This week’s trip Down Memory Lane looks at the paper industry at Purfleet from 1887 until it closed in 2003, running for more than 116 years.
Thames Board Mills as most people would know it, started by a Frenchman, Maurice Cartiaux, making straw board from horse manure and straw.
In 1902 it became Thames Paper and its products upgraded.
It was 1926 when the familiar name of Thames Board Mills went on to become the country’s leading manufactures of paper and board. In its final role, under BPB, it produced paperboard for the linings of plasterboard.
During the Victorian times it employed at its peek 3,500 workers, but in its final year there was only 150 employees and 100 contractors.
It finally closed as BPB found it far more economic to acquire liner from Germany.
The loss of 70 per cent of its market spelled the end of a era for the paper industry in Purfleet.
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