Inside pages of Catalogue of Paper Making Machinery, Steam Engines etc, Bryan Donkin & Company

In 1803, the engineer Bryan Donkin (1768-1855) began building a new factory in Bermondsey to produce Fourdrinier paper making machines on behalf of the Fourdriniers, who funded Donkin's experiments with paper making machinery. Bermondsey is now part of London but in 1803 it was in pleasant countryside in the county of Surrey.

In 1811, Donkin bought the factory from the Fourdriniers and established his own company, Bryan Donkin and Company, Engineers. The firm continued in family hands after Bryan Donkin's death. In 1900 the company merged with Clench and Co Ltd of Chesterfield, Derbyshire and in 1902 the firm relocated from Bermondsey to Chesterfield. The Bermondsey factory has since been demolished.