accomplished in nine weeks during which time he had only one visit from John. He appears to have enjoyed his stay at Hollingbourne which afforded him the opportunity of seeing numbers of relatives in nearby Maidstone where he lodged. In his Journal he wrote of an interesting sidelight thus "The mill offices were empty and I commandeered them. Davis, the millwright, lodged in the village but my two labourers found some old felts and. slept in. the office on the floor in front of a good fire. One of them was a baker who rigged up an oven and cooked. The second man, who I found later had come from gaol to me, could always provide a rabbit or even a bird. Potatoes and fruit were easy for him. I enjoyed a number of excellent hot dinners with these two otherwise I went to the local pub and had the top of a loaf and a big piece of cheese for 2d and a pint of beer for another 2d and thoroughly enjoyed it".
The new mill was under construction during the winter of 1892. New steam boilers, a new main engine built by Pollits & Wigzkell Limited of Sowerby Bridge, six breakers and six beaters were installed. The wet-end of the Hollingbourne machine was reconstructed and widened from 60 to 66 inches as also was the air dryer. New drying cylinders, a size bath and a cutter were installed. Throughout most of the period the working day of those employed in installation was from 6 am to 9pm. The machine was started up in early 1893, the actual operation causing some internal commotion. After five to six hours of effort the papermakers failed to get the paper beyond the end of the drying cylinders, alleging mechanical faults for their lack of success. They went home while the engineers carried out some alterations and after about two hours started up the machine without the papermakers and ran up a good reel of paper. In the morning there was trouble between the papermakers and the engineers and. hard words were exchanged by John Hobday and Eccles, the mill manager. Peace was restored by the obvious amusement of E.P. Barlow and Henry Hobday when they arrived on the scene. With No. 2 machine in operation No. 1 was shut down for overhaul and improvement. Boiler pressure was increased from 70 to 100 lbs. which necessitated a considerable amount of new piping. When steam’ was turned on a pipe burst blowing Lewis Hobday off a scaffold causing injuries which laid him up for several weeks. A Board of Trade enquiry was held and .A.L. Thomas & Sons of Dover the suppliers of the piping, were fined 500 for providing ordinary pining untested for use with steam and John was fined 50 for failing to have the pipes tested before installation.
For some considerable tine Henry Hobday had wanted his eldest son John to turn papermaker, a position he could well have filled with credit, so that he himself could lead a less strenuous life but John refused, preferring to remain m engineering- As a result, Lewis, then 19 years of age, with five years apprenticeship as a Millwright behind him, turned to papermaking. His father was about to take over Glory Mill and he took Lewis with him. They lived in the mill house furnishing two bedrooms and a living room and were looked after by a gardener and his wife who also lived in the house. The "Hobdays" home remained at Dover with Henry leaving on a monday morning to spend a day in London and coming on to Glory in the evening. He would leave on Friday morning for another day in London and then back to Dover. The mill house at Glory was separated from the mill by a narrow passage way and a window in the bedroom occupied by Lewis faced a window in the beater house. This arrangement facilitated communication at night when a knock on the bedroom window by the beaterman summoned attention in the house.
It had been the intention or Wiggins Teape that Mr. John Hare, a Director, should live at and take charge of Glory Mill and that Lewis should remain as his assistant. John Hare died however and Henry Hobday refused to carry on any longer. It was then decided that William Eccles, who came from Withnell Fold mill to Dover about 1892, should take over the management of Glory and that Lewis should return to Dover. Two months after these moves taking effect, ‘Jimmy’ Sutton, a first class papermaker, also moved from Glory to Dover.
William Eccles and Lewis Hobday exchanged mills during a weekend in November 1896 and when the latter went into the mill at 6 am on the Monday morning to start up, the machineman on No. 1, George Jordon, had no instructions regarding the paper to be made and the beaterman on No. 2 did not know what to ‘fill in . His plunge into his new responsibilities was sudden but with the guidance of his father and a great deal of help from his brother John who, although an engineer, had frequently acted as papermaking foreman, he managed to establish order and to carry the mill until Sutton arrived to help him. He considered he learnt more about papermaking during the two months he awaited the arrival of Sutton than during his whole period at Glory Mill and that for much of this knowledge he was indebted to George Jordon, (later manager of Stoneywood Mill), and Bill Knott, (later foreman at Stoneywood) - The annual output of Buckland Mill in 1895 was 800 tons and. in 1896 it was 1000 tons and it rose steadily to 2,500 tons by 1910. The demand for "Conqueror" papers, first made in 1888, was increasing steadily but the size of the orders did not exceed 100 reams. The annual tonnage was about 200 tons. Stationery Office Ledgers, 100% rag furnish, had a mill sales price of 3d. to 3d. per pound, (32 to 55 per ton).
In 1897 Lewis Hobday was sent to Rush Mills, Northampton, to dismantle a "mould-made papermaking machine", the invention of Count Sparre, and despatch it to Dover for installation at Buckland Mill. The purpose of the machine was to produce "hand-made" paper on a machine and although this was achieved it presented so many operational difficulties that experimental work on it was discontinued after over a year of struggle with it by George Jordon.
In 1905 Frank Barlow and. L.H. went to the United States together with a view to visiting a number of paper mills and gaining experience in American practise. The trip was the outcome of a visit from a paper mill owner in Massachusetts whose Chief Superintendent, Harry Furminger, was an old "Buckland. Mill boy". The trip appears to have been both interesting and informative. They got into trouble at The Parker House hotel in Boston for smoking their pipes in the entrance hall where cigar smoking only was permitted, the reason for which baffled them in view of the habit of the cigar smokers of spitting, with great accuracy, across the hall into a brass spittoon.
Harry Furminger whose father was a road sweeper at Dover, started work at Buckland Mill at the age of twelve. He was an intelligent lad and at the age of twenty was a machineman on Ashdown & Hobday’ s only machine. His size vat boy was George Jordon and his dryerman was Fred Chidwick. The machineman’s rate of pay at the time was 4d. an hour but Furminger, being young, was not receiving the full rate. Both Chidwick and Jordon were also dissatisfied with their pay and led by Furtninger, they demanded an increase of their hard hearted Master, Henry Hobday. The increase was refused so they shut the machine down and walked out on the ‘tramp’. Furminger got a job at Basted Mill while Chidwick and Jordon returned to Dover resolved not to work for Old Hobday unless they received more money. Chidwick made his peace with the Master who, by this time, was sick of running the machine eight hours a day himself, (whilst the other machineman was off shift), with Ashdown and a boy to help him. He made Chidwick machineman and George Jordon eventually went back as dryerman. Furminger left Basted to go to the United States and. found. employment with the South Hampshire Paper Mills. (Chidwick worked as a machineman for forty five years until his retirement from Buckland. The writer worked as his ‘wet-end boy’ for a period during training and benefited. greatly from the experience). Furminger took Frank Barlow and L.H. out to diner during the visit to meet his father-in-law who was a Kentish man and. after some thought and. discussion he told L.H. that "old Dan’l Hobday learned me to be a beaterman".
In 1905/6 business became so good that Buckland. Mill was unable to meet the demand and. it was decided to put some orders out to other mills. The Board decided that Allens of Ivybridge should be given the opportunity of making some Conqueror to the disgust and doubts of Henry Hobday. To avoid suspicion on the part of customers the paper was sent to Dover for despatch. The paper proved to be very dirty and. on resorting made 50% retree which E P Barlow insisted on having repulped while the remainder was sold as a job lot. The Ivybridge mill belonged to two brothers Allen whose main wealth came from a source other than paper. It was their habit to run the mill until the stock room was full when they went to London and. sold the lot at the best price they could get with E.P. Barlow as one of their best customers. It is believed that their main reason for operating the mill was to provide employment for the villagers of Ivybridge.
Wiggins Teape’s business continued to expand and, the decision was taken to install an additional machine at Buckland but in the meantime they looked for another mill to cope with the growing trade for their papers. Miltholm Mill at Cathcart, near Glasgow, was idle and Frank Barlow arid L.H. were sent to inspect it with a view to its temporary use. It was found that the water supply was poor, being drawn from two old coal mine workings and. a deep four inch bore hole in solid rock, and in order to make Conqueror they recommended that a filter plant be installed and that minor alterations to the beater plant be carried out. In 1906 L.H. went to Cathcart to bring the mill into production. The resulting paper was low in colour and. in strength and E.P. Barlow refused to accept it for Conqueror. The Board refused to sanction the installation of a water filtration plant and it was found that the peaty nature of the water was lowering the colour of the bleached half-stuff during washing. Only by the liberal use of alum in the water tanks, the minimum of washing and the extensive use of Antichlor, (sodium hyposulphite), was the resulting paper rendered reasonably satisfactory. L.H. spent six weeks at Cathcart battling with these problems before returning to Dover and. thereafter made the journey to Cathcart every two or three weeks for the next two years after which George Jordon, then at Chafford Mill, took over the mill as manager. He was finally provided with a Bells water filter.
In 1906 Crabble Mill, with the exception of the rag boiler house, was completely destroyed by fire. The same day the old Oil Mill in Dover was rented for one year, a telegram sent to Bent1y & Jackson found a rag cutter made for Basted Mill ready for despatch which they readily allowed to be sent to Dover and work started on the construction of rag sorting equipment. An old. duster was sent from Mil1holm and a mobile Thrashing machine steam engine was hired locally, fresh rag supplies arrived within a week and the temporary rag mill was in operation with boiling being carried out at Crabble. The mill was rebuilt and remained in operation as such for another forty years.
EP. Barlow was keen to make photographic paper (see Chafford), a quality not made anywhere in Great Britain although both Pirie end Dickinson had made unsuccessful attempts to make it. He asked L.S. to experiment at Buckland who after much individual endeavour, was permitted to engage a chemist, the first to he employed by ‘Wiggins Teape. He was David Crothers, a relative of Peter Holden. progress was slow. but was assisted by co-operation from a photographic coating company, Rajah limited, in which Herbert Parke had an interest. Buckland Mill became too busy to continue to make sample runs so Chafford Mill, Fordcombe near Tunbridge Wells was purchased. The mill had fallen into the hands of Hough, Hunt and Austen, all rag merchants, as liquidators. It was an old mill with four vats and two machines, one 36 inches wide installed about 1820 and the other 42 inches wide installed about 1850. The latter machine had been shown at the Greet Exhibition, The 42 inch machine made a perfect sheet or paper and with it David Crothers endeavoured to obtain those qualities then considered essentia1 in photographic paper, adequate sizing and freedom ‘metalic impurities. George Jordon was in charge of the mill having had a short spell as Foreman at Joynsons before returning to Buckland as foremen of No. 1 machine. The next step was to operate on a larger scale at Glory mill which was equipped with special sand traps and acid tanks for the purpose but with only moderate success. The war of 1814/19 saw the end of imports of photographic paper from German and Belgian sources and gave ‘Wiggins Teape their opportunity. They were given permission to build a new mill during the war period for the specific purpose of producing photographic paper and success finally crowned the endeavours of those who had worked to that end. So it may be said that photographic paper came to Wiggins Teape from the inspiration of E.P. Barlow, the endeavours of Lewis Hobday in a tiny ‘laboratory’ under the clock tower steps at Buckland, and papermaking trials and the work of David Crothers. During the war Crothers was, at one period. in France in connection with the use of chlorine gas in the trenches and was recalled at the request of L.H. to solve a problem which arose in the mill.
It was in 1910 that the Board decided to install a third machine at Buckland and instructions were given to L.H. that it was to be as wide as possible for the production of the Company’s T.S. papers. The new mill was designed and installed by L.H. and. his brother John for an estimated cost of 50,000, a sum which was exceeded by only a few thousands of pounds. Henry Hobday, although retired for some years, influenced. the thinking of E.P. Barlow over some details and. some "revolutionary" ideas of the two brothers were discarded as being unproved. (This appears. strange when one considers some of the revolutionary ideas of Henry in his young days. Age must surely have dulled his spirit of adventure). The machine started up in July 1911 and, but for some slipping belts, ran well. E.P. Barlow was present to witness the start up of the machine and. gave the machineman, Dick Lawrence, who later became manager of St. Neots Mill, two sovereigns. The machine was designed to produce about 40 tons of Ledger papers in a five and a half day week but this was almost doubled within a comparatively short time. Some fifty or more years later the machine was producing at the rate of one ton per hour. The machine, built by Bertrarns Limited, had a wire width of 104 inches and had 18 drying cylinders. The beater line shaft engine was of 700 H.P. built by Cole, Marchant and. Morley and presented a truly beautiful picture to those who have admired steam engines. Walking through Buckland Mill from No. 1 to No. 3, the main steam engine illustrated the march of progress from the Halls engine on No. 1, installed probably about 1840/50, to Pollits on No. 2, installed in 1893 to the No. 3 main engine.
With the building of the No. 3 mill a special building was erected known as "Chafford.", to house special sizing equipment to produce paper similar in some respects to that made at the Chafford mill. The equipment consisted of a size vat through which paper in sheet form could be passed followed by an air dryer. The latter operated on the festoon dryer principal in a totally enclosed space. Glazing was carried out by means of a small single sheet calender. Many difficulties were experienced in operating this plant arid it does not appear to have been a success.
During the years 1910/11 both Keith Barlow and Tom Parke spent a period at Dover and. indeed both celebrated their 21st birthday there during their stay. The Writer, a schoolboy at the time, well recalls their friendly and. understanding nature. At about the same period K.L. Hutchings, Vice Captain of Kent County Cricket eleven, "worked" at the mill. He was sponsored by E.P. Barlow in the hope that he might play a part in Wiggins Teape and at the same time be free to play County cricket. He was a "gentleman" player. He was a most popular figure in the mill but quite unsuited for the trade of papermaking. He played. football for the mill team in the winter months with great zest. E.P. Barlow insisted on his learning the various sizes of paper and. used to question him when visiting the mill but he failed to satisfied his examiner. He left to become sports master at a public school and was killed during the First World War, in France.
In 1912 E P Barlow suffered a grave illness from which he died in the year. His death was a great loss to Wiggins Teape an, particularly to all at Buckland Mill where he was known with deep affection. Lewis Hobday felt his death acutely arid in his memoirs he wrote of him thus: "In him I had always found a very wise master and. a very kind friend. I have met no-one who could reprimand so decidedly and yet leave no hurt behind it, or whose words of approval were so well timed and chosen". The detailed involvement of E.P. Barlow with Buckland. Mill is exemplified by a copy of a waistcoat pocket edition of Mortimer’s Ready Reckoner for Stationers, Printers etc. bearing the inscription W. T. & Co., a facsimile of the well known watermark, on the cover. The following is written inside the cover: "Ed. Percy Barlow’s personal reckoner given to L. Hobday about 1900 when we were invoicing together". In the back of the Reckoner is the following:
W. T & Co’s private price cypher.
The 1914/18 War brought many problems to Buckland. Mill not the least of which was the shortage of labour with conscription drawing off most men under forty years of age. No. 3 machine had been started up less than four years and bad been staffed mainly by the promotion of juniors. To replace the conscripts all the cutter boys were brought into the mill to be replaced by women who not only ran the cutters but assisted on the Beater Stages, Rag Boilers and many other jobs. In 1913 the mill output was 3500 tons but by 1915 the labour shortage was so acute that No. 1 machine was shut down which reduced the annual output to 2500 tons. (It is interesting to note that No. 1 machine had been contributing 19 tons a week to the mill output compared with an output of two tons a week when Ashdown & Hobday entered into partnership in 1879). Manufacturing costs during the period. 1914/18 rose from 32 per ton to 102 per ton. In 1917 some German bombs fell in the Buckland area, six of which were in the grounds of Buckland House breaking most of the windows, but otherwise little damage was done.
During the war the mill was making all the Admiralty chart papers and much of the Army map papers in addition to Telegraph Tapes and. Tracing papers. (The Writer recalls being enlisted by his father to help him in the capacity of "shaving boy" in the evenings to operate a reeler owing to the shortage of labour. The reward. was usually one penny). Ferro-prussiate and Ferro-gallic base papers were also made at the mill although knowledge of these qualities was limited. The Board of Wiggins Teape at the time consisted of only six directors of which Tom Parke and Frank Barlow were serving in the Army. Keith Barlow served for a time in the East Kent Yeomanry before being discharged as unfit while Herbert and Ernest Parke appear to have devoted their main interest on the Withnell Fold mill. Peter Holden directed the activities of the Company to be assisted by Keith Barlow later after his discharge from the Army.
After the war trade was brisk until the latter part of 1921 when a depression set in accompanied by short time working. Annual production at Buckland fell to 2100 tons and. it was several years before normal production was regained. The mill had been operating for several years without any major repairs or replacements and was in poor shape to face the future but the Board. withheld finance for Buckland to release money for expenditure elsewhere. This policy continued into the l930s which brought about some conflict of opinions between Lewis Hobday and the Chairman of the Board.
From 1923 to 1930 the Company absorbed twelve paper mills apart from the merger with Piries. Up to 1919 it had been a private company but after the 1914/18 war, seeking additional capital, it was reformed as a Public company and thrown open for public subscription. Lewis Hobday was.offered a directorship in the new company but the bonds with Buckland forged over many years and. the possible loss of retirement pension rights led him to decline the offer. The twelve mills which became members of the Group were Hele, Basted, St. Neots, Chartham, Mailing, Joynsons, Roughway, Yalding, Ivybnidge, Dartford, .Annandales and Ford. Of these L.H. was sent to Joysons and St. Neots to value the stock and arrange for their closing down. He was required to take over the control of Mailing, Roughway and Yalding which entailed weekly visits to these mills. In addition to these duties be was a member of, and deputy chairman of, the Central Purchasing Committee for all the mills of the Group which entailed at least two days in London each month. The committee did excellent work but was hampered by the managers of some mills failing to abide by its decisions in spite of repeated appeals to the Company’s Chairman.
Lewis Hobday retired in 1934 and was at once asked by Leslie Farrow, who later became Chairman of the Company, to take over the management of British Sidac at St. Helens for a minimum of two years. This he agreed to do and in bringing into production a factory which had been idle for some years some of his sadness in severing his connection with Buckland Mill and. his many friends working there was lost by the measure of his success. His great happiness during these two years was in being able to provide employment to some of the many men out of work in St. Helena. To be able to take an out-of-work coal miner who had even forgotten how to work, and train him to accept the strange conditions of a factory was rewarding indeed. On leaving British Sidac after a period of two years he was offered, and accepted, a seat on the Board of the Company which he held for eight years. In 1939 he was entrusted .L . in a business mission to Australia by British Sidac to explore the establishment of a factory there in co-operation with local interests.
Lewis Hobday spent his retirement at Dover where he enjoyed nothing more than meeting those with whom he had. worked at Buckland and Mill He died. in 1958 at the age of 83 and is buried, beside so many papermakers, in Buckland Churchyard.