Meanwhile, in 1809 at Apsley Mill next door to Frogmore Mill, John Dickinson installed and patented a different kind of paper machine. Instead of pouring a dilute pulp suspension on to an endlessly revolving flat wire as in the Fourdrinier process, this machine used a cylinder covered in wire as a mould. The cylindrical mould is partially submerged in a vat containing the pulp suspension and as the mould rotates, water is sucked through the wire depositing a thin layer of fibres on the cylinder.

The cylinder mould machine, as it was named, competed strongly with the Fourdrinier machine for many decades and was the type of machine first used by the fledgling US paper industry (1819). However, during the 20th century, the Fourdrinier became the dominant technology for fine papermaking and the cylinder mould machine is now primarily used for making boards (heavier weight papers) or, because of its superior watermark ability, for the production of high security papers.

By 1850 UK paper production is estimated to have reached 100,000 tons and the pattern for the mechanised production of paper had been set. Subsequent developments concentrated on increasing the size and capacity of the machines as well as finding volume alternative pulps from which paper could be reliably manufactured.

Geographical changes also took place as many of the early mills were small and had been situated in rural areas. The change was to larger mills in, or near, urban areas closer to suppliers of the raw materials (esparto mills were generally situated near a port as the raw material was brought in by ship) and the paper markets. By the end of the centuary there were fewer than 300 paper mills in the UK but they employed 35,000 people in producing 650,000 tons of paper a year.