International Molinology

Journal of The International Molinological Society

No. 68  / summary - résumé

Editorial
by Michael Harverson
     The opening pages of this issue of International Molinology are devoted to reminiscences of Anders Jespersen and an attempt to assess his crucial role in the development of TIMS. With his keen eye for the lay-out and appearance of printed material – his Second Transactions volume set the standard by which later publications have been judged for 30 years – he would surely have greeted with approval the coloured cover of IM68 featuring his favourite Danish watermill. This is the third issue in recent years with a cover in colour and the first to include a double-page spread of colour photos. This move results from three things: a desire to give IM more immediate appeal; the high quality of the photos of Maltese windmills contributed by Chris Gibbings to illustrate his article; the receipt of a generous donation towards our publications. Please let the editor know if you approve.

Anders Kragh Jespersen
   Anders Jespersen and TIMS
Anders Jespersen played a major role in the creation of The International Molinological Society. Members owe him a debt of gratitude for the way in which, over thirty years, he then aided the development of their society.
In 1964, Santos Simoes from Portugal became very concerned that mill enthusiasts were not making contact with each other. He visited England and spoke of this concern to a group of members of the Wind and Watermill Section of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, speaking excellent English with a Lancashire accent! He followed up this meeting with similar visits to the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany. The positive reaction which his message received encouraged him to arrange a symposium of mill enthusiasts in Portugal in 1965. One outcome of this event was the clear need for further such meetings to be held in other countries and at regular intervals. Anders Jespersen was charged with the responsibility of organising a second symposium in Denmark in 1969.

     Papers presented by Anders Jespersen at TIMS Symposia:

1. “Standard Proposals for Mill Survey work” 1965, TR1, pp.43-52
2. “Mill Preservation in Denmark” 1965, TR1, pp.218-256 “Portuguese Mills. What we learned during the First International Symposium on Molinology”,1969,TR2 pp.67-87
3. “Antiquarian Production”, 1969, TR2, pp.135-141
4. “Watermill Survey Sheet 1954”, 1969, TR2, pp.179-194
5. “Terminologia Molinologiae”, 1969, with E.G.Loeber, TR2, pp. 195-210
6. “What has happened in Denmark since 1969”, 1973, TR3, pp.142.148
7. “Windpower as Carrier of the Early Industrial Revolution in Holland”, 1977, TR4, pp.131-141
8. “The Mill River”, 1977, TR4, pp.373-389
9. “Trough or Pentrough”, 1982, TR5, p.229-248
10. “The Fourth Symposium on Molinology”, 1982, TR5, pp.149-254
11. “The Grubbe Impact on the Danish Cereal Watermill”, 1986, TR6, pp.110-122
12. “The Post Mill” 1989, TR7, pp., 212- 229
13. “Mill Sails supplied by Slagelse Saekkelager A/S”, 1993, TR8, pp.179-188
14. “Cap Mill tradition in Denmark”, 1997, TR9, 12 pp.

     We are fortunate that Anders published so much in connection with both Danish and general molinology, recording his own research and opinions and those of the teams he worked with at the Nationalmuseets Mølleudvalg from the 1950s.

     Chris Gibbings writes: “I would like to add how easy-going and cooperative he was at TIMS council meetings and to stress his positive attitude. Rex Wailes and I used to pull his leg about being so keen on figures (dimensions, speed, output etc) to do with mills. Although technical, Anders was never a bore. Sally was a wonderful, joyous person, a counterpart to Anders, stopping him from getting too serious, although he had a good sense of humour too.”

6 pages, 6 illustrations

Windmills of Malta and Gozo

by Chris Gibbings

I dedicate this article to the memory of my old friend Claude Rivals, who would have been more than enthusiastic about the ethnological richness of these windmills. [This is the first of two articles. The second in IM69 will deal with the windmills of Minorca. All illustrations are taken by the author or from his postcard collection, apart from Figs X and X taken by Jacques de la Garde.]

     I was inspired to write this article on the windmills of the Maltese Republic by the following factors:

1. In IM66 [p.34] Louis Blom discussed their origins in his reaction to my article in IM64 [p.28] about windmills in Africa, where I suggested that the windmill at Sfax in Tunisia is of Italian/Maltese inspiration. However, he did not there refer his readers to the paper presented at the Fifth Symposium, entitled “The Vanishing Windmills of the Maltese Islands” by Philippe Le Lourd (Transactions pp. 317-332), the first in-depth international communication on the subject.
2. The latter’s quoted sources included “The Old Flour Mills of Malta and Gozo” by Professor J.Galea, published in the Maltese Folklore Review, vol 1, No 2, 1963. I obtained a photocopy at the Municipal Library on Gozo. This 7-page article is so rewarding that it deserves to be better known. For such a regional study it is to my mind truly remarkable.
3. None of the studies to date has borne photographic witness to the extraordinary gearing of Maltese windmills which Le Lourd wrongly describes as “of a normal type”. It was and it wasn’t!
4. I went there in April 1995 to carry out my own fieldwork and met a former miller who spoke English and from whom I gleaned additional information.

A brief introduction to Malta
     Malta boasts the oldest civilisation in Europe and the Mediterranean. Its temples are the most ancient, more so even than those of Egypt, to have survived. It seems as though almost every nation has attacked (and in some cases colonised) it, beginning with the Phoenicians and ending with the Germans. It has been under Arab, Italian, French and British rule and belonged for a crucial period to the Order of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem (formerly the crusading Knights Hospitaller). All these invaders and colonists have contributed words to the vocabulary of its language, a Semitic one: Malta is the only country outside the Arab world with a Semitic language. I wrote in my notes at the time “many people are called Attard or Falzon”(both of French origin) and “there are lots of cats!” Mithna is the word commonly used for Windmill although it actually just means Mill. However, there were no watermills on the Maltese islands, just animal-powered mills that the people referred to as Miexi. Those in Valletta were mule-driven and worked in conjunction with the order’s bakeries, designed by Gerolamo Cassar in 1572.

Windmill Origins
     Not wishing to start a debate over origins, I prefer to go along with what Professor Galea has to say: “When the Knights came to our island in 1530, there were windmills in existence, as evidenced by Grand Master Villiers de l’Isle Adam.” Le Lourd found evidence for five windmills from the period 1636-57, but he goes on “a number of them must have been built before.” [cf a recent statement in Windmill Whispers (Oct-Dec 2003) attributing an extensive increase in the number of windmills to Nicolas Cottoner, Grand Master 1663-80, who “brought specialised craftsmen from Majorca, his homeland, to build them.”Ed.]      

The Order monopolised the construction and operation of windmills on the islands, as the provision of flour was crucial to their survival when under siege. Hence the majority of mills were sited in towns rather than in the countryside; those built within the bastions of Valletta are fine examples of mills on fortifications. [A subject that cries out for a study in a future issue of IM. Ed.] Grand Masters set up foundations which rented out their properties, such as windmills, the income being often used for the maintenance of galleys in the Order’s fleet. So, the two windmills, both now vanished, on the St Michael’s bastion (see Fig.1) belonged to the Cottoner foundation, charged with financing lines of fortifications that protected parts of Valletta. The foundation of Grand master De Vilhena (1722-36) built windmills not only in the walled towns but also in various villages of Malta and Gozo. These were the last to be erected by a foundation of the Order.

     Some mills were leased to millers, others were managed by contractors working on behalf of the government. The windmills yielded 12,000 scudi yearly. The government monopoly over mills was abolished by the British in 1838.

6 pages, 8 illustrations

Watermills in Shetland
by Jeff. Hawksley
     Shetland is the furthest outpost of the British Isles, its remoteness often concealed by the practice of map-makers who, anxious to save paper, usually put Shetland in a spare corner of a map of northern Scotland. The saving is worthwhile. From the southern tip of Shetland to the nearest approach on the Scottish coast is about 170 km. And, once arrived in Shetland, there are further opportunities for lengthy journeys as the group of islands is itself over 110 km long. Despite their apparent isolation the islands lie on the ancient trading routes between Scandinavia, Scotland, Ireland, The Faroes and Iceland. In the days before steamships every landfall would have been important for shelter, for provisions and for trade and so Shetland was exposed to many influences. Its history goes back at least 5000 years to the Stone Age and there is evidence that cereal crops were grown during most of this time. At these high latitudes – most of Shetland lies further north than sixty-degrees – wheat cannot be grown successfully. The two principal crops were oats and a type of barley called bere and both of these were ground to make meal.

Summary of the Remaining Mills
     Most of the remaining mills have already been mentioned to illustrate their details and other features. However, a summary may be useful. Three horizontal mills are maintained in full working order. They are:-
     The mill at Troswick in the Parish of Dunrossness on the East coast towards the Southern tip of Mainland – Shetland’s larges island. It had been used, except for a few brief intervals, right up to the 1960s when a neighbour remembers his father taking corn to be ground. A number of modifications have been made over the years. In the 1930s the walls were made a little higher to make the work in the mill a little easier and the mill was re-roofed with wooden boards, covered with felt, to reduce the maintenance load. The water is brought right into the mill along a stone-lined channel rather than the more usual wooden trough and an elegant channel, faced with cement, has been created around the millstones. It is now an easy matter to gather up the flour. The mill is privately owned and the farmer grinds about 100 kg of bere each year for groups of schoolchildren and “by invitation”.
     Burland, on the island of Trondra on the West coast of Mainland has been entirely restored by the owner and it is an important feature of “The Burland Croft Trail”. The owner runs his small farm, or croft, in the traditional manner in order to keep the old skills and practices alive. The mill worked until 1914 and it was completely restored in 1992 with meticulous attention to detail.
Croft House Museum, also in the Parish of Dunrossness, and very close to the mill at Troswick.
     This mill is run by the Shetland Museum Service and it is part of a larger grouping of the Croft House and other integrated farm buildings. Each building is furnished and the whole is an important repository of artefacts and memoirs of the crofters’ way of life. The mill was used until sometime around 1900 and it was restored in 1971 along with the other museum buildings.
     Quendale Mill. Although this mill has an overshot, vertical waterwheel it is included here because it is maintained in full working order. Quendale is also on the Southern tip of Mainland and only about 4 km. from the Croft House Museum. The mill was built in 1867 and worked until 1948.
It is open for visits during the summer months.
     In addition to the three restored horizontal watermills there are others which have been fully or partially restored during the last 20 or 30 years. At Huxter, near Sandness on the Western promontory of Mainland, is a flight of three horizontal mills along the stream. The mills are signposted with brown tourist signs. They were in use until the 1930s, however they had become derelict by the 1980s. Considerable efforts had obviously been made to restore them but they are again falling into disrepair, especially the roofs, as can be seen in Figs 5 and 8.
A similar story could probably be told of the horizontal mill at Westing on the island of Unst, the most northerly island of the group. It is marked on the tourist map as “Norse Mill”. It is believed that this mill was renovated in the 1970s and the roof replaced with corrugated sheeting covered with turf, presumably to reduce the need for maintenance. The turf has come away in patches but the waterwheel and the millstones are still in place.

Vementry appears to be in the same category but here the roof has gone entirely. Nevertheless most of the waterwheel is still there. This mill, like the mill on Unst and the Huxter mills, does retain many important details; they add greatly to Shetland’s rich collection of milling history.

     Travelling around Shetland is a continual delight, as the remains of mills can still be found. In most cases only the stonework is still standing. At Troswick, in addition to the restored mill already mentioned, there are the remains of six other mills along the stream. A similar flight of five mills can be seen at Spiggie, a little way to the west of Troswick. The southern part of mainland has a surprising concentration of mills. Doubtless there are many more throughout the islands.

7 pages, 12 illustrations

TIMS News
1     Editorial
2     A tribute to Anders Kragh Jespersen - Boum Pyndiah
4     Anders Jespersen: thoughts on a name - Susana Louro
        Anders Jespersen and TIMS - Kenneth Major
6     A Selective Bibliography
        Thoughts from other TIMS colleagues
Original Papers
8     Windmills of Malta and Gozo - Chris Gibbings
14     Watermills in Shetland - Jeff Hawksley
25     Kingsford’s Mill, Perth, Western Australia - Keith Preston
28     Typological Questions in Molinology - Berthold Moog
Communications
34     A Norwegian Watermill in 1834
35     The Lily Windmill, Western Australia
        Annual General Meeting of DGM
        Swiss Mills Day 2004 and other publications received
36    Floating windmills
        News from TIMS-America
        Mill Literature
37    Book Reviews
41    TIMS News

Front cover: Vejstrup Mill, Fynen in winter. Watercolour by P. Mons.

ISSN 1024-4522
This summary of the 65th  Jounal of The International Molinological Society
has been prepared by Gerald Bost, Berlin - Febr. 2006.
The complete printed version can be ordered from TIMS Publication Officer:
Leo van der Drift
Groothertoginnelaan 174 b/c
NL-2517 EV Den Haag
The Netherlands                 

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Published: Sonntag, Februar 26, 2006 10:31:31