Bermondsey was known as a major industrial centre with particular specialisation in leather tanning and food processing.

Its contribution to the history of paper-making is less well known. For about a decade at the Neckinger Mill, at the junction of Abbey Street and Neckinger, and now under the Neckinger Estate, Matthias Koops, in conjunction with Elias Carpenter, manufactured clean, white paper from waste and written paper.

The process was to be transplanted to a much larger venture at Millbank, but the project failed. Koop's Neckinger Mill was sold to the leather firm, Bevingtons in 1805 and they continued to occupy the site until 1950.