In 1588 Spilman was granted a Crown lease on two mills in the Manor of Bignores at Dartford. Spilman repaired and altered the mills, at an estimated cost of £1,500, and financed the employment of skilled German paper-makers to produce good quality white paper. One of the first works published using Spilman's paper was a poem by Thomas Churchyard dedicated to Sir Walter Raleigh thus:
A sparke of friendship, and warm good will ; with a poem concerning the commodity of sundry sciences ; especially concerning paper, and a mill, lately set up near Dartfort by a high German, called Mr. Spilman, jeweller to the queen majesty.
The works became a major source of local employment, with some 600 workers. Spilman secured a patent dated February 7th, 1589 giving him a monopoly in buying materials for making white paper and preventing anyone from setting up in competition without his permission. This monopoly was extended by a further 14 years in July 1597 and effectively prevented other mills from making highly prized white paper. Spilman is also reputed to have been responsible for introducing lime trees into the UK.
In 1598 he sold a jewel called the "Rainbow" to the Earl of Northumberland for £21, and in September 1600 a jewel which Northumberland gave to the queen with a petticoat provided by Audrey Walsingham, together worth £200. In October 1600 Spilman, Leonard Bushe and Hugh Kayle appraised and sold a quantity of old jewels from the Tower of London on the orders of Queen Elizabeth. Spilman and William Herrick made jewels for the coronation of King James I and Anne of Denmark, and insignia of the Order of the Garter in 1604. They also made a jewel for the king's hat in the shape of the letter "I". This included two great rubies and a great and a lesser diamond. One of the diamonds was taken from an old jewel belonging to Anna of Denmark. The remainder of the queen's jewel was broken up by Nicasius Russell in 1609 to make gold plate. On 12 January 1604 Spilman and Herrick were asked to assess and make an inventory of jewels that had belonged to Queen Elizabeth. James had already given many pieces to the queen, Princess Elizabeth, and Arbella Stuart and others. The remaining jewels had been transferred from the keeping of Mrs Mary Radcliffe, former gentlewoman to Queen Elizabeth, to the Countess of Suffolk. On 4 January 1604/5 Spilman requested payment for a chain of pearls and six diamond rings delivered to George Lord Berwick as keeper of the royal wardrobe, a tablet or locket of gold set with diamonds given by the Lord Chancellor to Anne of Denmark to send to Denmark worth £700, a jewel like a fleur de lys for a French woman, three dozen buttons each set with five diamonds for Anne of Denmark, with three dozen set with four diamonds and a ruby, and three dozen large buttons of "Spanish work" each with four rubies and a diamond. Spilman was tasked with setting and re-setting the "Portugal diamond" for the queen, placing it in a gold bodkin in 1607. John Spilman was knighted by James I in 1605, probably in relation to his work as court goldsmith and jeweller rather than his paper-making exploits. At the same time, he was also granted the Manor of Bexley, which he subsequently sold to William Camden. In July 1606 Spilman and William Herrick supplied pearls for the King's embroiderer William Broderick at the time of the visit of Christian IV of Denmark, the brother of Anna of Denmark. The pearls were intended for the king's sadle and the furniture of his horse, and the panes of the kings hose or stockings. In December 1607 Spilman, Herrick, and the goldsmith John Williams were asked to polish and amend some pieces that Queen Elizabeth had mortgaged, and King James gave Anna of Denmark a cup made of unicorn horn, a gold ewer, a salt with a branch from which serpent's tongues and sapphires were suspended, and a crystal chess board with crystal and topaz chessmen. In 1619 Spilman, with the other royal jewellers Abraham Harderet, George Heriot, and William Herrick, joined the funeral procession of Anna of Denmark in 1619. Spilman, who lived in the parish of St Martin's-in-the-Fields also lent money on jewels. In 1624 Lionel Cranfield, the Lord Treasurer, appointed Philip Jacobson as a goldsmith to the king, noting that George Heriot was dead and Spilman and William Herrick rarely did any work.
Family
Spilman died in 1626 and is commemorated in Holy Trinity Church, Dartford. His first wife Elizabeth Mengel, daughter of a Nuremberg merchant, died in 1607 aged 55. He had several children by his second wife Katherine who survived until about 1644.
