Henry Fourdrinier, Sr.

Henry Fourdrinier, Sr., was a wholesale stationer in Lombard Street and Lombard Lane, 1753-1803.  His son, Charles Fourdrinier, was a stationer, copperplate printer and publisher in London (1784-1811), operating in Charing Cross Road. The senior Fourdrinier’s other two sons, Henry (1766-1854) and Sealy (1773-1847), took over their father’s business in 1802, moving their offices to Sherborn Lane in the City of London.  They remained in the stationary business until 1840, best remembered today for their pioneering work with paper making machines. Despite the eventual widespread use of such machines, the Fourdriniers received very little profit in return on their investment.  At his death in 1854, Henry Fourdrinier, Jr., though reduced to poverty, had nevertheless witnessed a revolution in the printing trade, with cheap newspapers and books now readily accessible to mass markets.  See William B. Todd, A Directory of Printers and Others in Allied Trade, London and Vicinity 1800–1840 (London: Printing Historical Society, 1972), 83-84.