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From Quern to Computer; a history of flour milling by Martin and Sue Watts covers a wide range of topics and this summarises Chapter 10.The principle of roller milling is the gradual reduction of grain by breaking it open and reducing the particle size between successive pairs of rolls. At every stage of the process some flour is…
Since the creation of mills, whether powered by water or wind, the need for their construction, repair and maintenance has also existed. Evidence of millwrighting has been noted across the world and across centuries from the Ancient Greeks and Romans to the Byzantine Empire and Medieval Europe and, finally, to Modern Britain. Though the term…
Sugar & Slavery: Reproductive Mills is a new Mills Archive digital exhibition, launched in October 2021. It is the first of a series of online exhibitions. This exhibition sheds light on the links between technological developments in sugar milling and enslaved women’s reproductive systems, especially in the early nineteenth-century before the abolition of slavery. The exhibition…
By Ron and Mildred Cookson With Remembrance Sunday next weekend, this week’s newsletter is devoted to the varied roles played by mills during the two World Wars. As field hospitals for wounded soldiers, as look-out posts, as places to relax away from the battlefield and as a means of feeding a nation under siege, we…
Vincent Pargeter with dog, Gran Canaria It has been 6 years now since the milling industry sadly lost Vincent Pargeter on the 31st of October 2015. During the first few weeks of my internship here at the Mills Archive, which you can find more about here, I have become oddly attached to and fascinated with Vincent’s…
The mill as a metaphor for time and change is an ancient theme. St Augustine of Hippo (354-430) in his ‘Expositions on the Psalms’ described the world as a mill, because of the way the wheel of time is ever revolving and in the end crushes everyone. The ancient Greek proverb dating back to at…
A Photograph is the “pause button” of life“What I like about photographs is that they capture a moment that’s gone forever, impossible to reproduce.”― Karl Lagerfeld Discover the amazing collection of photographs held by the Mills Archive Trust. We have some 70,000 mill-related images in the archives, including both photographs and drawings. Many are available for…
Last May I featured William Gardner of Gloucester in a brief review of 10 succesful milling engineers with works in the UK. In The Miller (5 August 1895) there is a detailed account of this highly regarded firm, well-known in Gloucester and the West of England since the 1870s. The firm underwent several moves since it was founded around…
From Quern to Computer; a history of flour milling by Martin and Sue Watts covers a wide range of topics and this summarises Chapter 9. For a much more detailed treatment read the article itself. The century between 1750 and 1850 was one of great social change as Britain moved inexorably towards industrialisation. The period was also marked by…
Mills are most well-known for grinding corn into flour. Over the centuries mills powered by wind, water and other power sources have been used for many other types of industry. These series of newsletters will highlight a different use each month. You can find the full set here at https://new.millsarchive.org/2020/06/25/mills-make-the-world-go-round/. Salt mills Salt (sodium chloride) is essential for…
