Men of Invention and Industry Part 14

The most remarkable feature in the Walter Press is its wonderful simplicity of construction. Simplicity of arrangement is always the beau ideal of the mechanical engineer. This printing press is not only simple, but accurate, compact, rapid, and economical.

While each of the ten-feeder Hoe Machines occupies a large and lofty room, and requires eighteen men to feed and work it, the new Walter Machine occupies a s.p.a.ce of only about 14 feet by 5, or less than any newspaper machine yet introduced; and it requires only three lads to take away, with half the attention of an overseer, who easily superintends two of the machines while at work. The Hoe Machine turns out 7000 impressions printed on both sides in the hour, whereas the Walter Machine turns out 12,000 impressions completed in the same time.

The new Walter Press does not in the least resemble any existing printing machine, unless it be the calendering machine which furnished its type. At the printing end it looks like a collection of small cylinders or rollers. The first thing to be observed is the continuous roll of paper four miles long, tightly mounted on a reel, which, when the machine is going, flies round with immense rapidity. The web of paper taken up by the first roller is led into a series of small hollow cylinders filled with water and steam, perforated with thousands of minute holes. By this means the paper is properly damped before the process of printing is begun. The roll of paper, drawn by nipping rollers, next flies through to the cylinder on which the stereotype plates are fixed, so as to form the four pages of the ordinary sheet of The Times; there it is lightly pressed against the type and printed; then it pa.s.ses downwards round another cylinder covered with cloth, and reversed; next to the second type-covered roller, where it takes the impression exactly on the other side of the remaining four pages. It next reaches one of the most ingenious contrivances of the invention--the cutting machinery, by means of which the paper is divided by a quick knife into the 5500 sheets of which the entire web consists. The tapes hurry the now completely printed newspaper up an inclined plane, from which the divided sheets are showered down in a continuous stream by an oscillating frame, where they are met by two boys, who adjust the sheets as they fall. The reel of four miles long is printed and divided into newspapers complete in about twenty-five minutes.

The machine is almost entirely self-acting, from the pumping-up of the ink into the ink-box out of the cistern below stairs, to the registering of the numbers as they are printed in the manager's room above. It is always difficult to describe a machine in words. Nothing but a series of sections and diagrams could give the reader an idea of the construction of this unrivalled instrument. The time to see it and wonder at it is when the press is in full work. And even then you can see but little of its construction, for the cylinders are wheeling round with immense velocity. The rapidity with which the machine works may be inferred from the fact that the printing cylinders (round which the stereotyped plates are fixed), while making their impressions on the paper, travel at the surprising speed of 200 revolutions a minute, or at the rate of about nine miles an hour!

Contrast this speed with the former slowness. Go back to the beginning of the century. Before the year 1814 the turn-out of newspapers was only about 300 single impressions in an hour--that is, impressions printed on only one side of the paper. Koenig by his invention increased the issue to 1100 impressions. Applegath and Cowper by their four-cylinder machine increased the issue to 4000, and by the eight-cylinder machine to 10,000 an hour. But these were only impressions printed on one side of the paper. The first perfecting press--that is, printing simultaneously the paper on both sides--was the Walter, the speed of which has been raised to 12,000, though, if necessary, it can produce excellent work at the rate of 17,000 complete copies of an eight-page paper per hour. Then, with the new method of stereotyping--by means of which the plates can be infinitely multiplied and by the aid of additional machines, the supply of additional impressions is absolutely unlimited.

The Walter Press is not a monopoly. It is manufactured at The Times office, and is supplied to all comers. Among the other daily papers printed by its means in this country are the Daily News, the Scotsmam, and the Birmingham Daily Post. The first Walter Press was sent to America in 1872, where it was employed to print the Missouri Republican at St. Louis, the leading newspaper of the Mississippi Valley. An engineer and a skilled workman from The Times office accompanied the machinery. On arriving at St. Louis--the materials were unpacked, lowered into the machine-room, where they were erected and ready for work in the short s.p.a.ce of five days.

The Walter Press was an object of great interest at the Centennial Exhibition held at Philadelphia in 1876, where it was shown printing the New Fork Times one of the most influential journals in America.

The press was surrounded with crowds of visitors intently watching its perfect and regular action, "like a thing of life." The New York Times said of it: "The Walter Press is the most perfect printing press yet known to man; invented by the most powerful journal of the Old World, and adopted as the very best press to be had for its purposes by the most influential journal of the New World.... It is an honour to Great Britain to have such an exhibit in her display, and a lasting benefit to the printing business, especially to newspapers.... The first printing press run by steam was erected in the year 1814 in the office of The Times by the father of him who is the present proprietor of that world-famous journal. The machine of 1814 was described in The Times of the 29th November in that year, and the account given of it closed in these words: 'The whole of these complicated acts is performed with such a velocity and simultaneosness of movement that no less than 1100 sheets are impressed in one hour.' Mirabile dictu! And the Walter Press of to-day can run off 17,000 copies an hour printed on both sides. This is not bad work for one man's lifetime."

It is unnecessary to say more about this marvellous machine. Its completion forms the crown of the industry which it represents, and of the enterprise of the journal which it prints.

Footnotes for Chapter VII.

[1] Diary, Reminiscences, and Correspondence of Henry Crabb Robinson, Barrister-at-Law, F.S.A., i. 231.

[2] After the appearance of my article on the Koenig and Walter Presses in Macmillan's Magazine for December, 1869, I received the following letter from Sir Rowland Hill:--

"Hampstead" January 5th, 1870.

"My dear sir,

"In your very interesting article in Macmillan's Magazine on the subject of the printing machine, you have unconsciously done me some injustice. To convince yourself of this, you have only to read the enclosed paper. The case, however, will be strengthened when I tell you that as far back as the year 1856, that is, seven years after the expiry of my patent, I pointed out to Mr. Mowbray Morris, the manager of The Times, the fitness of my machine for the printing of that journal, and the fact that serious difficulties to its adoption had been removed. I also, at his request, furnished him with a copy of the doc.u.ment with which I now trouble you. Feeling sure that you would like to know the truth on any subject of which you may treat, I should be glad to explain the matter more fully, and for this purpose will, with your permission, call upon you at any time you may do me the favour to appoint. "Faithfully yours,

"Rowland Hill."

On further enquiry I obtained the Patent No. 6762; but found that nothing practical had ever come of it. The pamphlet enclosed by Sir Rowland Hill in the above letter is ent.i.tled 'The Rotary Printing Machine.' It is very clever and ingenious, like everything he did. But it was still left for some one else to work out the invention into a practical working printing-press. The subject is fully referred to in the 'Life of Sir Rowland Hill' (i. 224,525). In his final word on the subject, Sir Rowland "gladly admits the enormous difficulty of bringing a complex machine into practical use," a difficulty, he says, which "has been most successfully overcome by the patentees of the Walter Press."

CHAPTER VIII.

WILLIAM CLOWES: INTRODUCER OF BOOK-PRINTING BY STEAM.

"The Images of men's wits and knowledges remain in Books, exempted from the wrong of time, and capable of perpetual renovation. Neither are they fitly to be called Images, because they generate still, and cast their seeds in the minds of others, provoking and causing infinite actions and opinions in succeeding ages; so that, if the invention of the s.h.i.+p was thought so n.o.ble, which carrieth riches and commodities from place to place, and consociateth the most remote Regions in partic.i.p.ation of their Fruits, how much more are letters to be magnified, which, as s.h.i.+ps, pa.s.s through the vast Seas of time, and make ages so distant to partic.i.p.ate of the wisdom, illuminations, and inventions, the one of the other?"--Bacon, On the Proficience and Advancement of Learning.

Steam has proved as useful and potent in the printing of books as in the printing of newspapers. Down to the end of last century, "the divine art," as printing was called, had made comparatively little progress. That is to say, although books could be beautifully printed by hand labour, they could not be turned out in any large numbers.

The early printing press was rude. It consisted of a table, along which the forme of type, furnished with a tympan and frisket, was pushed by hand. The platen worked vertically between standards, and was brought down for the impression, and raised after it, by a common screw, worked by a bar handle. The inking was performed by b.a.l.l.s covered with skin pelts; they were blacked with ink, and beaten down on the type by the pressman. The inking was consequently irregular.

In 1798, Earl Stanhope perfected the press that bears his name. He did not patent it, but made his invention over to the public. In 1818, Mr.

Cowper greatly improved the inking of formes used in the Stanhope and other presses, by the use of a hand roller covered with a composition of glue and treacle, in combination with a distributing table. The ink was thus applied in a more even manner, and with a considerable decrease of labour. With the Stanhope Press, printing was as far advanced as it could possibly be by means of hand labour. About 250 impressions could be taken off, on one side, in an hour.

But this, after all, was a very small result. When books could be produced so slowly, there could be no popular literature. Books were still articles for the few, instead of for the many. Steam power, however, completely altered the state of affairs. When Koenig invented his steam press, he showed by the printing of Clarkson's 'Life of Penn'--the first sheets ever printed with a cylindrical press--that books might be printed neatly, as well as cheaply, by the new machine.

Mr. Bensley continued the process, after Koenig left England; and in 1824, according to Johnson in his 'Typographia,' his son was "driving an extensive business."

In the following year, 1825, Archibald Constable, of Edinburgh, propounded his plan for revolutionising the art of bookselling. Instead of books being articles of luxury, he proposed to bring them into general consumption. He would sell them, not by thousands, but by hundreds of thousands, "ay, by millions;" and he would accomplish this by the new methods of multiplication--by machine printing and by steam power. Mr. Constable accordingly issued a library of excellent books; and, although he was ruined--not by this enterprise, but the other speculations into which he entered--he set the example which other enterprising minds were ready to follow. Amongst these was Charles Knight, who set the steam presses of William Clowes to work, for the purposes of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.

William Clowes was the founder of the vast printing establishment from which these sheets are issued; and his career furnishes another striking ill.u.s.tration of the force of industry and character. He was born on the 1st of January, 1779. His father was educated at Oxford, and kept a large school at Chichester; but dying when William was but an infant, he left his widow, with straitened means, to bring up her family. At a proper age William was bound apprentice to a printer at Chichester; and, after serving him for seven years, he came up to London, at the beginning of 1802, to seek employment as a journeyman.

He succeeded in finding work at a small office on Tower Hill, at a small wage. The first lodgings he took cost him 5s. a week; but finding this beyond his means he hired a room in a garret at 2s. 6d., which was as much as he could afford out of his scanty earnings.

The first job he was put to, was the setting-up of a large poster-bill--a kind of work which he had been accustomed to execute in the country; and he knocked it together so expertly that his master, Mr. Teape, on seeing what he could do, said to him, "Ah! I find you are just the fellow for me." The young man, however, felt so strange in London, where he was without a friend or acquaintance, that at the end of the first month he thought of leaving it; and yearned to go back to his native city. But he had not funds enough to enable him to follow his inclinations, and he accordingly remained in the great City, to work, to persevere, and finally to prosper. He continued at Teape's for about two years, living frugally, and even contriving to save a little money.

He then thought of beginning business on his own account. The small scale on which printing was carried on in those days enabled him to make a start with comparatively little capital. By means of his own savings and the help of his friends, he was enabled to take a little printing-office in Villiers Street, Strand, about the end of 1803; and there he began with one printing press, and one a.s.sistant. His stock of type was so small, that he was under the necessity of working it from day to day like a banker's gold. When his first job came in, he continued to work for the greater part of three nights, setting the type during the day, and working it off at night, in order that the type might be distributed for resetting on the following morning. He succeeded, however, in executing his first job to the entire satisfaction of his first customer.

His business gradually increased, and then, with his constantly saved means, he was enabled to increase his stock of type, and to undertake larger jobs. Industry always tells, and in the long-run leads to prosperity. He married early, but he married well. He was only twenty-four when he found his best fortune in a good, affectionate wife. Through this lady's cousin, Mr. Winchester, the young printer was shortly introduced to important official business. His punctual execution of orders, the accuracy of his work, and the despatch with which he turned it out soon brought him friends, and his obliging and kindly disposition firmly secured them. Thus, in a few years, the humble beginner with one press became a printer on a large scale.

The small concern expanded into a considerable printing-office in Northumberland Court, which was furnished with many presses and a large stock of type. The office was, unfortunately, burnt down; but a larger office rose in its place.

What Mr. Clowes princ.i.p.ally aimed at, in carrying on his business, was accuracy, speed, and quant.i.ty. He did not seek to produce editions de luxe in limited numbers, but large impressions of works in popular demand--travels, biographies, histories, blue-books, and official reports, in any quant.i.ty. For this purpose, he found the process of hand-printing too tedious, as well as too costly; and hence he early turned his attention to book printing by machine presses, driven by steam power,--in this matter following the example of Mr. Walter of the Times, who had for some years employed the same method for newspaper printing.

Applegath & Cowper's machines had greatly advanced the art of printing.

They secured perfect inking and register; and the sheets were printed off more neatly, regularly, and expeditiously; and larger sheets could be printed on both sides, than by any other method. In 1823, accordingly, Mr. Clowes erected his first steam presses, and he soon found abundance of work for them. But to produce steam requires boilers and engines, the working of which occasions smoke and noise.

Now, as the printing-office, with its steam presses, was situated in Northumberland Court, close to the palace of the Duke of Northumberland, at Charing Cross, Mr. Clowes was required to abate the nuisance, and to stop the noise and dirt occasioned by the use of his engines. This he failed to do, and the Duke commenced an action against him.

The case was tried in June, 1824, in the Court of Common Pleas. It was ludicrous to hear the extravagant terms in which the counsel for the plaintiff and his witnesses described the nuisance--the noise made by the engine in the underground cellar, some times like thunder, at other times like a thras.h.i.+ng-machine, and then again like the rumbling of carts and waggons. The printer had retained the Attorney-general, Mr.

Copley, afterwards Lord Lyndhurst, who conducted his case with surpa.s.sing ability. The cross-examination of a foreign artist, employed by the Duke to repaint some portraits of the Cornaro family by t.i.tian, is said to have been one of the finest things on record. The sly and pungent humour, and the banter with which the counsel derided and laughed down this witness, were inimitable. The printer won his case; but he eventually consented to remove his steam presses from the neighbourhood, on the Duke paying him a certain sum to be determined by the award of arbitrators.

It happened, about this period, that a sort of murrain fell upon the London publishers. After the failure of Constable at Edinburgh, they came down one after another, like a pack of cards. Authors are not the only people who lose labour and money by publishers; there are also cases where publishers are ruined by authors. Printers also now lost heavily. In one week, Mr. Clowes sustained losses through the failure of London publishers to the extent of about 25,000L. Happily, the large sum which the arbitrators awarded him for the removal of his printing presses enabled him to tide over the difficulty; he stood his ground unshaken, and his character in the trade stood higher than ever.

In the following year Mr. Clowes removed to Duke Street, Blackfriars, to premises until then occupied by Mr. Applegath, as a printer; and much more extensive buildings and offices were now erected. There his business transactions a.s.sumed a form of unprecedented magnitude, and kept pace with the great demand for popular information which set in with such force about fifty years ago. In the course of ten years--as we find from the 'Encyclopaedia Metropolitana'--there were twenty of Applegath & Cowper's machines, worked by two five-horse engines. From these presses were issued the numerous admirable volumes and publications of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge; the treatises on 'Physiology,' by Roget, and 'Animal Mechanics,' by Charles Bell; the 'Elements of Physics,' by Neill Arnott; 'The Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties,' by G. L. Craik, a most fascinating book; the Library of Useful Knowledge; the 'Penny Magazine,' the first ill.u.s.trated publication; and the 'Penny Cyclopaedia,' that admirable compendium of knowledge and science.

These publications were of great value. Some of them were printed in unusual numbers. The 'Penny Magazine,' of which Charles Knight was editor, was perhaps too good, because it was too scientific.

Nevertheless, it reached a circulation of 200,000 copies. The 'Penny Cyclopaedia' was still better. It was original, and yet cheap. The articles were written by the best men that could be found in their special departments of knowledge. The sale was originally 75,000 weekly; but, as the plan enlarged, the price was increased from 1d. to 2d., and then to 4d. At the end of the second year, the circulation had fallen to 44,000; and at the end of the third year, to 20,000.

It was unfortunate for Mr. Knight to be so much under the influence of his Society. Had the Cyclopaedia been under his own superintendence, it would have founded his fortune. As it was, he lost over 30,000L. by the venture. The 'Penny Magazine' also went down in circulation, until it became a non-paying publication, and then it was discontinued. It is curious to contrast the fortunes of William Chambers of Edinburgh with those of Charles Knight of London. 'Chambers's Edinburgh Journal'

was begun in February, 1832, and the 'Penny Magazine' in March, 1832.

Chambers was perhaps shrewder than Knight. His journal was as good, though without ill.u.s.trations; but he contrived to mix up amus.e.m.e.nt with useful knowledge. It may be a weakness, but the public like to be entertained, even while they are feeding upon better food. Hence Chambers succeeded, while Knight failed. The 'Penny Magazine' was discontinued in 1845, whereas 'Chambers's Edinburgh Journal' has maintained its popularity to the present day. Chambers, also, like Knight, published an 'Encyclopaedia,' which secured a large circulation. But he was not trammelled by a Society, and the 'Encyclopaedia' has become a valuable property.

The publication of these various works would not have been possible without the aid of the steam printing press. When Mr. Edward Cowper was examined before a Committee of the House of Commons, he said, "The ease with which the principles and ill.u.s.trations of Art might be diffused is, I think, so obvious that it is hardly necessary to say a word about it. Here you may see it exemplified in the 'Penny Magazine.' Such works as this could not have existed without the printing machine." He was asked, "In fact, the mechanic and the peasant, in the most remote parts of the country, have now an opportunity of seeing tolerably correct outlines of form which they never could behold before?" To which he answered, "Exactly; and literally at the price they used to give for a song." "Is there not, therefore, a greater chance of calling genius into activity?" "Yes,"

he said, "not merely by books creating an artist here and there, but by the general elevation of the taste of the public."

Mr. Clowes was always willing to promote deserving persons in his office. One of these rose from step to step, and eventually became one of the most prosperous publishers in London. He entered the service as an errand-boy, and got his meals in the kitchen. Being fond of reading, he pet.i.tioned Mrs. Clowes to let him sit somewhere, apart from the other servants, where he might read his book in quiet. Mrs. Clowes at length entreated her husband to take him into the office, for "Johnnie Parker was such a good boy." He consented, and the boy took his place at a clerk's desk. He was well-behaved, diligent, and attentive. As he advanced in years, his steady and steadfast conduct showed that he could be trusted. Young fellows like this always make their way in life; for character invariably tells, not only in securing respect, but in commanding confidence. Parker was promoted from one post to another, until he was at length appointed overseer over the entire establishment.

A circ.u.mstance shortly after occurred which enabled Mr. Clowes to advance him, though greatly to his own inconvenience, to another important post. The Syndics of Cambridge were desirous that Mr. Clowes should go down there to set their printing-office in order; they offered him 400L. a year if he would only appear occasionally, and see that the organisation was kept complete. He declined, because the magnitude of his own operations had now become so great that they required his unremitting attention. He, however strongly recommended Parker to the office, though he could ill spare him. But he would not stand in the young man's way, and he was appointed accordingly. He did his work most effectually at Cambridge, and put the University Press into thorough working order.

As the 'Penny Magazine' and other publications of the Society of Useful Knowledge were now making their appearance, the clergy became desirous of bringing out a religious publication of a popular character, and they were in search for a publisher. Parker, who was well known at Cambridge, was mentioned to the Bishop of London as the most likely person. An introduction took place, and after an hour's conversation with Parker, the Bishop went to his friends and said, "This is the very man we want." An offer was accordingly made to him to undertake the publication of the 'Sat.u.r.day Magazine' and the other publications of the Christian Knowledge Society, which he accepted. It is unnecessary to follow his fortunes. His progress was steady; he eventually became the publisher of 'Fraser's Magazine' and of the works of John Stuart Mill and other well-known writers. Mill never forgot his appreciation and generosity; for when his 'System of Logic' had been refused by the leading London publishers, Parker prized the book at its rightful value and introduced it to the public.

To return to Mr. Clowes. In the course of a few years, the original humble establishment of the Suss.e.x compositor, beginning with one press and one a.s.sistant, grew up to be one of the largest printing-offices in the world. It had twenty-five steam presses, twenty-eight hand-presses, six hydraulic presses, and gave direct employment to over five hundred persons, and indirect employment to probably more than ten times that number. Besides the works connected with his printing-office, Mr. Clowes found it necessary to cast his own types, to enable him to command on emergency any quant.i.ty; and to this he afterwards added stereotyping on an immense scale. He possessed the power of supplying his compositors with a stream of new type at the rate of about 50,000 pieces a day. In this way, the weight of type in ordinary use became very great; it amounted to not less than 500 tons, and the stereotyped plates to about 2500 tons the value of the latter being not less than half a million sterling.

Mr. Clowes would not hesitate, in the height of his career, to have tons of type locked up for months in some ponderous blue-book. To print a report of a hundred folio pages in the course of a day or during a night, or of a thousand pages in a week, was no uncommon occurrence. From his gigantic establishment were turned out not fewer than 725,000 printed sheets, or equal to 30,000 volumes a week. Nearly 45,000 pounds of paper were printed weekly. The quant.i.ty printed on both sides per week, if laid down in a path of 22 1/4 inches broad, would extend 263 miles in length.

About the year 1840, a Polish inventor brought out a composing machine, and submitted it to Mr. Clowes for approval. But Mr. Clowes was getting too old to take up and push any new invention.