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Portobello paper mill (A Nichol and Co.)
Unknown, 1905, Photograph
Portobello paper mill (A Nichol and Co.)
Portobello paper mill (A Nichol and Co.)
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Location
Category
Library Item
Item no
4442
Title
Portobello paper mill (A Nichol and Co.), Bridge Street, women and youths packing department
Description
The interior of Portobello paper mill (A Nichol and Co.) on Bridge Street, Portobello, Edinburgh. The workforce of the packing department seems to mostly consist of women and boys. They are standing beside large piles of paper. There is a man in a flat cap who is perhaps the foreman. The building has a pitched roof with beams.
Artist / maker
Unknown
Date
1905
Size
15.3 x 14.4 cm
Type
Photograph
Location
Edinburgh and Scottish Collection
The business of making paper was first established in Edinburgh in 1695 and the mill at Portobello was one of the pioneering paper mills established soon after. A Nicol's Paper Mill was known locally as 'Craig's Mill, as it had been under the ownership of a number of predecessors, including Messrs. David Craig & Co.
The paper mill occupied several acres of land including the whole of one side of Bridge Street. The works were powered by several steam boilers and could produce 30 tons of paper a week, of a type known as 'fine printings' and 'engine sized writings'. The paper was made mostly from 'Esparto', a grass obtained from the European and African shores of the Mediterranean. Nicol's machinery was both modern and efficient for its time and enabled the sorting, pulping and rolling processes to achieve high quality paper. The mill machinery turned out rolls of paper six and a half feet wide and three and a half miles in length.
Exhibitions with this item
Porty: Portobello in photographs
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Manufacturing Industry
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Manufacturing facilities
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Mills
People
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Children
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Child labourers
People
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Industry
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Factory workers
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Edinburgh areas
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Portobello
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Scotland
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Edinburgh
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