Things are coming together. This happens when you are on the right track, I have found. After years of research, I feel as if the entire narrative is falling into place, right at a most auspicious hour of history.
Last month, after reading Jane Austen, and spending of the novel wondering about questions I thought I could never answer, such as: how did William Harriman (of London) meet Frances Holmes (of Hemel Hempstead)? Austen (and Goldsmith) gave me clues as to how this might have happened, but everything was a pure guess on my part. Perhaps, I thought, somewhere they met through social circles when she was in "town" (i.e. London), in the early 1780s. I could fill in a possible story, but nothing more.
Then a tiny whim of Internet search on Edward Holmes (Frances' father) led to one of the amazing episodes of research, when things just seem to fall out of nowhere into your lap. All of a sudden, many pieces of the story came to light, and although I still will need to fictionalize many details, if I want to tell a story, I now have a much greater grasp on how to make it legitimate in regard to the known evidence.
The most amazing thing about this is that none of what I uncovered seem to be known to any of the previous Harriman biographers to this point. If they known any of this, they surely would have mentioned it. Yet now it was all in public records, available to me from my office here in Arizona by the Internet. But of course just a few years ago, it would have taken many years, dogged diligence, and great expense of travel to uncover what it took just 48 hours to find, all without leaving my desk.
This is exactly how Thor and I pieced together much of the Harriman story of the 20th century, starting back in 2005. We were constantly amazed at how easy it was to find information and put it together, all the while knowing that had we tried to do the same thing just a few years early, it would have been practically impossible.
In any case, here is a summary of what I found, that is not in any current Harriman biography:
The Harriman ancestor Edward Wilson Holmes, father of Frances Holmes, and father-in-law to William Harriman (the emigrant), was actually an important figure in the history of papermaking. Although he had made his home in Rickmansworth (where Frances was born), in 1774 he acquired the lease of a mill in Hemel Hempstead, where he manufactured paper, apparently for the next several decades, until 1795 (shortly before his death, and the year that William Harriman left for America).
His business there (at what is now called Frogmore Mills), overlapped the early phase of the industrialization of papermaking. In fact, his mill business was acquired after his death by the firm that would institute the first industrial manufacture of paper in history.
Moreover, he apparently owned or leased a residence along Edgware Road in west London, where he died after retiring from the paper-making business.
So now we know almost certainly how William Harriman met Frances Holmes. Almost certainly it was through the fact that William Harriman and Edward Wilson Holmes were connected through business. One could assert with near 100% certainty that Harriman supplied the linen rag for Holmes' mills in Hemel Hempstead. When Holmes retired, it is quite possible that Harriman lost his biggest customer. This was probably one of the biggest motivations for why he left for the New World in 1795.
At this point, after eleven years of research, I feel like I now have enough to begin writing the story of the Harriman dynasty. More research will follow---books to be read, for both factual background and fictional inspiration, but any delay at this point in beginning the story would be counterproductive.
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Papermaking through eighteen centuries, by Dard Hunter (1930)
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| Schematic of the Fourdrinier machine, invented 1806 (source). |
1806 Henry Fourdrinier of Hemel Hempstead is granted a patent for his Fourdrinier machine (based on designs of Louis-Nicholas Robert and brought from France to England by John Gamble). It is the world's first automated process for the manufacture of paper to be put into practical usage on an industrial scale.
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| Detail of the area around Hemel Hempstead on map of Hartford Shire from 1749 (source) |
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| Location of Two Waters, just south of Hemel Hempstead, on Ordnance Survey Map, First Series, 1856.(source) |
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| Location of Frogmore Paper Mill (Two Waters) on contemporary map of Hemel Hempstead |
1803 Frogmore Mill lease acquired by Fourdrinier Brothers who install a second papermaking machine there (source).
"In 1803 the lease was acquired by the Fourdriniers who installed the machine based on the model invented by Monsieur Louis Robert, which had been much improved by Mr. Bryan Donkin. A second machine, much larger, made by Donkin was installed in the following year and a third improved machine was started in 1805 at Two Waters Mill, a few hundred yards up the river Gade. This also was leased by the Fourdriniers.
1801 Saint-Léger Didot of Paris, having recovered the papermaking machine process from Louis-Nicholas Robert, sends his son-in-law John Gamble to England with the intention of demonstrating the machine process for use there. The Fourdrinier Brothers make further developments and improvements to the machine in the following years, installing one at Two Waters Mill at Hemel Hempstead.
1798 Louis-Nicholas Robert applies for a French patent on his continuous papermaking process developed at the Didot publishing house in Paris. His patent is granted the following year. The Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers paid Robert three thousand francs to build a model for permanent display at the Musée des Arts et Métiers.
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| Obituary of of Edward Holmes, father-in-law of William Harriman, from The Gentleman's Magazine (source) |
1796 Aug 31 Edward Holmes dies, at Portman Place (Edgware Road) in London. His obituary states that he was a longtime noted papermaker who had resided in Hemel Hempstead. (source)
Portman Place, named for the Portman Estate which was part of the Marleybone Distrct in London, was once the name of part of Edgware Road. Addresses of that time were often denoted as "Portman-place, Edgware-road" (This is distinct from nearby Portman Square, which was the location of the residence of Mrs. Jennings on Upper Berkley St. in Sense and Sensibility)
This page told me that 422 Edgware Road was once numerated as 33 Portman Place.
Edgware Road I had already identified as the probable route that one would take from London out to Hemel Hempstead, where the Holmes resided in the country. So this makes perfect sense. Many of the buildings today there date from the Georgian era and are being restored. I have no been able to locate the specific address, but the information I now have is probably enough to satisfy me.
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| Possible pproximate location of the Holmes residence on Portman-place (Edgware Road) in London (within one-quarter mile north and south along the road). Much of the Marylebone District to the east in the area inhabited by the characters in Sense and Sensibility, which Austen wrote at nearly the same time that Holmes lived there. Note the location of the U.S. Embassy at the bottom of the map, at the west side of Grosvenor Square. The embassy has been located on the square since 1938, and will go on to play an important role in the Harriman story in that era. |
1795 (April) William Harriman, a London stationer, sells his wholesale rag business in the City of London and leaves for America with his family.
1795 (April) Expiration of Edward Holmes' oeiginal 21-year lease at Frogmore Mills.
1792 The Fourdrinier Brothers (Henry and Sealy) take over the Two Waters Mill adjacent to Holmes' Frogmore Mills. This mill is described as “a house, water corn mill and paper mill.” They begin to convert it manufacture of paper in competition with Holmes. (source)
"The growth in trade and general wealth of Britain at the time resulted in an increasing demand for paper and many mills in river valleys around cities of the industrial revolution, especially London, became involved in the paper industry. All paper was then made by hand, the papermaker dipping a mould into a vat of fibre and water, the water being drained off and the resulting sheet of paper pressed and left to dry. The process was slow, expensive in terms of labour, and the size of the sheet of paper limited to that of the hand held mould." (source)1790 Birth of Orlando Harriman, son of William Harriman and Frances Holmes Harriman.
1790 Origins of industrial papermaking. Louis-Nicholas Robert of France, having finished his military career, becomes an indentured clerk at one of the Didot family's renowned Paris publishing houses, well-respected establishment had a history dating back to 1355 and supplied paper to the Ministry of Finance for currency manufacture. Robert "was spurred to look for a mechanical solution to the manual labour of the paper-making process."
In his book Papermaking: the History and Technique of an Ancient Craft, Dard Hunter reported that:
“ [Louis-Nicolas Robert] declared that it was the constant strife and quarrelling among the workers of the handmade papermakers' guild that drove him to the creation of the machine that would replace hand labour. ”
1785 Marriage of William Harriman and Frances Holmes at Hemel Hempstead.
1785 Edward Holmes, papermaker, Frogmore End Mill, Hertfordshire, 1785. Sun policy 503653, £300 (source)
1779/1780 Edward Holmes, papermaker, Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, Sun policy 424738, £600, 1779/80 (source)
1774 (April) Edward Holmes, papermaker of Rickmansworth, takes lease on the Frogmore Mills at Frogmore End, Hemel Hempstead from Thomas Tower for 21yrs at £100. The lease includes the millhouse, buildings, watercourses & appurtenances, and meadow ground near the mills. He subsquently converts the mill from a corn flour mill to a paper mill, and establishes himself as successful in the manufacture of paper (source)
"Frogmore Mill, once called Covent Mill, was in use for paper-making in 1774 when Edward Holmes was the occupier. He leased it from Thomas Tower for £100 per annum and he was allowed to remove the flour milling equipment to make way for hand paper-making." (source)
1772 Edward Holmes, papermaker, of Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, takes on apprentice Richard Simmons at rate of £10/10/00. IR/1/27, fo. 134. (source)
1769 Birth of Rosamund Holmes in Rickmanworth.
1761 Birth of Frances Holmes in Rickmansworth.
1757 Edward Holmes, papermaker, of Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, takes on apprentice Mary Pewey at rate of £5/00/00. IR/1/21, fo. 044 (source)
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| Detail of the area around Rickmansworth on map of Hartford Shire from 1749 (source) |
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| Location of Rickmansworth (red pin) relative to Hemel Hempstead (yellow star to the north), as well as the London address of William Harriman on Thames Street. |
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