Whatman plc

Whatman is an international leader in separations technology. Focused on life sciences, we provide solutions to the laboratory and healthcare markets, including DNA storage, isolation and purification. Our enviable brand strength, built up over 250 years, coupled with our technology portfolio, gives us the platform to deliver our true potential. Whatman son, James II, who took over after his father's death, invents paper whitening process using laundry blue. Balston's sons William and Richard Balston take over mill and company is renamed W&R Balston. Balston begins supply filter paper to British military and steel industry, causing company to phase out papermaking to focus on filters for scientific and industrial applications. W&R Balston merges with Angel Reeve International to form Whatman Angel Reeve, listing on the London Stock Exchange. The company establishes subsidiaries in France and Singapore as part of international expansion during the 1980s. Whatman launches improved paper-based DNA storage and retrieval product and acquires DNA filtration specialist Cambridge Molecular Technologies, paying £4 million. Whatman begins consolidation of manufacturing sites, with plans to shut down eight plants by 2003. James Whatman was born into a family of tanners based around Kent, England in 1907. Whatman learned the tanners trade, but, as the tanning process produced a gelatin by-product used by paper makers, Whatman was in close contact with paper makers, and notably the Harris family. In 1733, Whatman built a paper mill for his friend, Richard Harris. Harris then began building a new, larger mill, Turkey Mill, near Maidstone. When Harris died in 1739, Whatman married his widow, and took over paper-making operations at Turkey Mill. Whatman quickly distinguished himself a maker of quality paper. As with most of the European paper industry, Whatman's early production was of so-called "laid" paper, which had a somewhat coarse feature. Printer John Baskerville approached Whatman with the request for a paper with a finer finish in order to show off his new serif font. Whatman complied, developing a new wire mesh to produce what became known as "wove" paper (because it was similar in appearance to woven linen). Whatman is commonly credited with producing the first wove paper in 1756, and Baskerville became the first to print on the new paper type in 1757. The technique eventually became a standard in the paper-making industry, representing some 99 percent of all paper. The Whatman paper--the Whatman name was to become synonymous with wove paper--retained a monopoly for some 30 years on the technique, and was instrumental in enabling the British papermaking industry to compete against larger rivals in France and Holland. Yet Whatman himself did not live to see the results of his innovation. Whatman died in 1759, stipulating that his business be turned over to his son, James II, then 17 years old, when the younger Whatman reached 23 years of age. By the time of Whatman's death, Turkey Mill had become England's largest paper mill. James Whatman II proved a ready businessman, however, and by the age of 21 his mother had turned the family business over to him. The younger Whatman inherited his father's gift for innovation as well. In 1765, Whatman discovered a means of whitening paper by adding laundry blue to the typically yellowed paper pulp. The resulting paper and further improvements in the wove process helped the Whatman name become world-renowned, especially among the world's watercolor artists, but also among such personalities as Napoleon, who used Whatman paper to compose his will in 1821. Whatman success led him to expand, building a second mill and producing, in addition to wove paper, marbled paper, and paper for copper plate engravings. Whatman, who also had a son named James, began instead to groom protegé William Balston, who had entered the Whatman household as a schoolboy, to take over his business. When Whatm