John Tate

John Tate was the first English papermaker.According to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography he was born about 1448. A businessman based in London, he was a member of the Mercers Company.

The Tates were a successful business family with international trading connections. The subject was known to contemporaries as "John Tate the younger", and is believed have been the son of the John Tate who served as Lord Mayor of London in 1473.Neither father nor son is to be confused with a third John Tate, apparently a cousin of the subject, who was knighted and who served as Lord Mayor in 1496-97 and 1514–15.

Tate acquired a long-established watermill just outside Hertford. Called Sele Mill, it was on the River Beane, a chalk stream, near its confluence with the River Lea. This facility was converted into a paper mill.Paper was produced there in the 1490s, and possibly earlier. The catchment of the Beane was a rural area, but the mill was less than 30 miles from the capital which could be accessed via Ermine Street.

Hertford Castle was given by Henry VII to his wife. While the king did not spend much time at Hertford, he is known to have visited Sele Mill on two occasions. It has been suggested that one of the watermarks used by Tate, a Tudor rose, was designed with royal use in mind. Another London-based customer was Wynkyn de Worde, who took over Caxton's print shop in the 1490s. There is also evidence that Tate found customers in Hertfordshire with some of his paper being used on the Woodhall estate.

The quality of the paper was good, but the mill seems to have ceased producing it at the beginning of the 16th century for reasons which are not clear. Tate mentioned the building in his will of 1507 along with a stock of white paper he had there. Possibly he could not get a good enough price for his paper, although, as far as is known, the only direct competition he faced was from papermakers abroad. Much later other rivers in Hertfordshire proved suitable for papermaking, for example, the River Gade (see Frogmore Paper Mill).

Tate wrote his will in 1507 and died that year or the following. He had been living at Mincing Lane and was buried at St Dunstan-in-the-East.