PAPERmaking! g FROM THE PUBLISHERS OF PAPER TECHNOLOGY Volume 6, Number 2, 2020
speciality mills that ceased to operate, and while paper usage showed unerring increase (so much for the ‘paperless office’) the actual range of papers used shrank significantly. Gone were the esparto printing s of the Scottish mills, a vast range of industrial grades, and eventually most of the coated publication products. Gone also were some of the great names, such as: Bowaters, John Dickinson & Co., Reed Paper Group, and Wiggins Teape Group – all victims of merger, acquisition or consolidation.
Figure 7: Number of UK Mills 1960-1999 (as published in trade directories). A further casualty of the closures and concomitant job losses was the education sector. As noted in the first of these articles, education was deemed an important area for the Technical Section to improve. City and Guild examinations continued, and there were three establishments where higher-level studies were taught: Manchester Municipal College of Technology which gained a Royal Charter in 1955 to become Manchester College of Science and Technology, then the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) in 1966; Bury Technical College, which became Bury College in 1987; and Robert Gordon’s Technical College, which became Robert Gordon’s Institute of Technology in 1965 and Robert Gordon University in 1992. Job losses meant fewer students. Investment was poured into UMIST and Robert Gordon University (Figure 8) in the 1990s, 41 but ultimately it was too late. Industry Contraction Hits Home Shrinkage of the industry had a knock-on effect on the Technical Section. In 1972 the British Paper and Board Makers’ Association (BPBMA) celebrated its centenary; two years on it merged with the Employer’s Federation to become the British Paper and Board Industry Federation (BPBIF); 42 at this juncture the Technical Section, which was transferred to the newly-formed Commercial Division, was renamed the Technical Division. Soon after, at the start of 1975, the magazine was renamed Paper Technology & Industry , probably to indicate its more commercial alignment. Less than a decade later, the BPBIF decided that a Technical Division did not sit well within its future plans, so the two split in 1982, and the Division (which was afterwards renamed the Paper Industry Technical Association) became (loosely) assimilated into the Paper Industry Research Association (PIRA) based in Leatherhead. 43 This was never meant to be a permanent situation, but was very-much a necessary move in order to allow PITA time to reorganise and plan a new course.
Article 16 – PITA History Parts 1-3
Page 10 of 15
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs