Mention to people that you’ve been to the Lake District and visited the pencil museum and you’ll get a lot of funny looks. Some people might think you’re kidding; others will wait for a punchline. But sure enough, in the town of Keswick at the north tip of Derwent Water is exactly such a place. If you’re an artist the word Derwent might have ratcheted up the veracity of the story a notch or two – Derwent is, of course, one of the most trusted and respected art suppliers in the land. And said pencil museum is, among other things, a showcase of their craft.
Pencils seem like such an everyday item of art equipment nowadays that it’s difficult to imagine a world without them. It is believed that the first use of graphite dates back to the 16th century, when a storm uprooted a tree in Seathwaite in the Lake District, and revealed a grey-black substance that looked like stone but left a mark on anything that brushed against it. It seems likely that those who found it did not see its wider potential but certainly made use of it themselves, using it to mark their sheep. People who first studied the substance believed it to be a form of lead, although we now know that it is graphite, a particular arrangement of carbon of molecules in atom-thick sheets or plates that easily sheer off to leave a mark when they come into contact with a surface. However we still call the graphite part of a pencil its lead.
At some point in history somebody must have brushed a shard of graphite against a piece of paper and realised that it could have a use as a writing and drawing medium. Around the source of the graphite deposits, small family businesses started to make
pencils, and one such company proved extraordinarily successful. By 1832 the industry had become large enough to justify the building of its first factory, which eventually became the Cumberland Pencil Company, one of whose brands was the Derwent brand, a professional range to complement its Lakeland children’s range. Artists and draftsmen trusted the Derwent brand for its high quality, and the company went from strength to strength.
Originally,
pencils were made by hand, a skilled but laborious job that involved extracting the lengths of graphite and adhering them to a “gutter” of wood before gluing on the other half and finishing off. This labour-intensiveness naturally made
pencils expensive, but over time the process was gradually automated until the making and packaging was, as it is now, all done by machines.
The Derwent brand has also gone through many changes since its early days. It is now much more than a branch of a company; it’s a complete
art supplies manufacturer with a huge range of products, from pastels, charcoals, coloured
pencils, water-soluble
pencils and, of course, good old graphite
pencils in the complete range of hardnesses.
Of course, this is just the tip of the pencil when it comes to the Derwent story. If you want to find out more about the industry … you’d better go to the pencil museum in Keswick.
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