I have had contact with a Swedish descendant of the paper making Davisons, I contacted her through Ancestry but she has given me permission to place her family information here. I found the death of Charles Frederick Davisson b.1827 d. 1895 in the UK, Foreign and Overseas Registers of British Subjects 1628 - 1969 and found him in 1841 with his family living in Alveley near Bridgnorth. The following link has information about Alveley Mills.
http://search.shropshirehistory.org.uk/collections/getrecord/CCS_MSA17111/?allowcookies=1In the 1841 census on the same page as the Davisons there was a 30 year old James Hyde papermaker with his wife (her name has been transcribed as Milbro!) also at Alveley I wonder if he was related to Elcas' Charles Hide?
Anyway back to the Davison family:
"In 1849 John Davisson (1804-1863) moved to Sweden with his family. They established a paper mill in Nykvarn, outside Stockholm. His son Charles Frederick (1827-1895) seems to have left Sweden after a couple of years and he died in St Petersburg. Maybe he had been there as a child or maybe Davisson could mean another family or a brother to John?
From Nykvarn they moved to Motala. John Davisson and his son James Davisson are mentioned in a Swedish book about Swedish paper industry. The paper mill in Motala was founded by the brothers Alexander and Robert Fraser and John Davisson. Alexander and Robert came to Sweden with their parents, from Scotland. Davisson and Frazer imported machines from Bryan and Donkin & Co, outside London.
Johns son Joseph Davisson (1835-1919) was my grandfather’s grandfather. As an apprentice (for paper maker), he might have been in England. He worked at several paper mills within Sweden, and one period he was in Norway. When he became a master or papermaker he often stayed only for a year, so maybe his knowledge was needed for the start-up of a new paper mill. I think a paper maker was well paid. But in 1887 he and his family moves to Norrköping. According to the church records he is now “only” a paper worker. Something must have happened. I think the paper industry had financial problems, maybe there were to many mills, so they had to close down.
John Davisson with his family, later settled down in Röttle outside Gränna (or Jönköping). His youngest son, John Davisson Jr. (1839-1910) took over Röttle paper mill after his father died in 1863. The paper mill was discontinued in 1879. The same year John and his family moved to Torsvik outside Jönköping. He became the head of Torsvik paper mill, but not the owner. He was however a friend of the owner, C. F. Wennberg. He built what in those days was the biggest water wheel in Sweden. The wheel powered the paper mill. John Davisson Jr. liked to do a lot of experiments. He developed skin ointment, he tested minerals, he also tested different items like rye straw, for paper production. His wife thought it was too much!
In 1899, C. F. Wennberg suddenly died and the company got financial problems. The paper industry was having problem with profitability the last decades. There were too many paper mills in Sweden. In 1905 John and his wife moves back to Gränna. Then his wife’s flour grinder burns down in Gränna, and they get even harder financial problems. In 1910 at the age of 70, John Davisson committed suicide.
I think the Davisson´s were very technically skilled. John Davisson have descendents here in Sweden who for some generations have been engineers.
John Davison’s (1804-1863) wife was Elisabeth Powell (1799-1870), she was born in Bromfield, Shropshire. "
I expect my Hyde/Hide GRO pdfs to arrive in the next few days so watch this space.
Felix
