(This page is best viewed on paper).

Lakeland pencils

Excerpts from the Society's Transactions

Eric Voice's paper, "The History of the Manufacture of Pencils" is published in Transactions of the Newcomen Society, 1949-51 Vol 27.

In this paper, the author describes the sixteenth century discovery of graphite in Borrowdale in Cumberland, and its use for writing. Known at the time as "black lead", or "English antimony", it was very brittle and had to be protected. Originally a twig or reed would be used, but tradition has it that a Keswick joiner soon developed a better method of encasing the graphite rods in wood, and showed his invention to a clergyman who had some made for his friends - thus spreading the idea of the pencil as we know it. The first record of pencil-making on a commercial scale was in Staedtler's factory in Nuremberg in 1662.

But then came the "great development which was destined to render all competitors of the graphite pencil obsolete". In 1794 graphite from Borrowdale was completely unobtainable owing to the Napoleonic blockade, so the French Bureau of Mines commissioned Nicholas Jacques Conté the celebrated engineer and inventor to find a substitute. Later in the year Conté achieved success by "binding finely powdered graphite with clay, forming the plastic mass into rods, and firing as in ceramic work".

Pencil manufacturing continued to have a colourful history, as this excerpt shows:

"By 1830 the price of Cumberland graphite had reached fantastic heights. The raw material from the mines, still only opened for six weeks every seven years, was carried to London under an armed guard, and auctioned to the seven or eight makers, who then transported it back to Keswick. In 1803 the price was 30/- per pound, in 1829, 50/- per pound, and after 1850, cost from 2/6 to 21/- per ounce! The price of pencils, of course, rose, being from a farthing for an inferior quality to 1/3d for the best. It became usual to groove and fill only half the length of the pencil, an economy referred to by Jane Austen in Emma".

Below are illustrations of the different methods of assembly: (i) the method using natural graphite, (ii) the alternative method often used with conté leads, and (iii) the modern method:

The complete text of this paper can be purchased on line from our archive.

Transactions page

Back to the top