James Cropper plc is an English

papermaking Papermaking is the manufacture of paper and cardboard, which are used widely for printing, writing, and packaging, among many other purposes. Today almost all paper is Pulp and paper industry, made using industrial machinery, while handmade pape ...

and

advanced materials ''Advanced Materials'' is a weekly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering materials science. It includes communications, reviews, and feature articles on topics in chemistry, physics, nanotechnology, ceramics, metallurgy, and biomaterials. Accor ...

company based in

Burneside Burneside () is a small village in Westmorland and Furness, Cumbria, England. It is located to the north of Kendal and to the south east of Staveley, on the River Kent, just upstream from the confluence of the River Sprint. It has about 3,00 ...

Kendal Kendal, once Kirkby in Kendal or Kirkby Kendal, is a market town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Westmorland and Furness, England. It lies within the River Kent's dale, from which its name is derived, just outside the boundary of t ...

, Cumbria, England. The company was founded in 1845 by James Cropper (1823–1900), whose great-great-grandson James Cropper is the Honorary President of the company. The company have been at the same site at Burneside since 1845. There were earlier mills on the same site including a sickle mill and a fulling mill which were bought in 1750 by John Wakefield who built a woollen mill on the site in 1760 and converted the sickle mill for cotton 1770. In 1828 the mill was leased to Hudson and Forster who installed second-hand papermaking machines, and in 1845 James Cropper rented the premises. Croppers have pioneered the

recycling Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. This concept often includes the recovery of energy from waste materials. The recyclability of a material depends on its ability to reacquire the propert ...

of disposable coffeecups, and have also produced a range of recycled paper for the luxury packaging market. The company produces specialist paper for the manufacture of

The Royal British Legion The Royal British Legion (RBL), formerly the British Legion, is a British Charitable organization, charity providing financial, social and emotional support to members and veterans of the British Armed Forces, their families and dependants. ...

Remembrance poppies A remembrance poppy is an artificial flower worn in some countries to commemorate their military personnel who died in war. Remembrance poppies are produced by veterans' associations, which exchange the poppies for charitable donations used to g ...

: when a decision was made in 1978 to move from fabric to paper poppies, Croppers produced a paper which could be crimped into shape and with colour which could be sure not to rub off onto clothing. A historian was commissioned to write a history of the company but failed to deliver, at which point the current chairman Mark Cropper (great-x-3-grandson of the founder) stepped in to write ''The Leaves We Write On: James Cropper, a History in Paper-Making'' (Ellergreen, 2004: ). In 2021 the company entered a three-year agreement as "headline sponsors" of the Wainwright Prize for nature and conservation writing.

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* {{authority control Companies based in Cumbria Kendal Engineering companies of England Manufacturing companies established in 1845 British companies established in 1845 Papermaking in the United Kingdom