CELEBRATING 180 YEARS OF JAMES CROPPER For as long as humans have existed, we’ve been using colour to express ourselves. Social interactions have evolved, whole languages have emerged and died out, but colour is still there. From the earliest cave paintings first daubed tens of thousands of years ago, to the vivid digital adverts designed to pop up on the latest HDR screens, our appetite to enrich our world with colour endures as a quintessentially human trait. As such a universal part of the human experience, no one can truly claim to ‘own’ colour. But it does have a home – James Cropper’s paper mill on the edge of the English Lake District. There is perhaps no more fitting locale for the home of colour. Our mill is surrounded by natural colours of every shade, from the lush greens of field, fern, and foliage to the greys and browns of our ancient riverside buildings – all enriched, for nearly 170 years, by the spectrum of coloured papers made within. Growing Up in the Home of Colour I feel incredibly lucky to have been born into a family with such an ancient association with an industry, company, and place. ‘The mill’, as we call it in the family, has been a part of my life since my earliest memories, but I have only latterly realised how vanishingly rare the business truly is. There are barely any historic mills still operating in Great Britain, let alone in the paper industry, and none led by the same family in the same place. But keeping the legacy going demands that I constantly look forward rather than back. Our existence must be earned every day. My greatest desire has always been for the business to feel perpetually young, and I’m fortunate that we are still reinventing ourselves 180 years on, evolving from a traditional mill into a global innovator in advanced materials and sustainable paper and packaging. Inline with its 180th anniversary, Mark Cropper, current chairman of James Cropper, a provider of advanced materials and paper products, talks about his family’s history in paper and shares his thoughts on the importance of coloured paper in the UK Preserving Colour for Six Generations Two generations ago, everything we made was for printing and writing – hardly a recipe for success in today’s digital age. We are still here as we’ve transformed ourselves into one of the world’s most diverse materials manufacturers serving markets as varied as aerospace, renewable energy, and luxury retail. And, as the last remaining manufacturer of coloured paper in the UK, it’s a role we take seriously. Colour is the one universal form of communication that has persisted throughout the entirety of human existence. We use it to express who we are and what we believe. It can dramatically alter the way we think and feel, and just a glimpse of a familiar shade can trigger the emergence of long-forgotten memories. Upholding a British Tradition Throughout our history, James Cropper has explored the infinite spectrum of colour, investing in our own colour lab to 29 www.printmonthly.co.uk Issue 357 - November | December 2025
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