Clement-Jones family 12/22 - Person Sheet
Clement-Jones family 12/22 - Person Sheet
NameMark Alexander CROPPER , 740
Birth1974
EducationUniversity of Edinburgh
FatherSir James Anthony CROPPER KCVO , 712 (1938-)
Spouses
Marriage2002
ChildrenJames Cyrus Afshar , 1259 (2005-)
 James “Jem” , 1998 (2007-)
Notes for Mark Alexander CROPPER
Chairman of James Cropper plc. He joined the Board in 2006 and is the sixth generation of the Cropper family to be involved in the business. His involvement with James Cropper plc includes writing the company's history, "The Leaves We Write On", which was published in 2004.17

Book Description (from Amazon)

James Cropper is one of the oldest names in British paper-making and a great survivor from an age when British industry dominated the world. Uniquely situated in the foothills of the English Lake District since its foundation in 1845, today it is one of the world’s leading producers of coloured and specialist papers.

The Leaves We Write On is the story of one firm’s resilience and a compelling tale of an industry, region and family. It unveils a rich range of characters from provincial booksellers to Liverpool merchants and railway financiers, and finds that ultimately the firm owes its existence to James Cropper’s passion for the woman who later became his wife.

The book is 300 pages long, with over 100 illustrations, almost a third of which are in colour. It is a true product of Lake District trade and industry, having been printed by the Kendal firm of Titus Wilson & Son (founded 1860), on paper specially made at Burneside by James Cropper plc.

Excerpted from Leaves We Write on, The: James Cropper: a History in Paper - Making by . Copyright © 2004. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
When James Cropper started life as a paper-maker in July 1845, one thought was foremost in his mind, but it was not an interest in paper, nor in fact a wish to pursue a career of any kind, commercial or philanthropic. The twenty-two year old’s strongest motive was entirely different, and altogether closer to his heart. He had loved his cousin, Fanny Alison Wakefield, since his teenage years. "In truth the whole aim of my life, since I was seventeen", he later told his grandchildren, "was to win your Grandmother’s love and to make her my wife." Indeed, as James acknowledged himself, his relationship with her was "the turning point of my whole career", not least the chief motive behind his decision to go into paper-making in 1845. "We exchanged long letters once a month", James later remarked of his long engagement, "and we read and learnt, and thought about each other all the intervening days. And when the time came I fixed upon this Westmorland home and business, simply because it seemed to make a fixture in my life, and to point to our union and our home."

And so it did. On 25 November 1845, almost five months after he started out as a paper manufacturer, James Cropper married Fanny Alison Wakefield at Heversham Church, five miles south of Kendal. Afterwards celebrated at Sedgwick, the Wakefield family home, the wedding was also, appropriately, celebrated at Burneside and Cowan Head. "There were rejoicings at Mr Cropper’s Paper Mills on an equally liberal scale", reported the Kendal Mercury, "every man being presented with a new hat, and half a crown given to his wife, in addition to their being treated to a large and well supplied tea party, which afforded them an evening of great enjoyment."

Two weeks later, when James Cropper returned home to Cowan Head with his new bride, his workforce returned the hospitality, treating him and Fanny Alison to a rapturous welcome. "On the arrival of the happy pair at Junction Cottages, Burneside, where a handsome evergreen arch was thrown over the way, they were greeted with loud huzzas," reported the Kendal Mercury.

The carriage was stopped - the horses taken from it - and about thirty of his workmen yoked themselves, and dragged it to Cowan Head. On their arrival there, a novel and highly exhilarating scene presented itself. The house, mill, and cottages were brilliantly illuminated, and another evergreen arch, with the motto Welcome! thrice happy pair! was placed over the entrance gate.

It was an auspicious reception – "a pleasing demonstration of the high esteem in which Mr Cropper is held by his work people", the Kendal Mercury told its readers - suggesting that in spite of his youth and inexperience, James Cropper was faring well as an employer. So far it seems he had won the respect and approval of the workforce he had only recently taken charge of. "We feel thankful", one employee wrote to him the day after his wedding, "for your very kind treat & present and more especially so when we consider the very kind feeling shown towards us by you since we have stood in the relationship of Master and Servant. It gave me heartfelt pleasure to find that we had gained your confidence and I sincerely trust that we shall each show by our conduct that this confidence is not misplaced."

By the end of 1845 James Cropper’s new life seemed thus in place. Accepted and respected by his workforce, he was also, by virtue of his connection with the Wakefields, quickly accorded a place in local society. His domestic life was an even greater source of happiness and support: "I have never passed a day", he fondly declared in old age, "without rejoicing in the love and help of the most remarkable woman whom I have ever known." To add to this there was soon a family on the way, and the excitement of a new home. In 1847, at Fanny’s prompting, James began building a new house on a site just above Burneside which commanded panoramic views across the surrounding countryside. Named Ellergreen owing to its proximity to Green Farm and a profusion of alder trees (known locally as ‘ellers’), in total it cost James Cropper almost three thousand pounds, a sure expression, if any were needed, of the strength of his commitment to his new life, and of the hopes he had for his family and his career. The family moved there from the mill-house at Cowan Head in 1849 (Fig. 3.2).

Ellergreen was not, however, an expression of the prosperity of his early years in paper-making. The new house and the fourteen acre site it occupied were not financed with profits from his two paper-mills on the River Kent, winding through the valley floor below. Far from it: in spite of the apparent good nature of his workforce, the mills were losing money. Added to this there was the dreadful realisation that Cornelius Nicholson had charged him far too much for the business in the first place. John Cropper was incensed by this: "We were shamefully deceived and cheated", he lamented in his journal. For James Cropper it was one regretful circumstance among many. "I knew I had been hasty and impulsive in buying the works", he wrote to his son Charles in 1882, "and that I had been overreached in the bargain by their previous occupant. I lost money on them year by year… . People did not hesitate to comment on my taking such a trade… How I did hate the whole thing and!
myself for blundering into it."


Mark is an FSA authorised corporate finance adviser for Turquoise International, which specialises in energy and environmental investment. He previously worked at Johnson Matthey plc, the catalyst and chemicals group, as a fuel cell analyst. He is the founder of Ellergreen Ltd specialists in the development of hydro power.

A brilliant interview here with mark explaining the sustainable values of the company derived from the Cropper Quaker values.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1KHIdbZNTyEGGgRlZkSnx8



Mark Cropper: From paperback writer to power broker

Posted on 2 Apr 2012
From : https://www.themanufacturer.com/articles/mark-crop...iter-to-power-broker/

After 167-years of making speciality paper and technical fibres, James Cropper plc cannot afford to sit still in a rapidly changing global industry. Yet even with this weight of responsibility for the family business on his shoulders, chairman Mark Cropper has found time to indulge his other passion - hydroelectric power. Will Stirling interviews.

In Mark Cropper’s modest Portobello Road office there is a map of the Lake District peppered with coloured shapes. Each one marks a hydro-electric power plant in differing stages of development. “Our mission was to lead the renaissance of hydropower in this region. We’re doing that,” says Mr Cropper, chairman of James Cropper plc and managing director of Ellergreen Hydro.

A four-year spell funding energy start-ups at corporate financiers Turquoise Associates fuelled his interest in hydropower. “I became obsessed with it. Compared to other sources of alternative energy, which need millions of pounds and might never work, hydro is extremely efficient and has been around forever. There is a huge amount of unexploited potential in the UK – not least of all in my home, the Lake District.”

Ellergreen Hydro has five projects installed and 20 in the pipeline, while other third party projects dot the county. The company has partnered with local engineering company Gilkes to install turbines, where Gilkes also implements much larger scale projects in Scotland and abroad. They are nearly all grid-connected and power communities of two up to 550 households. Despite looming drought in parts of England this summer, it’s a thriving miniindustry and Mr Cropper has great ambitions for growth.

Sideline would be an inaccurate description of such a concern. But Mark Cropper’s ‘day job’ is chairman to the family firm, James Cropper plc.

A hand-made sheet of paper being produced for a colour match request in the technical laboratory
A hand-made sheet of paper being produced for a colour match request in the technical laboratory.
Cropper the plc

Founded in 1845 when 22-year old Liverpudlian James Cropper came to The Lakes, today the company is a world-leader in making speciality paper, paper conversion and increasingly, the manufacture of technical fibres.

The Cropper family was in the thick of the Industrial Revolution, and by the 1840s had sold up much of its business and become philanthropists. Grandson of the family patriarch of this era, young James had no specified career but lots of cash. He fell in love with his first cousin, followed her to Kendall and bought a mill. In fact, Mark adds, the start point to Cropper plc can be traced back to 1753 when a local paper mill was developed, the first time such independence was allowed by the draconian paper barons.

Over 167-years, through wars and recessions, and over many generations of Croppers, Willinks (extended family), white and blue collar employees’ families, the company is today a hidden gem of British manufacturing. With an annual turnover of £86.8 million in 2011 and 55% owned by “family and friends”, it is a prime example of the UK’s own Mittelstand of large family-owned manufacturers which fight hard to operate in global markets and which support whole communities.

When an eminent historian was commissioned to write the company history but failed to deliver, Mark Cropper stepped in to the breach. The result, ‘The Leaves We Write On’, painstakingly puts the genesis of the company and papermaking into its historical context. “There was a huge crisis in the British papermaking industry after James bought the mill,” says Mr Cropper. “As it became more mechanised, the availability of raw materials – mainly linen and cotton rags – couldn’t keep up with demand. From the mid-1870s to early 1900s, the processes to make paper from wood fibre had been developed but this period was very tough.”

No 3 Wet End - the wet end machine wire of the No. 3 machine (of four machines)
No 3 Wet End - the wet end machine wire of the third of four machines
The ‘rag crisis’ was serious and The Times newspaper even offered a reward for a solution. “We solved it because we were very entrepreneurial; using material like hessian sacks,” Cropper says. “We weren’t able to make a fine, white paper so we added dye to it, which is how we got into coloured paper. Like all good company developments you respond to your environment.”

This specialisation was the first of two key developments in the Cropper company story. Changes in the raw commodity drove the next change.

Paper needs wood pulp, a cyclical commodity. “The main reason we have survived is that the board recognised in the late ‘80s that papermaking alone was too volatile and we needed to diversify,” Cropper says. While all the pulp comes from sustainable sources, “there is a new paradigm in buying practices now” he says. “The Chinese strategically purchase large quantities, manipulating the market.”

Biography: Mark Cropper

1996 – University of Edinburgh, MA in English Literature
2001-04 – Joins Johnson Matthey and researches the fuel cell industry.
2003-04 – Writes and publishes Cropper plc’s history, ‘The Leaves We Write On’.
2004-08 – Joins corporate financiers Turquoise Associates. Raises capital for new energy start-ups and establishes Turquoise Capital.
2006 – Joins the board of James Cropper plc
2010 – Becomes chairman, James Cropper plc
Son of Sir James Cropper KCRVO, Lord Lieutenant of Cumbria, who he succeeded as chairman of James Cropper plc in 2010.

Mark is managing director of Ellergreen Hydro, a hydro-electric project developer and a director of Ellergreen, Ellergreen Tidal and Logan Gill Hydro. He is an industry champion for the “Make it in Great Britain” campaign. Mark splits his time between the paper mills in Burneside and his London office. He is married and has two children.

Until the 1950s, British papermaking had been isolated. This fragmented, old school industry got a nasty shock when Britain joined the European Free Trade Area and was introduced to the Nordic block’s modern processes. “Suddenly it was exposed to huge Scandinavian plants, where trees went in at one end and paper came out the other,” Cropper says. “It was disastrous, a huge block was wiped out.” From the mid-1960s to 1970s many mills closed. The 1990s were not as bad but the last decade has seen many more closures. “This is why in the last year I’ve found myself doing more and more government lobbying.”

Essential changes followed: the business modernised then diversified. “Between £40m-£50m was spent, mainly through the 1980s, on renewing the whole business – mills, capital equipment, new treatment processes. Since then we have an average capex spend of £3 million a year.” The company strategy, Cropper says, has always been to reinvest heavily in the business. It is publically listed on the AIM market, but “the majority shareholding is family, which clearly helps a lot when reinvesting.”

Two new businesses were established, and both have been essential to keep Cropper plc in the global paper chain. James Cropper Converting applies a vast range of finishes to the raw coloured paper – sticking, embossing, impregnating, surface finishing. Paper samples in his office feel like silk, another like rubber. Cropper is a world leader in picture mount board. “Most of it is chemically inert to museum quality,” says Mark. It also makes the highest quality digital grade paper, and fire retardant board was developed after the Kings Cross rail disaster. “We try to do it all – but an identifiable trend across the business is that we push the boundaries of what paper can do.”

The second new business, Technical Fibres, was born out of the scientific leanings of two board directors. “They snuck off into the laboratory one night and experimented with carbon fibre,” Cropper says. The key achievement was to make the material bond. “The results that returned from analysis were amazing. This stuff absorbs electromagnetic interference, radar – it has many properties.” The next big step was in the late-1980s, when the company invented a machine to make these products at scale.

“This is a much lower volume, higher margin business than paper. There are very interesting applications for surface finishing in aerospace, automotive, fire protection – any industry that uses composites.”

Cropper the man

At 37, Mark Cropper is young to chair a large company. Was the job an inevitable birth right? “I was fortunate. My father never put pressure on me to join the business. Not all family businesses are so liberal,” he says.

After dabbling in journalism, he joined chemicals company Johnson Matthey, a supplier to Cropper plc, which was investigating fuel cell technology. He formed a small research team to investigate the fuel cell industry’s trajectory. “We rapidly became global experts, travelling the world and talking to the main players. Within a year we were asked to speak at conferences – within a few months of that we chaired the conferences. It was great!”

After three years, he contacted a corporate finance company for some career advice. “The MD said “Could you win us some business [in fuel cell technology]?” Thereafter I made it my job to meet the CEO not the junior scientist at these firms. I won them some good business and joined the company, then set up an arm called Turquoise Capital. I couldn’t have done anything I’ve done since then without that grounding, particularly when you are raising money for energy start-ups and writing business plans.”

JCSP Mill - the mill site in the local countryside
James Cropper Speciality Paper - the mill situated in stunning countryside at Burneside, Cumbria
In spite, or perhaps because of the family company inheritance, Mark Cropper is a realist and a shrewd businessman. “This whole story is very nice. We employ 550 people, we have world class products and world class customers. But the truth is we have a huge task ahead of us. There are big opportunities too, but we have to become much more profitable – it’s a fact, not a choice. If you analyse our inflation-adjusted performance over the last 20-years, as I have, we’ve kept our head above water but we’re treading a tightrope, like a lot of manufacturers I’m sure.” The plan, he says, is to develop each business division but be open-minded about what part is profitable as the market changes. “Someone might say we have a 200-tonne order. So what? Like any manufacturer we must think in terms of margin, not volume.”

The power of brand, and championing industry

By the 2000s, Cropper plc had many virtues and a strong name. But, to compete globally, Mark knew it needed a bigger commercial push. “The leanness of our operations had received devoted management attention for decades. But we haven’t been very commercial. The paper business only recruited a marketing manager two years ago.” Today each division has a dedicated marketing manager.

Joining luxury brand association Walpole opened his eyes to brand leverage opportunities. “As a member of Walpole, global brands ask you; ‘if you were a big brand, what would be your story?’ Actually, it would be bloody great! We’re a seriously old school British manufacturer, still here after many tough years. The biggest employer in our region, with generations of the same families in every part of business, making something this is really interesting and special as well.”

Mark Cropper has become an Industry Champion within the ‘Make it in Great Britain’ campaign run by BIS. Already an old hand at linking business to the community and young people, the appointment reflects his passion for sustaining his own company in the UK, and for wider manufacturing. “I want to get more involved in the [manufacturing] agenda. Companies like ours have a duty of care to safeguard manufacturing for the future, which it can if we adjust to the world. There are huge opportunities and no reason to miss them.”
Last Modified 29 Dec 2022Created 4 Mar 2023 using Reunion for Macintosh