PAPERmaking! FROM THE PUBLISHERS OF PAPER TECHNOLOGY Volume 6, Number 2, 2020
(or ‘blue - sky’) problems which ne eded to be solved in order to allow applied research to progress and new ranges of products to be produced. The FRC held their inaugural conference in 1957 in Oxford, after which it has been held every four years, alternating between Oxford and Cambridge. 32 The top research scientists from around the world attend and its proceedings rank as some of the most important in the field of paper research. The second event was formation of a museum committee, 33 dedicated to saving the heritage of our industry. This may seem a strange subject for a ‘technical’ organisation, but again, going back to its inauguration, the Section stated that history was to be part of its aims. Indeed, a paper in the first Proceedings was on exactly this subject area. 34 The Chairman was J. Barcham Green, and the stated aim was to find suitable accommodation for a National Paper Museum, within fifty miles radius of London. The Museum committee made no great headway until the next decade, so the next article will pick up this strand of the story. But as we come to the end of the period covered by this article, trouble was in store for the Section. The Research Association was thriving, and needed to expand, so they asked the Section to vacate premises by June 1960. 35 It then came to light that the Section had been paying a peppercorn rent of some £300 per annum, and to stay in the immediate area was calculated to cost ten or twenty times this amount. The end point of this part of the Section history has now been reached. Having survived four decades, covering inception, the Great Depression and a World War, the future was now in doubt as financial hardship loomed. History tells us that it also marked the final publication of the Proceedings ; but a new and successful chapter was about to dawn, as will be described in the next part of this series.
Article 16 – PITA History Parts 1-3
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