James Cropper plc

Last updated

James Cropper plc
Industry Papermaking
Founded1845
Founder James Cropper (1823-1900)
Headquarters,
England
Key people
James Cropper (Hon. Pres.)
Mark Cropper (Chairman)
Steve Adams (CEO)
Website www.jamescropper.com

James Cropper plc is an English papermaking company based in Burneside, Kendal, Cumbria, England. The company was founded in 1845 by James Cropper (1823-1900), whose great-great-grandson James Cropper is the Honorary President of the company.

The company have been at the same site at Burneside since 1845. There were earlier mills on the same site including a sickle mill and a fulling mill which were bought in 1750 by John Wakefield who built a woollen mill on the site in 1760 and converted the sickle mill for cotton 1770. In 1828 the mill was leased to Hudson and Forster who installed second-hand papermaking machines, and in 1845 James Cropper rented the premises. [1]

The mill seen in 2010 Entrance to James Cropper, Burneside Mills, Burneside (geograph 2164035).jpg
The mill seen in 2010

Croppers have pioneered the recycling of disposable coffeecups, [2] [3] and have also produced a range of recycled paper for the luxury packaging market. [4]

The company produces specialist paper for the manufacture of The Royal British Legion's Remembrance poppies: when a decision was made in 1978 to move from fabric to paper poppies, Croppers produced a paper which could be crimped into shape and with colour which could be sure not to rub off onto clothing. [5]

A historian was commissioned to write a history of the company but failed to deliver, at which point the current chairman Mark Cropper (great-x-3-grandson of the founder) stepped in to write The Leaves We Write On: James Cropper, a History in Paper-Making (Ellergreen, 2004: ISBN   0954919114). [6] [7]

In 2021 the company entered a three-year agreement as "headline sponsors" of the Wainwright Prize for nature and conservation writing. [8]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kendal</span> Cumbrian town in England

Kendal, once Kirkby in Kendal or Kirkby Kendal, is a market town and civil parish in the Westmorland and Furness district of Cumbria, England. It lies within the River Kent's dale, from which its name is derived, just outside the boundary of the Lake District National Park.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">River Kent</span> River in Cumbria, England

The River Kent is a short river in the county of Cumbria in England. It originates in hills surrounding Kentmere, and flows for around 20 miles (32 km) into the north of Morecambe Bay. The upper reaches and the western bank of the estuary are located within the boundaries of the Lake District National Park. The river flows in a generally north to south direction, passing through Kentmere, Staveley, Burneside, Kendal and Sedgwick. Near Sedgwick, the river passes through a rock gorge which produces a number of low waterfalls. This section is popular with kayakers as it offers high quality whitewater for several days after rain. The village of Arnside is situated on the east bank of the Kent estuary, just above Morecambe Bay, and a tidal bore known as the Arnside Bore forms in the estuary at this point on high spring tides.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paper recycling</span> Process by which waste paper is turned into new paper products

The recycling of paper is the process by which waste paper is turned into new paper products. It has a number of important benefits: It saves waste paper from occupying homes of people and producing methane as it breaks down. Because paper fibre contains carbon, recycling keeps the carbon locked up for longer and out of the atmosphere. Around two-thirds of all paper products in the US are now recovered and recycled, although it does not all become new paper. After repeated processing the fibres become too short for the production of new paper, which is why virgin fibre is frequently added to the pulp recipe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Dickinson Stationery</span> Defunct British paper company

John Dickinson Stationery Limited was a leading English stationery company founded in southwest Hertfordshire. In the 19th century, the company pioneered a number of innovations in papermaking. It became part of Dickinson Robinson Group in 1966; after changes of ownership, the John Dickinson brand was retired in 2008.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Burneside</span> Human settlement in England

Burneside is a small village in South Lakeland in Cumbria, England. It is located to the north of Kendal and to the south east of Staveley, on the River Kent, just upstream from the confluence of the River Sprint. It has about 3,000 inhabitants. By the time of the 2011, Census Burneside had been transformed into an electoral ward only. The population of this ward was 1,888. The majority of the population are now recorded as living in Strickland Ketel parish.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bowston</span> Human settlement in England

Bowston is a village in Cumbria, England, situated about 4 miles (6.4 km) north of Kendal, beside the River Kent. It has an old, probably 17th century, bridge over the river which is a Grade II listed structure. A rare VR postbox can be seen in the wall at the junction of Burneside Road and Potter Fell road.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kentmere Reservoir</span> Water storage facility in Cumbria, England

Kentmere Reservoir is a water storage facility situated in the Kentmere valley in the county of Cumbria, England. It is located 10.5 kilometres (6.5 mi) north-northeast of the town of Windermere. The reservoir is fed by the streams which form the headwaters of the River Kent which rise 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) to the north in Hall Cove on the southern slopes of a mountainous ridge called High Street, which is named after the nearby Roman road. It is also fed by Lingmell Gill, which drains the large corrie on the western side of Harter Fell beneath the Nan Bield Pass.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Visy</span> Australian paper and packaging company

Visy Industries is a privately-owned Australian-American paper, packaging, and recycling company established in Melbourne in 1948. Visy was founded by a number of people. Richard Pratt acted as the head of the company after 1969 until his death in April 2009, when his son, Anthony Pratt, assumed the role of executive chairman. Since his assumption of the role, Anthony Pratt has presided over a major expansion into the Asian packaging market and moved Visy to a position as a key player in food security for the region.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paper</span> Material for writing, printing, etc.

Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses, or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through a fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distributed on the surface, followed by pressing and drying. Although paper was originally made in single sheets by hand, almost all is now made on large machines—some making reels 10 metres wide, running at 2,000 metres per minute and up to 600,000 tonnes a year. It is a versatile material with many uses, including printing, painting, graphics, signage, design, packaging, decorating, writing, and cleaning. It may also be used as filter paper, wallpaper, book endpaper, conservation paper, laminated worktops, toilet tissue, currency, and security paper, or in a number of industrial and construction processes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crane and Company Old Stone Mill Rag Room</span> United States historic place

The Crane and Company Old Stone Mill Rag Room is one of the oldest surviving buildings of Crane & Co., one of the oldest papermaking businesses in Berkshire County, Massachusetts. It is located in southwestern Dalton, on a site where paper has been manufactured since the early 19th century. The building, originally used for processing rags, has housed the Crane Museum of Papermaking since 1930, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1983.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DS Smith</span> British multinational packaging business

DS Smith plc is a British multinational packaging business, headquartered in London. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Cropper (businessman)</span>

Sir James Anthony Cropper KCVO is the former Lord-Lieutenant of Cumbria and honorary president of James Cropper plc, speciality paper makers, of Burneside, a business founded by his great-great grandfather James Cropper in 1845.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Potter Fell</span>

Potter Fell is a fell near the villages of Burneside and Staveley, Cumbria, England, reaching a maximum height of 1,400 feet (430 m) at Brunt Knott. Alfred Wainwright in his The Outlying Fells of Lakeland identifies four summits on Potter Fell: Brunt Knott, Ulgraves and two unnamed summits, all of which are thus recognised by the Database of British and Irish Hills. There are a number of tarns on the fell, including Gurnal Dubs and Potter Tarn.

James Cropper may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Allied Paper Corporation</span>

The Allied Paper Corporation was created in 1921 by a merger of three paper mills in Kalamazoo and Otsego, both in South-West Michigan, USA. The company grew steadily over the next 40 years but when local forests had been logged off and when profits could no longer support further investments and updates it became uncompetitive. Allied mills were closed or sold during the 1970s and 1980s, and the corporation passed into history during 1988. Hundreds of millions of dollars have since been spent in South West Michigan cleaning up the last Allied Paper mill site and the PCB pollution caused by this company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wansbrough Paper Mill</span>

Wansbrough Paper Mill was a paper mill located in the town of Watchet, Somerset, when it was the UK's largest manufacturer of coreboard.

The Wainwright Prize is a literary prize awarded annually for the best work of general outdoors, nature and UK-based travel writing. In 2020 it was split into the Wainwright Prize for UK nature writing and the Wainwright Prize for writing on global conservation, with separate longlists and judging panels. It is restricted to books published in the UK. For three years from 2022 the prizes will be sponsored by Kendal paper-makers James Cropper plc and known as the James Cropper Wainwright Prizes. A prize for writing for children was introduced in 2022, the three prizes being the James Cropper Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing, the James Cropper Wainwright Prize for Writing on Conservation and the James Cropper Wainwright Prize for Children's Writing on Nature and Conservation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Burneside Paper Mills Tramway</span>

The Burneside Tramway was initially a narrow gauge and later a standard gauge industrial railway serving the James Cropper paper mills around Burneside, Cumbria.

Hemp paper is paper varieties consisting exclusively or to a large extent from pulp obtained from fibers of industrial hemp. The products are mainly specialty papers such as cigarette paper, banknotes and technical filter papers. Compared to wood pulp, hemp pulp offers a four to five times longer fibre, a significantly lower lignin fraction as well as a higher tear resistance and tensile strength. Because the paper industry's processes have been optimized for wood as the feedstock, production costs currently are much higher than for paper from wood.

The Lakeland Book of the Year, also known as the Hunter Davies Lakeland Book of the Year is an award given annually for a book "set in or featuring Cumbria in some way", and is named for the Lake District of north west England. It was founded by writer Hunter Davies in 1984 and is administered by Cumbria Tourism. Davies was one of the judges from 1984 to 2022. In 2023, following Davies's retirement from the role, the judges were Fiona Armstrong, Eric Robson, Michael McGregor, director of Wordsworth Grasmere, and "guest judge" Rachel Laverack from Cumbria County Council. The prizes are traditionally announced at a gala lunch in June, although in 2020 the proceedings took place online because of COVID-19.

References

  1. "Burneside Paper Mill". Industrial History of Cumbria. Cumbria Industrial History Society. Retrieved 20 January 2021.
  2. "James Cropper takes significant step towards recycling coffee cups". Packaging Europe. 30 January 2019. Retrieved 20 January 2021.
  3. Abbott, Jez (17 July 2013). "Royal visit marks opening of James Cropper pioneering recycling plant". Printweek. Retrieved 20 January 2021.
  4. "James Cropper presents 100% recycled paper collection for premium packaging". Packaging Europe. 25 June 2020. Retrieved 20 January 2021.
  5. "The Poppy Story". James Cropper PLC. Retrieved 20 January 2021.
  6. "Mark Cropper: From Paperback Writer to Power Broker". The Manufacturer. 2 April 2012. Retrieved 20 January 2021.
  7. Witt, David. "Book Review: The Leaves We Write On". SOUE News. Society of Oxford University Engineers. Retrieved 20 January 2021.
  8. "Sponsors & Partners". Wainwright Prize. Archived from the original on 5 August 2021. Retrieved 8 September 2021.