By Kate Meehan, Australian CorrespondentAs we head into Christmas, here are some of the key stories to know about the world’s oldest and largest papermaking industry.
The papermaking world was a unique one, but there were many different forms of papermaking around.
In the 19th century, most of New Zealand’s papermaking was done on wood.
But during the First World War, a new, cheaper form of paper was introduced called a cloth or linen.
A papermaker’s skill required a lot of manual labour.
This meant papermakers had to spend much of their time in their workshops, often at night, to create the paper.
It wasn’t until the 20th century that the first mechanised papermaking machines were developed, and the first machines that could be used to make paper were introduced in the 1960s.
The new machines were much cheaper and faster than their predecessors, but they had to be made on a small scale to make a decent profit.
The first commercial papermaking machine was invented by the Australian entrepreneur and engineer Charles Grafton in 1890.
At the time, most people made paper by hand, but as technology advanced, papermakers began to rely more on machines to create paper.
By the 1960’s, there was a major shift in the papermaking market.
Newspaper companies were getting their own factories and workers.
With the advent of modern mechanisation, paper was no longer the only commodity that was made from wood.
Papermaking companies also started making industrial products, including paper bags and paper stock, which were exported to the United States and Europe.
By the 1970s, the number of papermakers was in the hundreds of thousands.
The story of paper is told in the stories of our past.
What we’ve learnt about papermaking can help you make better choices in the future.
Topics:history,history-and-culture,arts-and.culture,business-economics-and ofc,papermaking,people,new-zealand
