PRINTING

Banging Out

Printers have their own long-established rituals. When a printer finishes his apprenticeship he is banged out in a rite of passage. The new journeyman usually ends up being tied up, in a state of advanced undress, and covered in various vile and/or colourful substances.

See Also: FOLK TRADITIONS

William Caxton

William Caxton's original printing press was set up in Westminster Abbey in 1477. Six years later he moved to premises in the neighbouring Almonry.

Caxton s apprentice Wynkyn de Worde established the first printing press in Fleet Street. De Worde's corpse was buried in St Bride Fleet Street.

Punctuation

Traditionally, scribes had placed dots over words after which someone who was reading the text aloud should a breath. In 12^thC Italy some scribes started use slashes instead. In the 1470s Caxton opted to follow this practice. However, in the 1490s Aldus Manutius, the leading printer in Venice, took to using a comma. Ultimately, this punctuation prevailed.

Gone

Fleet Street

At the start of the 18^thC the newspaper industry emerged in Fleet Street grew out of a well-established local printing tradition.

Until the 1980s newspaper printing was carried on in central London. It was possible for such large-scale industrial activity to be engaged in at the heart of a great metropolis because the principal movement of goods (paper rolls and printed newspapers) took place at night when the streets were largely free of traffic.

During the decade technological advances ended the need for newspaper offices to be physically close to their printing plants. The papers relocated to parts of London where property was cheaper to occupy. Fleet Street continues to be used as a general name for the newspaper industry.

When Fleet Street was dominated by the newspaper industry The Cheshire Cheese was the pub in which journalists from different papers mixed most freely.

Location: Fleet Street, EC4Y 1JU (orange, turquoise)

5 Little Essex Street, WC2R 3LD (red, pink)

Website: www.cheshirecheese.pub

Odhams

The 73-flat Odhams housing development (1981) was built by the G.L.C. on what had been the site of the Odhams printworks.

Location: Odhams Walk, WC2H 9SA (grey, turquoise)

The Warren

In 2009 the printing trade in Hackney Wick and Bow was known as The Warren. This was because of the large number of printing business that were located there. Most were cleared away to accommodate the 2012 London Olympics.

Location: Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, E20 2ST

Waterlows

Waterlow & Son was founded by James Waterlow in 1810 (d.1876) to print lithographic copes of legal documents. In 1852 the firm started to print stamps. Following James's death the firm became a limited liability company.

Waterlows acquired the former Wick Lane Rubber Works on Fish Island. The firm commissioned a four-storey that printed banknotes and stamps. This became known as the Alpha Works.

Following the start of the First World War removed gold coins from circulation. It assigned a contract to print 1 and 10s. to Waterlow & Son. This lasted until 1928.

In 1924 Waterlow & Sons started printing banknotes for foreign governments. The following year the Banco de Portugal sued the firm because the notes it had printing were too counterfeitable. Ultimately, the lawsuit was resolved in the bank's favour.

Waterlows built a new printing plant in Park Royal, especially to print The Radio Times, a weekly magazine that listed B.B.C. Radio's programmes.

The firm s kudos received a boost in 1932 when an assignment of foreign banknotes that had printed were recovered from the wreck of the S.S. Egypt, which had sunk a decade earlier. Most of them were still in near mint condition.

In 1961 Purnell & Sons, a business that printed partworks, acquired Waterlows. The portion of the business that printed banknotes and stamps was sold on to De La Rue, a long-established banknote printing business. Three years later Purnell merged with Hazell Sun to create the British Printing Corporation.

Robert Maxwell bought B.P.C. in 1981. Two years later he closed the Park Royal plant, transferring its production to East Kilbride. In 2009 the company was dissolved.

Location: Birchin Lane, EC3V 9DJ. James Waterlow's original premises. (blue, yellow)

100 Twyford Abbey Road, NW10 7XE. The Plant Royal works.

Robert Maxwell

Victor Watson (1928-2015) led the Leeds-based printing company John Waddington. In 1977 a hostile bid was made for the business. Robert Maxwell offered to act as a white knight. Watson responded that he had no intention of playing second fiddle in a one-man band. Maxwell then launched his own hostile bid. Watson defeated both assaults. In 1984 Maxwell made a second hostile bid for Waddington. Watson appreciated that the tycoon was intending to make several diverse acquisitions. He calculated that if a stout resistance was mounted, Maxwell would become bored and move onto one of his other targets. This proved to be the case. Following the tycoon's drowning, Watson stated that I don t like to speak ill of the dead, and I will not do so now - because I am not sure he is.

See Also: BOARD GAMES Monopoly

Samuel Richardson

Samuel Richardson was a printer through-and through. He developed his own printing business, part of which produced newspapers. As a member of the Stationers Company, he served both as its Warden and then as its Master. In the mid-1720s he moved his press to Salisbury Square.

Richardson often wrote for the publications that came out of his print shop. By the mid-1730s he had acquired a literary reputation amongst his fellow printers; his works included the pamphlet The Apprentice's Vade Mecum, in which he sought to steer ordinary City tradesmen away from the diversions with which wealthy landowners distracted themselves in the West End. In 1737 he published an edition of Daniel Defoe's (d.1731) Complete English Tradesman.

In 1739 a couple booksellers commissioned him to produce a letter manual that dealt with everyday concerns. Two of the epistles - in which a father gives advice to his servant daughter who has resisted her employer's attempt upon her virtue, and her reply - predicate Richardson s novel Pamela (1740), which he probably authored at the end of the year. His experience of writing for newspapers had provided him with a reservoir of stories that he used to flesh out the book.

Following its publication Pamela became a sensation first in Britain and then, through translations, across Europe. Its success was reflected in a range of Pamela branded consumer items and visitor attractions. The book was adapted for the theatrical productions.

Richardson s novel Clarissa (1748) was deeply informed by his Christian belief - deliverance coming through death. He is reputed to have said that if you read Clarissa just for the plot you would hang yourself.

Location: Salisbury Square, EC4Y 8AE (purple, grey)

St Bride's Foundation

St Bride s Foundation was created in 1891 as part of the amalgamation of a number of parishes and their funds.

In 1922 the St Bride's Foundation Institute's technical classes were moved to Stamford Street, where they became the London School of Printing. In 1961 the Bolt Court Technical School relocated to the Elephant & Castle. There it evolved into the London College of Printing and subsequently the London College of Communication. In 1966 the City of London Corporation took over administration of the Institute.

Location: St Bride's Lane, EC4Y 8EQ (purple)

Website: https://sbf.org.uk

St Bride's Library

William Blades (1824-1890) was a printer and historian of printing. The St Bride's Foundation purchased his collection of books and ephemera and used it as the basis for a library that is devoted to the subject of printing.

See Also: LIBRARIES

Website: https://sbf.org.uk/library

Tristram Shandy

The printing of Laurence Sterne's novel Tristram Shandy (1767) utilised typographical techniques, e.g. a death represented by an all-black page.

David Backhouse 2024