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ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS 
 
 Cantor lectures 
 
 ON 
 
 THE HISTORY AND PRACTICE 
 OF THE ART OF PRINTING. 
 
 R. A. PEDDIE, 
 
 Librarian, St. Bride Foundation Typographical Library. 
 
 Delivered before the Royal Society of Arts on November 23rd, 30th, 
 December yth and 141/1, 1914. 
 
 LONDON : 
 PRINTED BY WM. CLOWES & SONS, LTD., DUKE STREET, STAMFORD STREET, S.E. 
 
 I9I5- 
 
9* 
 
 v^cT 
 
SYLLABUS. 
 
 LECTUEE I. 
 
 History 1450-1800. The invention of printing — Types of the early printers — Introduction of 
 illustrations, woodcut borders and initials — The lGth Century a period of great expansion — New 
 styles of type — Popular books — The 17th Century not favourable to the artistic development of the 
 art — The pamphlet and the newspaper supreme — Rigorous press laws — The 18th Century Revival — 
 Caslon type — Great printers and their styles — Baskerville, Bodoni, Didot, Ibarra — Bewick and wood- 
 engraving. 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 The 19th Century. In 1801 no machine production — Stanhope press — Type faces 1801-40 — 
 Revival of old style printing and Caslon type — Machine-made paper — Development of the printing 
 machine — Invention of photography — Attempts at colour printing. 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 The IWi and 20th Centuries continued. Woodcuts of the Sixties — Invention of the half-tone — 
 Revival of hand-press work for artistic production — Effect of revival on commercial work — Types 
 and type-founders — Recent inventions in illustration. 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 The later History of Colour Printing. Rise of chromo-lithography — Chromo-xylography — The 
 three-colour process — Collotype — Photogravure and its combinations — The offset process. 
 
The History and Practice of the Art 
 of Printing. 
 
 LECTURE I. — Delivered November 2jrd, 1914. 
 
 Printing with moveable types was invented 
 either in Holland or Germany about the 
 year 1440. The name of the inventor and the 
 place of the invention are two of the most hotly 
 contested questions in history. Gutenberg at 
 Mainz, Coster at Haarlem, Waldfoghel at 
 Avignon, Castaldi at Feltre — all these are 
 mentioned as claimants. The value of their 
 respective pretensions has been summed up by 
 a well-known authority in the words : " Holland 
 has books but no documents, France has docu- 
 ments but no books, Italy has neither books 
 nor documents, while Germany has both books 
 and documents.'' There exist books certainly 
 printed in Holland which are held by some to 
 be earlier than 1454, which is the first printed 
 date of the Mainz press. They are attributed 
 to the press of Laurens Janszoon Coster of 
 Haarlem, but this is not supported by any 
 direct evidence. As to the Avignon claim, this 
 rests upon some documents in the legal archives 
 of the town. Waldfoghel, who was a goldsmith, 
 was in the possession of a method of artificial 
 writing which, by the description given, must 
 have been printing. No work done by him or 
 by his method has been identified. 
 
 The claim of Castaldi, of Feltre, appears to 
 rest upon very shallow foundations, and, in 
 fact, it is difficult to see anything but tradition 
 in the story. When we turn to Mainz we are on 
 more solid ground. From the first Mainz press 
 — it is difficult to associate John Gutenberg 
 definitely with it — a broadside Indulgence was 
 issued with the printed date of 1454. Through 
 the haze of tradition, theory and speculation, 
 this Indulgence emerges as a definite fact, and 
 from this date begins the real history of printing 
 with moveable type. From what we know of 
 the operations of typefounding to-day we can 
 see that it must have taken many years of 
 
 experiment and of failure to enable the printer 
 of the 1454 Indulgence to arrive at the final 
 solution of the problem. From the press of 
 Mainz also was produced the first Latin Bible, 
 originally known as the Mazarine Bible, after- 
 wards described as the Gutenberg Bible, and 
 now called by all good doubting bibliographers 
 the forty-two line Bible, which title commits 
 no one. This Bible was printed before August, 
 1456, as a copy in the Bibliotheque Rationale 
 has a rubricated s date of that year. In 1457 
 appeared the Mainz Psalter, the first book to 
 bear the name of its printer, the name of the 
 place where it was printed, and the date of its 
 production. To add to this, it contained the 
 first attempts at colour printing and the first 
 ornamental initials. The printers were Johann 
 Fust and Peter Schoffer, and this Psalter, 
 together with the other books from their press, 
 showed a great advance from the work of the 
 two first presses in Mainz. 
 
 The work of these pioneer printers must have 
 been much hampered by the poverty of their 
 implements. There is little doubt that the 
 earliest press used was a simple linen-press, 
 and a small one at that. The ink was an inven- 
 tion, if not in itself, in its application. With 
 these poor instruments, and with type that 
 must without doubt have been irregular and 
 badly cast, the pioneers of the printing art 
 produced the magnificent works which re- 
 mained, perhaps unequalled, and certainly 
 not surpassed, for many years. 
 
 From the Mainz press, with its colour-printed 
 initials, we pass to Strassburg. Here as early as 
 [460, and perhaps two years earlier, Johann 
 Mentelin was printing and using a type which 
 began to show the first modification towards 
 the round or Roman type. Everything up to 
 this time had been printed in the type which is 
 
 322105 
 
known generically as the Gothic or Black Letter 
 type. About the year 1464 a press was estab- 
 lished at Strassburg which used a definite Roman 
 type. The printer, formerly known as the 
 " R " printer, owing to the curious form of the 
 capital R in the fount of type he used, and whose 
 books were originally confused with those of 
 Mentelin, is now identified as Adolph Rusch, 
 the son-in-law of Mentelin. The first Roman 
 type, therefore, is found in Germany, although 
 we have to look to Italy for its later develop- 
 ment. The next press to be mentioned as 
 showing development in the art is that of 
 Albrecht Pfister, of Bamberg. Pfister is a 
 mysterious person, being connected in some way 
 with the earliest presses hi Mainz, and by some 
 is looked upon as the printer of the thirty-six 
 line Bible, which by most bibliographers is 
 attributed to the printer of the 1454 Indulgence. 
 The interesting point about Pfister is that seven 
 out of the nine books from his press are illus- 
 trated with woodcuts, and form the first attempt 
 at book illustration. None of them can be 
 placed later than 1462. No more illustrated 
 books occur until about 1470. 
 
 The next important event is the establish- 
 ment of printing in Italy. Sweynheym and 
 Pannartz, two German craftsmen, started work 
 in Subiaco near Rome in 1465. They used a 
 type which was not Gothic and not quite Roman, 
 and is generally described as Semi-Roman. It 
 was not based on the same style of writing as 
 the first German Roman, as will be seen when 
 the two are compared. Two years later, in 
 1467, when these printers moved to Rome, their 
 type became still more Roman in character ; 
 but it was not until 1471 that the new character, 
 which was really the older form of letter (this is 
 recognised by the Germans, who to this day 
 call it Antiqua), reached its highest point, in the 
 type used by Nicolas Jensen, a Frenchman, 
 who printed at Venice, This type, perfect in 
 outline and balance, has held its artistic 
 supremacy to the present day. The Roman 
 type failed, however, in its competition 
 with the Gothic, which held the field all over 
 Europe during the fifteenth century. 
 
 Up to 1465 the Gothic and the Roman were 
 the only type-faces in use. In that year Greek 
 type was used by Sweynheym and Pannartz 
 at Subiaco, and by Fust and Schoffer at Mainz. 
 Previously a space had been left where a Greek 
 quotation was required, and it had been written 
 in by hand, or in some cases stamped in. The 
 first book to contain a full Greek text was printed 
 by Fcrrandus at Brescia about 1473. It was 
 
 the " Batrachomuomachia " of Homer, and the 
 book also contained a Latin translation of the 
 work. The development of Greek printing was 
 rapid in Italy, but slow in the other countries 
 of Europe. 
 
 Printing began in Switzerland about 1468 at 
 Basel, and in 1470 in France at Paris. It is 
 strange that Paris was so late introducing the 
 printing press, as there is no doubt that speci- 
 mens of the art had been seen there in 1466, and 
 it is believed that Jensen was sent by Charles VII. 
 to learn the new art as early as 1458. On his 
 return to Paris, finding his patron, the king, 
 dead, and encountering considerable opposition 
 from the scribes and copyists, he went to Italy 
 and ultimately established his press at Venice. 
 The first Paris press was established under the 
 patronage and by the exertions of professors of 
 the University of Paris, and the press itself was 
 set up within the precincts. The printers, of 
 course, were Germans, and their work was 
 largely reprints of classical texts. The Roman 
 type used by these printers was of a very high 
 artistic character, Mr. Gordon Duff, in fact, going 
 so far as to say that it far surpasses Jensen's 
 in beauty. 
 
 By 1473 printing was definitely established 
 in the Low Countries, both Utrecht and Alost 
 producing dated books in that year. In 1475 
 occurs the first use of Hebrew type. Piove di 
 Sacco and Reggio di Calabria in Italy, and 
 Esslingen in Germany, were the towns where it 
 was first used. Many Hebrew presses were 
 set up in Italy during the last quarter^of the 
 fifteenth century, and several in Spain and 
 Portugal. 
 
 In 1475 the art reached Austria, and in the 
 same year Spam. The first book printed in 
 England was issued from the press of William 
 Caxton in 1477. The false date 1468 appears 
 in an Oxford edition of Rufinus on Jerome's 
 exposition of the symbols of tiie Apostles. 
 This date has given rise to a considerable amount 
 of controversy. Richard Atkyns in 1664 alleged 
 that this book was printed by Frederick Corsellis, 
 a workman from the press of Haarlem, who Avas 
 bribed to come to England by order of Henry VI. 
 This story was based on a manuscript alleged to 
 be in the Library at Lambeth Palace. No one, 
 however, has seen that manuscript from Atkyns' 
 time to the present day, and as it is certain that 
 the book dated 1468 was printed in 1478 by the 
 first Oxford printer, I think it may be taken that 
 the existence of the said manuscript is very doubt- 
 ful. However, the king (Charles II.) believed 
 Atkyns' story and gave him the patent for law- 
 
book printing. The press in England was not 
 responsible for any great advance in the art — 
 in fact, English printing of the fifteenth century 
 was of a comparatively low order. 
 
 About 1481 or 1482 music is found printed 
 with type. In 1473 a few notes were printed 
 by 0. Fyner at Esslingen. The principal use 
 of music was in service books, and it was always 
 printed in two impressions up to the end of the 
 fifteenth century. The notes are generally in 
 black and the stave lines in red. The earlier 
 printers either left a blank space for the rubri- 
 cator to write in the music, as in the 1457 
 Psalter, or in a few" cases printed in the stave 
 lines, leaving the notes to be added later by hand. 
 A further addition to the resources of the art 
 was the cutting of Slavonic type, which is found 
 in at least two varieties in Cracow in 1491 and 
 at Cettinje, in Montenegro, before the close of 
 the century. A Secretary type following closely 
 the French law hand is found used at Paris and 
 Rouen in the last decade of the century. A 
 Rouen book printed for Richard Pynson, of 
 London (Statham's Abridgment), is a good 
 specimen of this type. 
 
 During the last few years of the century 
 printing presses were established in Portugal, 
 Denmark, Sweden, and Montenegro. 
 
 We have a picture of the printing press as 
 improved by the close of the century in a " Dance 
 of Death," printed at Lyons in 1499. A con- 
 siderable change is seen from the plain screw- 
 press of the earliest printers. It has assumed 
 the familiar form of the wooden hand-press 
 known to all. There is certainly a tympan. 
 As to the frisket, it is distinctly probable that 
 this valuable addition to the press was the 
 invention of some one in the office of Schoffer 
 at Mainz. It is most likely that the diminution 
 of the number of pinholes in the sheet which 
 occurs in the very early seventies is due to this 
 addition to the press. 
 
 At the close of the fifteenth century the printer 
 had almost emerged from the experimental 
 stage. The press had assumed the form it was 
 to hold with very slight alteration for 300 years. 
 Books could be printed hi Roman, and many 
 varieties of Gothic types, in Hebrew, Greek 
 or Slavonic letters, and music type (in two 
 printings) was constantly used. Coloured inks 
 were known, although very sparingly used. 
 The technique of book-makmg had almost 
 reached its height. The early books were 
 without titlepages, tables of contents, pagination, 
 imprint, signatures and illustrations. By the 
 year 1500 all these had been introduced, and if 
 
 they were not always used it was not because 
 they were not known. 
 
 The Sixteenth Century. 
 With the opening of the sixteenth century 
 the art enters upon a period of steady progress. 
 It is true no great inventions either of machinery 
 or methods were introduced, but the increase 
 in the number of works issuing from the press 
 was steady throughout the century. 
 
 The most noticeable change is the reduction 
 in the size of books generally, and this occurred 
 quite early in the century. As books became 
 more popular and cheaper they naturally 
 became smaller. The pocket volume, rare 
 almost to non-existence in the fifteenth century, 
 was almost common in the sixteenth. The 
 small octavos and quartos were well in the 
 majority. Even the folios were less unwieldy, 
 and the enormous volumes of the past were 
 almost unknown by the end of the first decade. 
 
 During this century it is remarkable to 
 notice the enormous spread of the press as well 
 as its activity just referred to. During the years 
 1501-1520 no less than twenty towns in Germany 
 set up presses for the first time. In Italy, 
 during the whole century, no less than 100 towns 
 set up presses. In England the progress was 
 not so apparent. Only twelve towns set up 
 presses during the century, and most of these 
 attempts expired before its close. 
 
 The struggle between the Roman and Gothic 
 types was resumed early in the sixteenth century, 
 and a third competitor entered the lists in the 
 shape of Italic. It was cut for Aldus at Venice, 
 it is said, from the designs of Francia and 
 modelled upon the handwriting of Petrarch. 
 Aldus obtained a privilege for ten years for the 
 sole use of this type -face, and it was first used 
 in the Virgil of 1501. The success of the Aldhie 
 Italic at once produced imitators. Forged 
 editions were issued at Lyons, and printers 
 elsewhere produced varieties of the type. As a 
 result of the struggle between the Roman and 
 the Gothic, the Roman began to gain ground in 
 the Latin countries, while Gothic still remained 
 supreme in those of Germanic origin. There 
 began in 1509 that semi-scientific discussion of 
 the proportions of print letters by Paccioli 
 which was carried on by Diner, Geoffroy Tory, 
 and later by Moxon, which has lasted until our 
 own day, and has produced such little real results. 
 The real problem is to design a fount of type hi 
 such a way that whatever combination of letters 
 is arranged no single letter will stand out from 
 the rest. This test should be applied to any 
 
type which is put forward as an artistic triumph. 
 Whether to these investigations should be 
 attributed the cutting of some excellent Roman 
 types in France is uncertain, but it is sufficient 
 to say that such types were cut and used for 
 many years. Roman type was introduced into 
 England in the early years of the sixteenth 
 century and used first by Richard Pynson. 
 
 There were also cut, during the century, founts 
 of Arabic, Syriac, Armenian, Ethiopic, Anglo- 
 Saxon, Irish and music types. The only one 
 of these which needs a word of explanation is 
 the music type. In the fifteenth century music 
 had been printed in two workings, the notes and 
 stave at different impressions. The new type 
 was of a different character. Each note was cast 
 together with the piece of stave that belonged 
 to it, so that the stave line appeared to a close 
 observer to be broken into as many pieces as 
 there were notes. This system was hardly ever 
 used (if at all) for printing the Plain chant or 
 liturgical music, for which the old method of 
 two printings was retained. 
 
 One extraordinary variety of Gothic type 
 may be specially mentioned. It occurs in 
 "Theuerdank," an epic poem 'celebrating the 
 Emperor Maximilian's wedding journey to 
 Burgundy. It was probably composed in 
 great part by Maximilian himself. Printed by 
 Schonsperger, of Augsburg, it was published at 
 Nuremberg in 1517. A special fount of type 
 was cut for it by Jost Dienecker, of Antwerp, 
 with enormous flourishes, especially to the 
 letters " g " and " h " ; for use when these 
 letters occurred hi the first or last line of the 
 page. Many authorities believed the whole 
 book to be cut on wood. 
 
 The use of coloured inks in the sixteenth 
 century was very slight. It was confined almost 
 entirely to red, used as in the previous century 
 principally for service books. The various 
 shades of brown and bistre were used by the 
 chiaroscuro printers in Italy and Germany, 
 but any real colour printing is almost unknown. 
 
 This century may be described as the golden 
 age of the wood -cutter. In the first half, especi- 
 ally, numbers of great artists were producing 
 work for book ornament and illustration. Basel, 
 Nuremberg, Florence and Lyons are the four 
 towns that stand out as producing some of the 
 finest work. There is little doubt that soft 
 metal blocks were also used, and these were 
 produced in the same way as woodcuts. 
 
 Copperplate engraving and printing had been 
 invented in" the early part of the fifteenth 
 century, but retained its special character, only 
 
 a few books being illustrated in this manner. 
 The use of engravings during the sixteenth 
 century in connection with letterpress printing 
 increased to some extent, but the woodcut 
 retained its supremacy, and only towards the 
 end of the century do we find any effective 
 competition. The earliest copperplate work 
 produced in England belongs to the period 
 about 1540. 
 
 The printing press is supposed to have been 
 improved about the middle of the sixteenth 
 century by a printer named Banner of Nurem- 
 berg, who is said to have introduced a metal 
 spindle in place of the wooden one used up to 
 that time. It is true that some improvement 
 must have been made to render the press more 
 rigid, as we find the smaller type and more 
 delicate woodcuts used at this time coming out 
 quite sharp and clear. 
 
 In the technicalities of bookwork the printer 
 advanced considerably during the period under 
 discussion. The titlepage, which only appeared 
 occasionally in the previous century, and then 
 only in the label form (with one or two prominent 
 exceptions), became an integral part of the book, 
 and the colophon necessarily decreased in 
 importance. Woodcut initials and borders 
 were quite common. 
 
 The sixteenth century is not only noticeable 
 for the great expansion of the press in Europe 
 previously referred to. It was also the period 
 when Asia and America received and practised 
 the art. In India (at Goa) and in Japan the 
 Jesuit missionaries introduced the printing 
 press, and in Mexico an offshoot from the press 
 of Cromberger in Seville was working before 1540. 
 
 The Seventeenth Century. 
 With the opening of the seventeenth century 
 a period begins in which the art of printing 
 continues the process of degeneration from its 
 artistic beginnings,, which was seen at the end 
 of the previous century. It is a period of great 
 happenings in political life, of revolutions long 
 drawn out in England and France, and these 
 inevitably left their impress upon the craft. 
 The pamphlet, very little used in the fifteenth 
 century, and only making a sporadic appear- 
 ance in the sixteenth century, mostly, of course, 
 in connection with the Lutheran controversy, 
 became one of the normal methods of publicity, 
 and the newspaper — the genuine periodical, not 
 the mere paper of news — made its appearance. 
 Old and damaged type was used, and the Dutch 
 founders, who supplied a large portion of the 
 demand for new type, had no type designers 
 
worthy of the name in their employ. Here and 
 there the old punches are rediscovered and 
 founts of type cast from them, and books can 
 be found which preserve some of the older 
 traditions of beauty and proportion. The 
 Roycroft Polyglot Bible is one of these books. 
 The Roman type used in the preface is that 
 used by John Day, the famous London printer 
 of the sixteenth century. There is no new 
 • Roman type to which attention can be drawn 
 during the period under discussion. To the 
 types known before 1000 there were added 
 Coptic and Samaritan, There was little change 
 in the methods of printing music, although 
 engraving was occasionally used. The number 
 of Hebrew presses increased considerably, 
 especially in Eastern Europe. The most im- 
 portant Hebrew fount cut in England was that 
 for the London Polyglot in 1657, and this 
 incurred considerable criticism. In Greek work 
 this country has at least one production to be 
 proud of in the Eton Chrysostom in eight 
 volumes and in folio. This work, although the 
 types were imported (or perhaps because they 
 were imported), takes rank with the finest Greek 
 printing. The type is similar to the Greek of 
 the Stephanus press. 
 
 The best printing done in England during the 
 seventeenth century was probably that in black 
 letter. Acts of Parliament and proclamations 
 were printed in this letter up to quite recent 
 times, and the Old English or English Black, 
 which had got quite away from the Fractur- 
 schrift of the Germans, and the Flamand of the 
 Dutch, assumed characteristics of its own 
 which rendered it quite a handsome letter. 
 
 Joseph Moxon attempted to draw up rules 
 for the scientific design of Roman type, but 
 they were unsuccessful, and, in fact, were more 
 adapted to signboards than type. Moxon praised 
 the Dutch letter, and probably imported a great 
 deal. It may be said that there was no indigenous 
 Roman in England during the century. 
 
 The reason for the want of enterprise in 
 English typefounding was the restrictions im- 
 posed upon the trade. By the Star Chamber 
 of 1637 the number of founders was limited to 
 four, and a commission, consisting of the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury or Bishop of London, 
 with six others, was appointed to fill any vacancy. 
 Free importation was the order of the day from 
 1640 to 1643, and from 1643 to 1662 the trade 
 was free of restrictions. Owing to the Civil War 
 this did not help it much, and in 1662 an Act 
 reimposed the restrictions of the Star Chamber 
 Decree of 1637 (cap. 27). 
 
 In France the characters cut during the 
 previous century still held their own, and the 
 Elzevier Bible, although printed in Holland, is 
 a good specimen of the finest French work of the 
 period. Towards the close of the century a new 
 type was cut and used largely, which showed 
 a degraded face from the fine models of the past, 
 and formed a link between the early types and 
 the modern effeminate French face. 
 
 Germany and Scandinavia were by this time 
 the only countries to retain the use of the Gothic 
 letter for ordinary printing. 
 
 There are no typefounders' specimen books 
 known of the seventeenth century, although 
 several founders issued specimen sheets. But 
 several type specimen books were issued by 
 printers, and the two best known are those of 
 Fuhrman, of Nuremberg, in 1616, and of the 
 Vatican press in 1628. Some copies of the latter 
 are on grey paper. 
 
 The literature of the practical side of the 
 art begins in the seventeenth century. 
 
 The English typefounder and printer, Moxon, 
 was the first to issue a complete treatise on 
 everything connected with the art. So good 
 was it that at the end of the eighteenth century 
 it was republished as an original and up-to- 
 date treatise. Several books giving schemes of 
 imposition were also issued. 
 
 A few words must be devoted to the earliest 
 newspapers. The English Mercurie of 1588 has 
 been proved to be a forgery, and the first English 
 newspaper with a definite title has been identified 
 as the Weekly Newes of 1622. Newspapers 
 were issued earlier than this in Germany and 
 Holland, the Frankfurter Journal and the 
 Nieuwe Tijdinge of Antwerp being among the 
 earliest. All newspapers of the Civil War period 
 were in a small quarto, the foolscap folio size not 
 becoming common until after the Restoration. 
 
 The press during the seventeenth century 
 received a general overhauling and improvement 
 at the hands of Blaeuw of Amsterdam. The 
 exact improvements he made it is impossible to 
 specify, as Moxon, who gives illustrations of both 
 the new and old presses, only describes the new. 
 
 Finally, as regards the seventeenth century, it 
 must be noted that printing was introduced into 
 New England in 1640, and that in all countries 
 which were comparatively free from the stricter 
 press laws provincial presses became more and 
 more numerous. 
 
 The Eighteenth Century. 
 We now come to the last 100 years of the 
 period I am dealing with. In many respects it 
 
TO 
 
 is tho most important, as although it did not 
 see tho groat inventions which were to follow- 
 so soon, yet the development of the great in- 
 dustrial revolution was steadily forcing the 
 craft towards its reorganisation as a machine 
 industry. It will be difficult to do more than 
 mention any of the movements on the Continent, 
 as our attention must be concentrated on the 
 English developments. 
 
 In 1702 the first London daily paper appeared 
 —the Daily Courant. There had been a few 
 daily numbers of the Post Boy in the lOSO's, 
 but the ( 'ourant was the first genuine duly paper. 
 From that day the daily paper has been always 
 with us. Whether the daily paper of 200 years 
 ago had more news than that of to-day, or 
 whether the censorship was working overtime 
 then as now. it is difficult to say, hut the limi- 
 tations of the press at that time only gave the 
 printer two foolscap folio pages to till, and so 
 there was not that wild desire for copy which 
 characterises his descendant of to-day. 
 
 Turning to type, the Dutch typefounders 
 were still in the ascendant, and Watson, the 
 well-known Edinburgh printer, boasted in 1713 
 that all his type and ornaments were Dutch. 
 An improvement was, however, on the way. 
 William Caslon, the reviver of English type- 
 founding, was horn in 1(392, and served his 
 apprenticeship to an engraver of gun-barrels in 
 London. When he started in business for him- 
 self he added the engraving of bookbinders' 
 punches to his other trade. These were seen 
 by the printer, John Bowyer, who introduced 
 Caslon to James, the typefounder. After 
 studying the ait, Caslon set up in business as a 
 typefounder about 1720. His first type speci- 
 men sheet was issued in 1734, and this contains 
 the famous Caslon Roman types which form the 
 model for all the standard book types of to-day. 
 They were an instantaneous success, and until 
 (piite late in the eighteenth century were the 
 leading style. They then dropped out of sight, 
 and later we shall see how they cam" to the 
 front again. 
 
 A great rival of Caslon was John Basker- 
 ville, of Birmingham, who was typefounder and 
 printer, and who designed his own types and 
 printed from them. His Romans were good, 
 but somewhat more stilted than Caslon's, and his 
 manner of printing and hot-pressing gave them 
 a slimncss of which all people did not approve. 
 Baskerville's great triumph was his set of Italic 
 capitals. These are beautiful in outline and 
 effective in combination. His first book was 
 the Virgil of 1757. Although Baskerville made 
 
 a success artistically, his typos never really 
 became popular, and after his death they were 
 sold en bloc to Beauinarchais for his printing 
 office at Kehl. Their history after their use at 
 Kehl is misty in the extreme, and only recently 
 it has been rumoured that they have turned up 
 in one of the largest provincial French printing 
 houses. 
 
 The example of Baskerville led to imitators 
 abroad, of whom the most famous was Bodoni, 
 of Parma. His work retained the simplicity 
 of Baskerville without the artistic touch of the 
 English printer. Bodoni became printer to the 
 Grand Duke of Parma, and his specimen book 
 shows an endless series of Romans, Italics, 
 Greeks, all on the most magnificent scale. His 
 Greek Homer in folio is one of the most mag- 
 nificent works ever produced. But all his 
 magnificence does not seem to impress. His 
 paper is too white, his ink is too black (if that 
 be possible), and his type is too scientifically 
 correct to please. 
 
 In Scotland the Foulis press produced some 
 fine editions from type cast by Dr. Wilson. 
 
 When we turn to France we find all the 
 greatness (typographically speaking) of the 
 previous centuries departed. French Roman 
 types had degenerated greatly. An attempt 
 was made by Didot to follow the examples of 
 Baskerville and Bodoni, but his attempt wan 
 poor in comparison, and French types resumed 
 their downward course. This is not to say that 
 there were not fine books and fine specimens of 
 printing produced in France in the eighteenth 
 century. There were, but there was no great 
 revival such as took place elsewhere, and then 
 in 1789 the Revolution diverted all printing to 
 the pamphlet and the newspaper. 
 
 The eighteenth century did not see coloured 
 inks used freely in connection with letterpress 
 printing, but many processes were invented 
 and used for producing coloured prints. For 
 the detailed history of these I must refer to 
 my paper read before the Society in February 
 last. 
 
 Book illustration of the eighteenth century 
 is very mixed. Copperplate, in conjunction 
 with type, even on the same page, is common. 
 Woodcuts were at their lowest ebb until Thomas 
 Bewick revived the art by adopting the graver 
 as his tool instead of the knife, and using the 
 end of the grain instead of the plank. By this 
 means he obtained a delicacy of fine which 
 enabled him to give a world of detail even in the 
 smallest vignette. His work rescued wood and 
 placed it in a position successfully to rival copper. 
 
• A word must be said as to the spread of the 
 press. This may almost be said to be universal. 
 In every part of the world, by the end of the 
 eighteenth century, the press had penetrated. 
 Even in England the provincial press began to 
 bear some relation to the importance of the 
 various localities. A feeble attempt on the part 
 of the Government in 1793 to insist on the 
 registration of all printers did not succeed, 
 but before the end of the century it became 
 tolerably common for the printer's name to 
 appear on his work. For many years it had 
 been the exception rather than the rule, perhaps 
 because of the rigid press laws. 
 
 And now, as to the printing press itself. We 
 have seen it as a simple screw-press used by the 
 earliest printers, developing within a very few 
 years into the wooden hand -press complete with 
 rolling bed, tympan and frisket. We notice in 
 the earliest pictures the hiking balls of the 
 pressmen. Now, at the close of the eighteenth 
 century, 350 years after the first printer sent 
 the first proof to press, we leave the press still 
 
 wood, still with the slow motion that only 
 allowed the quickest pressman to get 300 pulls 
 in a working day, and still with the hiking balls 
 of the early days. To convey an idea of the 
 method of the printer of this time I give a list 
 of the operations necessary for making one 
 impression : — ■ 
 
 1. Inking the balls, or, as at present, the roller. 
 
 2. Inking the form. 
 
 3. Laying the sheet on the tympan. 
 
 4. Flying the frisket, and folding it and the 
 tympan down on the form. 
 
 5. Running in the form under the platen. 
 
 6. Taking the impression by depressing the 
 platen. 
 
 7. Running out the form. 
 
 8. Lifting the tympan and frisket. 
 
 9. Releasing the sheet and placing it on the 
 bank. 
 
 It will always astonish those who examine 
 this practical side of the history of printing that 
 with such slow methods the great books, and 
 still more the great newspapers, of the eighteenth 
 century could ever have been produced. 
 
12 
 
 LECTURE II. — Delivered November jot/i, 1^14. 
 
 The Early Nineteenth Century. 
 
 It is curious to reflect that in the year 1800, 
 at least 350 years after the invention of printing, 
 the art had developed so Little mechanically 
 that a fifteenth-century printer would have 
 found himself quite at home in a printing office 
 of the last year of the eighteenth century. He 
 would have found the same wooden press, with 
 perhaps some slight additions of metal screws 
 and levers, which would be quite clear to his 
 mind after one trial. He would see the same 
 kind of inking balls used, and he would note that 
 the paper, although of a quality not up to his 
 standard for book printing, was produced in 
 the same manner as in his own day. The 
 type would perhaps appear to him better 
 finished than that he recollected. But in all 
 essentials the printing office of 1800 was the 
 printing office of 300 years before. Everything 
 we know to-day in the art has come into use 
 since 1800. 
 
 The printed sheet of to-day is printed on 
 machine-made paper. It is either set by a 
 machine or set with machine-made type. It 
 is either printed from this type or stereotyped 
 by machinery. The press is a power press, and 
 the resulting printed sheets are sewn, glued, and 
 bound by machinery. My task now is to trace 
 the development of the machine industry of 
 to-day from the handicraft of the earlier period. 
 
 The three great inventions which made the 
 present machine production possible were the 
 paper-making machine, invented by the Brothers 
 Fourdrinier in 1803 ; the printing machine, 
 invented by Koenig in 1811 ; and photography, 
 invented by Daguerre and Fox Talbot in 1839.* 
 
 Previous to these, however, an improvement 
 which amounted to an invention had been 
 made in the press by Charles, 3rd Earl 
 Stanhope. The great change he introduced 
 was to substitute iron for wood in the frame of 
 the press, and add multiplying levers between 
 the bar and the platen so that the work of the 
 pressman was much reduced. William Morris 
 was wont to say that this substitution of iron 
 for wood was the only improvement that had 
 
 * The last date must be read in conjunction with the 
 remarks uu the history of photo-engraving in Lecture III. 
 
 been made in the art, and when we consider 
 the enormous gain in rigidity we can understand 
 what Morris meant. The power press did not 
 exist for him, but he wanted the best possible 
 effect from the hand press. The story of the 
 hand press and its development after this date 
 is an engineering one. Better castings, finer 
 lining, still more rigidity, and the proving 
 press used to-day by photo-engravers produces 
 those really wonderful proofs which their 
 customers vainly try to emulate. 
 
 Paper. 
 The paper-making machine invented in 1803 
 was in most of its essentials the paper-making 
 machine of to-day. Up to this date all paper 
 was made in single sheets by hand. The pulp 
 was put into the mould by the workmen, and 
 then the mould was shaken to distribute the 
 pulp evenly, and the resulting sheet removed 
 for drying and pressing. The principle of the 
 invention was to substitute endless woven wire 
 sheets for the mould, and as the paper was 
 formed by the felting of the fibres to lead it 
 between heated cylinders to dry and press it. 
 As it came from the machine the paper was 
 cut into sheets of the standard sizes. The 
 continuous web of paper was being made in 
 1803, but it was not to be used as a web for 
 rotary printing until 1868. 
 
 Printing Machinery. 
 
 The next great invention which attracts the 
 notice of the student is the development of 
 the printing press into a machine. 
 
 The three principles of printing machinery 
 are. first, the platen action in which the pressure 
 is applied by one flat surface acting on another. 
 This was the hand-press method. Then follows 
 the cylinder, round which the paper is led, 
 rolling over the flat bed on which the type is 
 placed. The third principle is the rotary 
 method, where both type and paper are placed 
 on cylinders geared together. Of the two 
 latter the third was the the first to be invented, 
 but the last to be used. William Nicholson, 
 in 1790, took out a patent for a rotary printing 
 machine which, however, was never made for 
 
use. He also specified a flat bed cylinder 
 machine similar in action as regards position 
 of type and paper to the later invention of 
 Koenig. But no really practical methods of 
 using them were added to either of these 
 inventions. 
 
 Before we come to the cylinder machines we 
 must deal with the attempts to apply power to 
 the hand press. Frederick Koenig in 1803, at 
 StihL attempted this. He substituted leather 
 rollers for the inking balls, and introduced 
 mechanism to take the carriage under the inking 
 rollers and then under the platen. Koenig 
 came to London and succeeded in inducing 
 Bensley, Woodfall and Taylor to finance him 
 in his experiments. By 1810 he took out a 
 patent, and in April 1811 he printed sig. H of 
 the " Annual Register." This was a modifi- 
 cation of Koenig's first attempt to apply 
 power to the old form of press, and was 
 patented by him in England in 1810. 
 
 The next year, 1811, he took out another 
 patent, this time for the machine which was 
 to be the parent of all flat bed cylinder machines 
 from that day. 
 
 John Walter, of the Times, ordered two 
 machines after seeing the new cylinder machine, 
 and presumably after hearing Koenig's ideas 
 for the future. The issue of the Times for 
 November 29th, 1814, was printed entirely by 
 steam, power. Mr. John Walter's own account 
 of the innovation is interesting : — 
 
 " Our journal of this day presents to the public 
 the practical results of the greatest improvement 
 connected with printing since the discovery of 
 the art itself. 
 
 " The reader of this paragraph now holds in 
 his hands one of the many thousand impressions 
 of the Times newspaper which were taken off 
 last night by a mechanical apparatus. A 
 system of machinery, almost organic, has been 
 devised and arranged, which, while it relieves 
 the human frame from its most laborious efforts 
 in printing, far exceeds all human powers in 
 rapidity and despatch. That the magnitude of 
 the invention may be justly appreciated by 
 its efforts, we may inform the public that after 
 the letters are placed by the compositors, and 
 inclosed in what is called the ' forme,' little 
 more remains for man to do than to attend upon 
 and watch this unconscious agent in its opera- 
 tions. This machine is then merely supplied 
 with paper, itself places the forme, inks it, 
 adjusts the paper to the newly inked type, 
 stamps the sheet, and gives it forth to the hands 
 of the attendant, at the same time withdrawing 
 
 the forme for a fresh coat of ink, which itself 
 again distributes to the ensuing sheet, now 
 advancing for impression ; and the whole of 
 these complicated acts is performed with such 
 a velocity and simultaneousness of movement 
 that no less than 1,100 are impressed in one 
 hour." — The Times, November 29th, 1814. 
 
 I have said that some time after April. 1810, 
 Koenig gave up entirely the idea of the modifica- 
 tion of the screw press, and became a convert 
 to the cylinder principle. It is alleged, with 
 some background of justification, that Koenig 
 borrowed the idea from Nicholson's patent of 
 1790. He certainly met Nicholson, who helped 
 him to prepare his patents. 
 
 One other type of machine, constructed 
 during the period ending 1814, remains to be 
 mentioned. The printer of the Norwich Merc unj, 
 Mr. R. M. Bacon, together with Bryan Donkin, 
 designed a machine in which the types were 
 arranged and fixed on a revolving four-sided 
 prism. The ink was applied by one roller, 
 which rose and fell to meet the irregularities of 
 the prism. 
 
 This patent, No. 3757 of 1813, contains the 
 first reference to composition rollers, without 
 which rapid machine printing would have been 
 impracticable. 
 
 After Nicholson's, this was the first rotary 
 machine as against the flat bed cylinder machines 
 of Koenig. 
 
 It is difficult to say when Bacon and Donkin' s 
 machine was first used. The European Maga- 
 zine for January, 1815, claims the invention 
 for them as against Koenig, and goes on to 
 state that another inventor had produced 
 a printing machine at Plymouth " about ten 
 years since, which has been and still is used 
 by a tradesman there for printing his bills." 
 
 Koenig's final effort in this country was to 
 transform his Times machine, which printed 
 on one side only, into one that perfected 
 the sheet or printed it on both sides 
 during the progress of the paper through the 
 machine. 
 
 His patent for this is dated 1814. One large 
 machine of this sort was made for Bensley in 
 1815, but it was too heavy and expensive, and 
 this was the only one made. It produced 
 750 perfected sheets per hour, or 1,500 im- 
 pressions. 
 
 Koenig finally left England in 1817, and 
 started the firm of Koenig and Bauer at 
 Kloster Oberzell, where it still flourishes. 
 
 The invention was now accomplished, machine 
 printing was a fact, and although the hand 
 
*4 
 
 press still held its own it must liave felt the 
 beginning of the severe competition. 
 
 We have followed the development of the 
 flat bed cylinder machine for newspaper purposes 
 to 1814. The machines then built by Koenig 
 for the Times were used until 1827 (by 1824 
 they were printing 2,000 per hour), although 
 Applegath and Cowper, who had succeeded 
 Koenig at the Times, had modified them 
 considerably. 
 
 In 1827 they built a new machine still printing 
 on one side only, but raising the rate of impres- 
 sions to between 4,000 and 5,000 per hour. 
 
 Perfecting had been abandoned. As Cowper 
 says, " The principal object in a news machine 
 is to obtain a great number of impressions from 
 the same forme on one side of the sheet, and 
 not from two formes on both sides as in books. 
 This machine required eight attendants, four 
 to lay on and four to take off. These machines 
 were used by the Times until 1848, when the 
 flat bed principle was finally abandoned. 
 
 The failure of Koenig's 1815 machine, for 
 perfecting, was not the end of perfecters. 
 Applegath and Cowper turned their atten- 
 tion to this type of machine and considerably 
 improved it. With little alteration it developed 
 into the perfecter of recent times. 
 
 Up to 1850 the job or book printer was 
 content to use the hand press and the power 
 platen machine, and the big houses used the 
 perfecters mentioned above. Here and there, 
 of course, various experimental cylinder 
 machines were used. 
 
 The invention by Main in 1 850 of his cylinder 
 machine formed the first step in the sequence 
 of Wharfedale type machines. • His cylinder 
 did not rotate fully, but after making three- 
 quarters of a revolution reversed itself and at 
 the same time was raised to clear the type 
 carriage on its return journey. The bed also 
 had a new drive, being a crank with multiplying 
 gear attached. 
 
 In 1848 news and book printing machines 
 parted company. Applegath in that year 
 introduced once more the rotary principle. 
 The failures of Nicholson in 1790, and Bacon 
 and Donkin in 1813, were at last avenged, and 
 rotary printing has been the method for printing 
 newspapers ever since that date. He placed a 
 great cylinder with its axis vertical, and with 
 as many faces as there were columns to be 
 printed. The type was held by wedge-shaped 
 rules, and as many feeders were arranged round 
 the machine as the space permitted. The 
 next improvement was the Hoe machine, where 
 
 the axis of the main cylinder was horizontal 
 and the type held by a special device known as 
 the Turtle. These Hoe machines in this form 
 lasted until 1868, Avhen the final great invention 
 in newspaper printing was introduced and the 
 Walter press was set up. 
 
 Printing Types. 
 Turning to the types of this early part of the 
 nineteenth century, as Mr. Talbot Baines Reed 
 said, Bodoni and Didot killed the old style and 
 left the modern Roman. But the new Roman 
 had hardly established itself when a demand for 
 fat face type arose. All the founders supplied 
 the demand, and the specimen books of this 
 period are full of types with these broad faces. 
 The usual reaction set in, and from an attempt 
 to condense type after the French fashion arose 
 the Scotch letter. The English founders, how- 
 ever, retained the rounder forms of letters. 
 The period about 1820 was noted for good 
 printing, but the Roman type used was not as 
 legible as the old style. Hansard said, in 1825, 
 " the specimen of a British letter-founder is a 
 heterogeneous compound made up of fat faces 
 and lean faces, wide set and close set, propor- 
 tioned and disproportioned." This style was 
 maintained with some slight improvement as 
 regards book faces until the forties. 
 
 For this period one is always told to refer to 
 the Chiswick Press for the best printing, and 
 the books issued by Pickering are generally 
 referred to. The work of Charles Whittingham 
 the elder, the founder of the Chiswick Press, 
 possesses few claims to distinction. It was his 
 nephew who founded the press at Took's Court, 
 and to whom his uncle left the Chiswick Press. 
 He it was who printed books for Pickering 
 which have always been looked upon as excel- 
 lent work. Corrall, who printed most of the 
 Diamond Classics for the same publisher, also 
 did good work, and here it was, no doubt, the 
 publisher who was responsible for the excellence 
 of the volumes. Pickering was an artist in 
 book production, and the simplicity and dignity 
 of his publications had a great influence on the 
 work of his time. 
 
 The combination of Pickering and the younger 
 Whittingham produced most excellent results in 
 later years ; in fact, until the death of the 
 former in 1854. 
 
 In 1844 Caslon's were asked to supply type 
 for a Juvenal to be printed for Pickering in old- 
 faced Roman. Caslon's discovered the old 
 punches of the original Caslon's Roman type, 
 from which a fount was cast. The Juvenal 
 
*5 
 
 not being ready, the type was used for Lady 
 Willoughby's Diary, published by Messrs. 
 Longman in 1844, and at once the old face 
 type became popular, and began to oust the 
 compressed and fat face varieties. Some people, 
 however, considered it somewhat too archaic, 
 and Messrs. Miller & Richard began cutting a 
 "series of revived old style faces. They were 
 followed by the other founders, and from about 
 1850 the better class of book work has been in 
 one or other of these types. 
 
 Ext; RAVING AND ILLUSTRATION. 
 
 I have now to deal with the methods of 
 illustration and engraving. 
 
 Bewick's development of illustration on wood 
 gave an impetus to the art which lasted until 
 the rise of the photographic reproduction 
 processes in the middle eighties. It did not 
 preserve the high character which Bewick gave 
 it, but gradually degenerated into a trade. 
 There was a slight revival, artistically speaking, 
 about 1835, but the effect of this soon passed. 
 Artisans had taken the place of artists. 
 
 Woodcuts, of course, could be printed at the 
 same time as the text, and the whole history of 
 illustration during the nineteenth century is a 
 search after a process which would mechanically 
 produce from pictures or drawings blocks which 
 could be printed in the same way. 
 
 The invention of photography in 1839 led to 
 no immediate result in this direction, although 
 Fox Talbot and others thought and experi- 
 mented much on the subject. However, the 
 early history of the development of photo- 
 graphic engraving is dealt with in the next 
 lecture. The period under discussion does not 
 contain any real commercial development in 
 this direction. 
 
 Lithography had been invented by J. A. 
 
 Senefelder in two forms : engraving on stone in 
 1796, and the chemical method or true litho- 
 graphy in 1798. It is unnecessary to go into 
 the history of this art, as Mr. Pennell has so 
 recently and so elaborately explained it to you. 
 It was brought to England hi 1800, and gradually 
 attained popularity. Its use for book illustra- 
 tion was not very frequent, as it necessitated 
 two printings on different machines ; and it 
 was, therefore, not a formidable rival to wood 
 engraving. 
 
 Occasional "books occur with illustration? 
 printed by unknown processes, such as acro- 
 graphy, which was probably a method of surface 
 printing etchings. 
 
 Colour printing during the first half of the 
 nineteenth century was almost entirely of an 
 experimental character. Always there was the 
 attempt to get a colour process that could be 
 printed in the ordinary press or machine. 
 Savage developed wood-block colour printing to 
 an extent hitherto unknown, but with no com- 
 mercial results. Baxter, of course, was the 
 great colour printer of the period, and his work 
 was special to himself. His delicacy of treat- 
 ment and wonderful eye for colour, together 
 with a patience that must have been almost 
 superhuman, places his work in a different 
 category from any other. It was a personality, 
 not a process. 
 
 This hurried survey of a period roughly 
 corresponding to the first half of the nineteenth 
 century leaves printing at a point when it had 
 definitely developed from the handicraft of 1800 
 into the machine industry. With machine- 
 made paper and machine printing, it only 
 wanted one thing to complete it — mechanical 
 illustration. By this time it was well on the 
 way, and the principal topic of my next lecture 
 will be this final development. 
 
[6 
 
 LECTURE III. — Delivered December Jth, 1914. 
 
 The Nineteenth Century (Part II.) 
 
 AND AFTER. 
 
 The development of printing during the 
 second half of the nineteenth century was 
 rapid in the extreme, at least on the mechanical 
 side. Machine succeeded machine, each more 
 rapid and effective than the last. Processes of 
 illustration were born and died, giving place to 
 more rapid and accurate methods. Up to 
 about the year 1890 it cannot be said that a 
 similar advance took place as regards "type and 
 type design. If this period showed no develop- 
 ment in the printed book, it at least was a period 
 in which the book was produced in a solid 
 manner. In the decent class of book the type was 
 Revived Old Style or Caslon Old Face, the paper 
 was a sound printing paper without any mixture 
 of wood-pulp, china clay, or any of the other 
 abominations of a later period, and the binding 
 cloth was good and strong. The one-volume 
 novel of the sixties or seventies will be found 
 to-day in good order, showing signs of age 
 perhaps, but wearing out, not falling to pieces, 
 as our modern books do after about three people 
 have handled them. 
 
 In the late eighties there was a curious 
 epidemic among printers of the use of colour in 
 letterpress work. This was, of course, mostly 
 in job work, but it spread to book work, and 
 there are monstrosities to be found in the way 
 of decorated titlepages in many colours which 
 are calculated to make anyone interested in 
 good printing feel very ill. This curious move- 
 ment was known, for some obscure reason, as 
 Art Printing. These printers liked to use tint 
 blocks and scroll work and ornamented initials 
 and borders, and all without any idea of the 
 real value or balance of the printed page. The 
 "artist printer" of this jjeriod was the man 
 who got most eccentric designs and colours 
 on to the sheet of paper. Luckily for us all, 
 a change was caused by the foundation- of the 
 Kelmscott Press by Mr. William Morris. The 
 influence of this Press cannot be overestimated. 
 Morris restored handmade paper, black ink, and 
 good press work to a position that they had 
 lost for many years. The archaic character 
 of his types, which one must admit was carried 
 almost to excess, was one of the most important 
 
 factors in this revolution. The buyers of modern 
 books, many of whom perhaps had never seen 
 a fifteenth century book, were simply taken off 
 their feet by the magnificence of the Kelmscott 
 Press books. We, of course, know them so 
 well that we take them for granted ; but imagine 
 the collector of the editions de luxe of the 1890 
 period, with their thin type and almost finicking 
 get-up, seeing the " Golden Legend " for the first 
 time. Morris set a fashion of good printing, 
 and even of plain printing, because although 
 the Kelmscott Press books are decorated, they 
 are decorated, as it were, in addition to the 
 printed page. I do not think there is much 
 doubt that Morris would have preferred to 
 illuminate every copy himself, but this being 
 impossible he allowed his designs to be printed 
 at the same time as the letterpress. Morris's 
 designs were personal to himself, and it is perhaps 
 as well that all the ornaments of the Kelmscott 
 Press were withdrawn from use on his death. The 
 type can be used according to his rules, and has 
 been so used with effective results. The types 
 of the Kelmscott Press. were three in number. 
 The Golden type, a Roman based on Jensen's 
 letter but with a slight admixture of Gothic 
 style ; the Troy type, a round Gothic ; and 
 the Chaucer, a smaller Gothic. The Golden 
 type has been copied and modified by many 
 typefounders, and, of course, often spoiled in 
 appearance. The Gothics have not had so 
 much attention paid to them. 
 
 The Doves Press was founded by Mr. Emery 
 Walker and Mr. Cobden Sanderson. The type 
 cut for them was a very plain and handsome 
 Roman with a thinner face than that of the 
 Kelmscott Golden tyjie. The style of the Doves 
 Press is one of great restraint. Ornament is 
 unknown, and only here and there is found an 
 initial in red of a striking and effective character. 
 
 The type used by Mr. St. John Hornby at 
 his Ashendene Press is based on the Subiaco 
 type of Sweynheym and Pannartz, and is 
 therefore to be described as a semi-Roman. 
 It is effective, and the great Dante of the 
 Ashendene Press is worthy to rank with the 
 Kelmscott Chaucer and the Doves Bible. 
 These three books may be described as the ideal 
 books of modern typography. 
 
'/ 
 
 The type specially designed by Mr. C. R. 
 Ashbee, for use at the Essex House Press, in 
 printing the King Edward VII. Prayer Book, 
 will be noticed as distinctly different from the 
 other types mentioned, and it certainly is not 
 so successful. The letters contain too much 
 added ornament. Sufficient reliance is not 
 placed upon plain lettering. 
 
 These Presses, to which must be added the 
 Vale Press with a very excellent Roman fount 
 designed by Mr. Ricketts, had a great effect on 
 printing. They created a demand for sound 
 Roman type, and although the printer was only 
 slowly educated up to supplying the demand, 
 and occasionally would make such ' ; bloomers " 
 as to print Caslon Old Face on an art paper, 
 still progress was visible. At times, in fact, the 
 artistic movement went too far. A few years 
 ago there was a passion for posters printed 
 entirely in capitals. This had probably been 
 induced by a study of inscriptions and of the 
 Aldine Poliphilus of 1499. The result was our 
 leading educational authority issued a series 
 of posters containing perhaps forty or fifty lines 
 of solid caps. They looked very nice, but were 
 almost unreadable. Nothing is more dangerous 
 than carrying a cult too far and forcing a process 
 or method to do what it is not adapted for. A 
 face of type may be good for an inscription of 
 four or five lines and impossible in a page of 
 fifty or sixty. All this simply means that 
 theory and practice must work together, and 
 only when they are in strict harmony will the 
 result be really effective. 
 
 Typefounders' specimen books of to-day show 
 a great advance from those of the early nineties 
 of the last century. Even in America, where 
 the jobbing tj^pes are often of the most eccentric 
 character, the book types were quick to catch 
 the note of the English revival. Morris's types 
 were copied immediately, and in one form or 
 another the new (and old) Romans arc to be 
 found throughout the better-class printing of 
 the United States. Germany, of course, followed 
 quickly. Not content with their modified 
 Eracturschrift and the large number of Romans 
 already at their disposal, every typefounder in 
 Germany set out to design and cut new forms 
 of letter. It is practically impossible for type 
 designers to make a decent living in this 
 country, but in Germany it is almost a pro- 
 fession. Goebel's great volumes issued every 
 few years show the progress of the art in 
 every department in Germany, and in no 
 section is progress so marked as in that of type 
 design. 
 
 Then, again, another great effect of the 
 revival was to draw attention to the correct 
 placing of the type on the page, and to the fact 
 that the opening of two pages of a book is the 
 unit and not the single page. These matters 
 are much better looked after now than they 
 were, and English books have a much better 
 appearance in consequence. 
 
 To-day, except for a slight want of originality 
 in type faces, British book printing can bear com- 
 parison with that of any country. For book 
 work this country has been almost without a 
 rival for two hundred years. Apart entirely 
 from the private presses I have mentioned, 
 great commercial houses, such as the Chiswick 
 Press, have carried on the tradition of good, 
 solid and artistic work. 
 
 There is unfortunately another and a larger 
 section of the printing trade which cannot be 
 said to hold its own in comparison with the 
 work of other countries, and that is ordinary 
 job printing. Prospectuses, advertisements, 
 and other work requiring artistic design and a 
 knowledge of the circumstances of the publication 
 and the resources of the printing office, do not 
 compare favourably with similar work issued 
 in many other countries. A correspondent in 
 Vienna used to send me every year a parcel of 
 ordinary job printing of this kind— good, bad, 
 and indifferent, On looking over the items it 
 was seen that the good prevailed. Similar 
 collections made here do not show the same 
 result. This may be due to the different 
 conditions attaching to technical education. 
 Here, more attention is paid to rapid production 
 and to the teaching of the- mechanical art. If 
 artistic training in typographical design is to 
 be had, it is very often divorced from the rest 
 of the course. I would suggest that this is not 
 so in other countries, and that the tremendously 
 rapid advance in artistic typography seen in 
 Germany during the last twenty or thirty years 
 is due to the fact that they have found some 
 met hod of bringing together theory and practice — 
 of harmonising artistic design with the mechanical 
 trade. 
 
 The greatest change hi printing is the intro- 
 duction of typesetting machines. This was one 
 of the great ideals of inventors, and from about 
 1840 a continuous succession of inventions 
 made their appearance. Generally their exit 
 followed very quickly. The Family Herald, a 
 well-known journal to-day, made its first appear- 
 ance in 1842 in ordinary newspaper folio form 
 with the picture of the composing machine by 
 which it was set up in the head-line. The Times 
 
iS 
 
 was set up by the Kastenbeiri machine for many 
 years, latterly with new type daily made by 
 the Wieks Rotary Type Caster. The Thome 
 machine was a considerable success in the 
 eighties. These machines all took type as it 
 came from the founder. The type was arranged 
 in funnels and fell into place when a key was 
 struck. They generally had a subordinate 
 machine called a distributor to arrange the 
 type in proper order. The invention of the 
 Linotype in 1884-85 brought a new principle 
 into play. Instead of using type, the pressure 
 of a key brings down a matrice of that letter. 
 A line of these matrices automatically justified 
 is carried to the front of the metal pot, where a 
 line of type is cast in solid form from it. During 
 this time the operator is assembling the next 
 line of matrices. When the operation of casting 
 is complete, the slug is automatically shot into 
 a tray and the matrices are taken up by an 
 arm to the back of the machine and hung on a 
 bar. As they are pushed along this bar they 
 fall automatically into their right boxes, and 
 arc ready to be used again when required. The 
 solid lines of type or slugs are arranged in a 
 galley, and after correction are ready to' be 
 printed from. Most newspapers are set up in 
 this way to-day. After stereos have been made 
 from them the slugs can go back to the metal 
 pot and be used over again. 
 
 The Lanston Monotype is on a different 
 principle. It is a type-casting machine casting 
 separate types and actuated by a perforated 
 roll of paper on the Jacquard principle. The 
 keyboard is used for perforating the paper, and 
 the operator at the keyboard has nothing to do 
 with the caster, which may be in another room 
 or another country. In fact, the perforated 
 paper can be sent to America instead of sending 
 stereos, and can be put on a caster there, and 
 the type will be produced in exactly the same 
 manner as if it had gone straight to the caster 
 here. Both machines are actuated by com- 
 pressed air, and the action of the paper on the 
 caster can be compared to the same kind of 
 perforated paper used on a pianola. The 
 matrix used is a plate of steel about 4 ins. square. 
 On this is found the full alphabet, together with 
 the various sorts necessary. It is actuated by 
 a very wonderful series of levers, which ena ble it to 
 take position so that any letter or figure may 
 be cast. The work is very rapid, and corrections 
 can be made by substituting single types, 
 whereas in the Linotype the complete line has 
 to be recast. The Timet is set by Monotype 
 machines, and a great deal of book work is done 
 
 on them. A new attachment to the keyboard 
 enables the operator to set two editions of a 
 book at the same time, say a 6s. novel and the 
 samejbook in Id. form. The 6s. edition can 
 then be set up by the caster and when the time 
 comes for the Id. edition the other roll of paper 
 can be at once put in hand without any further 
 work on the keyboard. 
 
 These two machines have revolutionised 
 printing. All our newspapers and cheap books 
 are produced in this manner. For display work 
 and important books, however, hand-setting still 
 holds its own, and although it is dangerous to 
 jn'ophesy, especially in an industry like printing 
 with its rapidity of change, I cannot help thinking 
 (and hoping) that it will continue to be supreme. 
 
 Photographic Illustration. 
 
 1 now turn to the second division of my 
 subject, the development of the processes of 
 illustration. 
 
 Although what we know to-day as photo- 
 graphy, namely, the production of pictures by 
 the agency of light, was brought to a successful 
 issue by 1839, the action of light on a sensitised 
 surface was known long before. Experiments 
 had been made by Wedgwood in England, but 
 he failed to fix the images he produced. 
 Niepce in France was the first to produce a 
 permanent photographic image. He coated 
 metal plates with a varnish of bitumen dis- 
 solved in oil of lavender, and when dry he 
 exposed them to the camera, afterwards develop- 
 ing the image by the solvent in which the 
 bitumen had been dissolved, so that he ob- 
 tained plates with the design in bare metal on a 
 varnish ground. He also exposed his plates under 
 line engravings, and these plates he etched, so 
 that he was able to print from them in a copper- 
 plate press. The earliest known example of his 
 work is a portrait of the Cardinal d'Amboise, 
 said to have been printed in 1S24. Niepce's pro- 
 cess was perfected by his nephew Niepce de 
 St. Victor. The bitumen process first used by 
 Niepce was afterwards developed and exten- 
 sively used for the production of printing 
 surfaces in intaglio and relief. The next im- 
 portant discovery was that the combination 
 of gelatine and bichromate of potash after 
 exposure to light became more or less in- 
 soluble, and therefore impermeable to an 
 etching solution such as perchloride of iron. 
 So by coating a plate of steel or copper 
 with a film of these materials and exposing 
 it to light through a photographic negative, it 
 became possible to etch the plate in proportion 
 
tg 
 
 to its exposure. This is Fox Talbot's method 
 of photographic engraving of 1852 and 1858, 
 and also forms the basis of modern photogravure 
 introduced by Karl Klic in 1879. This type of 
 film is also unabsorbent of water in proportion 
 to the action of light, and if placed in cold water 
 after exposure will swell up unevenly and form 
 a relief or mould from which casts can be made 
 in plaster or by electrotyping. This forms the 
 basis of Pretsch's process in 1854, and generally 
 of photo-galyanography or photo-eleetrotypy. 
 Again, the same type of film exposed to light 
 under a negative, (lien moistened with water 
 like a lithographic stone, and inked with a 
 roller and printing ink, will only take up 
 the ink in the exposed parts in proportion as 
 the action of light has rendered the film unab- 
 sorbent of water. This is Poitevin's process of 
 direct photo-lithography ( 1855). If the exposed 
 film be inked up without wetting and then 
 placed in warm water, all the unexposed gelatine 
 will dissolve, leaving ink only on the image, which 
 may be transferred to stone or printed from 
 direct, in which latter case it corresponds with 
 Tessie de Mothay's photocollotype (18G5). 
 
 Parallel with these efforts for the reproduc- 
 tion of tones, there were similar efforts for the 
 reproduction of line work, and, following the 
 discovery of photo-lithography, these were at 
 last successful. 
 
 It was discovered by Gillot in 1872 that 
 Fox Talbot's old method of making intaglio 
 plates could be utilised for making relief blocks. 
 The following description will be seen to be 
 almost the same as the earlier method. 
 
 A zinc or copper plate sensitised with albumen 
 and potassium bichromate is placed in a print- 
 ing frame with the negative, and the picture 
 obtained by exposure to light. The plate is 
 then inked and washed, the surplus ink comes 
 a way, and the picture remains visible. Asphaltum 
 is then dusted on to the plate, Avhich is then 
 etched to a sufficient depth to give a printing 
 surface. This is one of many methods which 
 differ only in the chemicals used and the 
 elaborations introduced for special work. 
 
 Many processes were in use by the seventies 
 and early eighties, but none of them really 
 reproduced all the tones of a picture from the 
 high lights to the deep shadows, and at the 
 same time produced a block which could be 
 printed with letterpress and by the ordinary 
 machine. What was wanted was some method 
 of breaking up the tones of a photograph into 
 lines and dots so that a relief block could be 
 made from it. The early experimenters used 
 
 screens of crape and similar fabrics, but with- 
 out much success. Somewhere in the early 
 eighties glass-ruled screens were introduced, 
 which were turned round during the exposure ; 
 and finally Mr. F. E. Ives, in the winter of 
 1885-86, sealed two single-line screens together 
 and made the cross-line screen which is used 
 to-day. This screen varies from 50 lines to 
 400 lines to the inch. This made the half-tone 
 process possible. The only difference between 
 the actual preparation of the half tone plate 
 and the line plate previously described is that 
 the negative for the half-tone is taken through 
 the cross-line screen, thereby breaking up the 
 picture into a series of dots. 
 
 The latest develojnnent of photo-engraving 
 has been in the direction of mechanically 
 printed photogravure. This process, based on 
 Talbot's and Klic's discoveries, is an intaglio 
 method and not relief. A print is made through 
 a screen of transparent thin lines and crossing 
 each other on photogravure carbon tissue. 
 This tissue is laid down on a copper plate for 
 flat printing, or a copper cylinder for rotary 
 work. It is then developed and etched. The 
 lines of the screen being so fine are just sufficient 
 to hold the ink on the cylinder ; but when 
 printed the ink runs slightly, with the result 
 that in the deep tones the screen lines are 
 invisible. By the most recent developments 
 it is possible to print, not only the pictures in 
 a magazine or newspaper, but the letterpress 
 as well. This is set up and photographed at 
 the same time as the pictures. It is generally 
 possible in the inscriptions under the prints to 
 see the lines of the screen. 
 
 Other Methods of Illustration. 
 
 Revival of wood-engraving took place in 
 the sixties; but although great ai-tists (]vc\v 
 for the wood and on the wood, the wood- 
 engraver himself did not rise to the occasion. 
 and it was a period of great illustration not always 
 successfully carried out. I will quote what 
 Mr. Oleeson White says in his important work 
 on this period : — ■ 
 
 "Soon after this revival wood-engraving as 
 a trade began to feel the photographic com- 
 petition. By the time the half-tone process 
 was established it was dying, and it was very 
 soon quite dead." 
 
 Lithography, on the other hand, has acquired 
 additional strength during the photographic 
 period. The most adaptable of reproductive 
 methods itself, it has adapted photography. 
 As printing machinery developed so lithography 
 
20 
 
 developed, and from the hand-press method 
 of the early nineteenth century we see it 
 using the power press in the early fifties, 
 adopting the new metal aluminium as soon as 
 it was cheap enough, and then using great 
 sheets of it in a rotary machine for printing 
 posters and other large work. Finally, an 
 accident led to the invention of the offset 
 method of printing, which enables lithographs 
 to be printed on any surface of paper. The 
 offset press lias a rubber cylinder introduced 
 between the stone or aluminium sheet and the 
 impression cylinder ; so that, instead of the hard 
 surface of the stone or plate coming in contact 
 with the paper, the yielding surface of the 
 rubber takes up the design and transfers it to 
 the paper. A much softer impression is obtained 
 with good results. Like all new processes, it- 
 was set at once to do work which it was not 
 adapted for, with disastrous results ; but as 
 printers have got to know the limits as well as 
 the possibilities of the method, they have 
 succeeded in obtaining better and better 
 results. 
 
 Printing Machines. 
 
 The third section of this lecture deals with 
 the development in printing machinery from 
 about the middle of the nineteenth century. 
 We have still to deal with the three classes of 
 machines — the platen, the flat-bed cylinder, and 
 the rotary. Although it is not strictly correct 
 chronologically, I propose to take them in that 
 order. The hand press it is unnecessary to deal 
 with, as its history was finished in my last lecture. 
 But the platen machine is a development from 
 the hand press. The platen and the bed are 
 still there, but no longer horizontal, but vertical. 
 The original inventor of this machine was an 
 American, Geo. P. Gordon. The bed is fixed 
 and the platen is forced up to it by steel arms 
 on cither side. The platen then returns to 
 its open position, and remains so long enough 
 for the operator to take the printed sheet out 
 with his left hand and lay on another with his 
 right. This press in its various forms is pre- 
 eminently the small jobbing press, although the 
 heavier presses are used considerably for colour 
 work. 
 
 The flat-bed cylinder machine began its period 
 of great success soon after 1850. The Main 
 machine, previously referred to, is dated about 
 1850, and from that time progress has been con- 
 tinuous. Koenig's continuously revolving cylinder 
 of his 1811 machine is now found in the drum- 
 cylinder machines, principally used in America. 
 
 The single -revolution or Wharf edale machine, 
 in which the cylinder stops after each revolution 
 
 to allow of the backward traverse of the bed. 
 came into use about 1860, and has been much 
 improved since then. In the two-revolution 
 machine, of which the Miehle is a type, the 
 cylinder makes two revolutions to each to -and - 
 fro motion of the bed, but during the reverse 
 movement' of the bed the cylinder- is lifted 
 clear of the type. The two-colour machine 
 enables two colours to be printed on the one 
 sheet before it leaves the press. There are two 
 formes, one at each end of the bed. 
 
 The final section of flat-bed cylinder machines 
 is that of Perfecters. These machines print 
 single sheets on both sides during their traverse 
 from the feed-board to the delivery-board. 
 They have two large cylinders instead of one. 
 This type of machine is gradually dying out, 
 being attacked by the fast Wharf edale machine 
 on the one hand and by the rotaries on the other. 
 Of late years the addition of automatic paper- 
 feeders, mostly pneumatic in action, has 
 quickened up the action of printing machines 
 using flat sheets. 
 
 Turning to Rotary machines, I carried their* 
 history up to the introduction of the Walter 
 machine into the Times office in 1868. This 
 was the first machine to print on the roll of 
 paper, from curved stereos, to perfect the sheet 
 and produce a complete newspaper. These 
 machines were used by the Times until 1895. 
 Folding mechanism had been attached to them 
 about 1885. 
 
 The development of the newspaper machine 
 during the twenty years following the intro- 
 duction of the Walter Press was slow. Single- 
 roll machines were the rule rather than the 
 exception, and the increasing circulation was 
 met by putting in fresh machines. The news- 
 papers during the period 1870-90 were only 
 four to eight pages, and this was the limit of the 
 machines then used. The competition, however, 
 added to the cheapness of paper, resulted in an 
 enlargement to twelve pages. Such enlarged 
 issues could not be printed on one machine. 
 The extra pages had to be added by hand. This 
 resulted in the construction of machines that 
 would produce newspapers of a varying number 
 of pages, from four to twelve or sixteen, all inset, 
 cut at the head, and folded in a more convenient 
 form. It was found to be impracticable to 
 produce these different sizes from a single web of 
 paper ; therefore several printing presses* were 
 
 * In England the distinction between the words press 
 and machine is definite. Press is only applied to the hand 
 press and the platen. All others are machines. In America 
 the word press is applied to all. I have been somewhat 
 indiscriminate in my use of the words, inclining more 
 perhaps to the American than to the English use. 
 
combined in one machine, each printing from a 
 separate roll or web of paper and all conveying 
 the printed sheets to the same folder, where 
 they were incorporated in the one newspaper. 
 Such is the multiple web machine of to-day. 
 A classification of these combined machines 
 may be made as follows : — 
 
 1. Two presses at right angles to one another 
 and forming one machine. These are known 
 as supplement or quadruple presses. 
 
 2. Two or more presses working one above 
 the other with connection between each. These 
 are known as two-decker and three-decker 
 machines. , 
 
 3. Two or more presses one behind another 
 and capable of being coupled together to form 
 a combined machine. This is called the tandem 
 system. 
 
 4. Two presses arranged with a space between 
 them where the folding mechanism is placed. 
 
 It may be said that there is no standard 
 pattern of newspaper printing machines. The 
 conditions in each office vary so greatly as 
 regards space, both in area and shape, that each 
 case is treated on its merits and special designs 
 are made. 
 
 We now resume the history of the newspaper 
 printing machine where we left it at the intro- 
 duction of the Walter Press into the Times 
 office in 1868. The Marinoni machine was intro- 
 duced in Paris in 1868 for the purpose of coping 
 with the increasing circulation of Le Petit 
 Journal. This was not a web printing machine, 
 but was the last and most rapid of the sheet-fed 
 newspaper machines. Two of the machines 
 were bought for the Echo, and that paper was 
 printed by them early in 1872. About 1874 
 Mr. Edward Lloyd introduced the first open- 
 delivery Hoe machine, which printed from the 
 web. Hoe rotaries had been used for some time 
 previous to this date in America. The Hoe 
 Double Supplement Press was introduced 
 about 1887, and eight machines were installed 
 to print Lloyd's Weekly Neivspaper. This 
 machine turned out four, six, eight, ten, and 
 twelve -page papers at 24,000 per hour, and 
 sixteen-page papers at 12,000 per hour, the odd 
 pages being in every case accurately inserted 
 and pasted in, and the papers cut at the top and 
 delivered folded. This machine is of the right- 
 angled variety mentioned above, and prints from 
 two rolls, the one on the long side being twice 
 the "width of the other, which is only one page 
 wide. In 1895 these were superseded by Hoe's 
 three-roll presses, using single-width webs. 
 These machines had three reels of paper at one 
 
 end, and the supplement press at right angles 
 was rendered unnecessary. 
 
 In the same year, 1895, the Times replaced 
 the Walter presses by Hoe's three-roll machines. 
 
 Lloyd's three-roll single machines were re- 
 placed in 1901 by the three double-width roll 
 or sextuple type. These produced double the 
 output of the single machines and necessitated 
 the use of two folders instead of one. In 1902 
 the order was given by Messrs. Lloyd to Messrs. 
 Hoe for the first of the present battery of seven 
 double octuple machines. These machines, 
 which now print Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, are 
 the most powerful newspaper printing machines 
 at work in this country at the present moment. 
 They take four double-width reels of paper at 
 each end, are four decks high, and are constructed 
 in such a manner that another deck still can, if 
 necessary, be added at the top. The capacity 
 of each of these machines is 144,000 per hour, 
 up to sixteen pages ; from eighteen to thirty- two 
 pages, 72,000 per hour, and so on in proportion. 
 The papers are delivered folded and automatically 
 counted. 
 
 The latest improvement in newspaper print- 
 ing machinery is the making of the stereotype 
 plates by machinery. After the flong — that is, 
 the paper matrix — has been made by pressing 
 it on to the type, it is placed in the casting -box 
 of the autoplate, and as many plates as are 
 necessary are cast from it. They are trimmed 
 automatically and are ready to go on to the 
 press. 
 
 Rotary machines are also used for the big 
 runs of popular journals, and if the journal 
 has a coloured cover this is printed on a smaller 
 rotary at right angles. The body of the 
 paper and the cover are brought together at 
 the folding mechanism, and the complete 
 paper stitched in its cover is counted out in 
 quires. 
 
 So we have seen in the last hundred years 
 the development of the art we saw emerge from 
 obscurity some 450 years ago. All the speed 
 and wonderful power of production we have 
 seen it gather is unfortunately not all gain. 
 Worse printing can be and is done to-day than 
 ever has been done ; but at the same time there 
 appears to be some light in the darkness, some 
 indication that the printer is taking more interest 
 in his craft and is beginning to realise more of 
 its possibilities. The good effects of the work 
 of William Morris and Emery Walker are 
 distinctly visible, and there is hope for the 
 artistic future of the "Art preservative of all 
 Arts." 
 
LECTURE IV. — Delivered December 14TM, 1914. 
 
 The recent history of colour printing is divided 
 easily into two sections — non-photographic and 
 photographic. Each section comprises three 
 methods — intaglio, relief, and planographic, 
 so that the subject is comprised in these main 
 headings : — ■ 
 
 Xon-Photographic. 
 
 Intaglio. — Etchings and copperplate prints of 
 all kinds, in colour. 
 
 Relief. — Chromo-Xylography. 
 
 Planographic. — Chromo-Lithography. 
 
 Photographic. 
 
 Intaglio. — Photogravure. 
 Rdiej.— Half-tone. 
 
 Planographic. — Photo-Chroino-Lithography, 
 Chronio-Collotype. 
 
 Doubtful and combination processes, of 
 course, add to the number. 
 
 Chromo-Lithography. 
 
 The period I am dealing with in this lecture 
 begins with the rise of chromo -lithography. 
 
 By 1850 the problem of the super-imposition 
 of colours had been solved, and the art started 
 on its triumphal course. In 1856-57 Lemercier, 
 of Paris, printed an edition of the " Imitatio 
 Christi" for which illuminated borders were 
 copied from early manuscripts, and every page 
 was decorated. In England, Owen Jones was 
 working on his " Grammar of Ornament." It was 
 printed by Day & Son, who were at this time 
 the leading chromo-lithographers in London. 
 
 The most important non-commercial applica- 
 tion of chromo -lithography was begun in 1856 
 by the Arundel Society, which issued prints of 
 Italian frescoes until quite recent years. They 
 were not all printed in England, some well- 
 known German firms producing many of the 
 later prints. 
 
 The " oleograph," a rather distressing form 
 of the chromo-lithograph, was of German origin 
 The finished print was thickly coated with 
 varnish and then passed between patterned 
 rollers giving the impression of canvas. 
 
 In the early days of chromo-litho work, the 
 prints were frequently produced on thin paper. 
 
 After printing, the margins were cutoff and the 
 print mounted on thicker paper, or, in the case 
 of book illustration, mounted on the pages left 
 for them. In several cases of books in the early 
 fifties, spaces were left for illustrations to be 
 mounted on the same pages as the text. 
 
 The method of chromo-lithography is shown 
 very well in Audsley's book on the subject. 
 The object — say, a water-colour drawing — is 
 dissected by the litho artist into the number of 
 separate tints required for its reproduction. 
 A key plate in black is produced, and as many 
 pulls taken as the number of printings required. 
 The part of the design to be printed in each 
 colour or tint is then transferred to a separate 
 stone. The series of progressive proofs in 
 Audsley's book shows how a picture is built up 
 by the successive printings. 
 
 The history of chromo-lithography during the 
 last sixty years (except in its association with 
 one or other of the photographic processes, 
 which is dealt with later) is a history of technical 
 improvements rather than of revolutionary 
 change. Better work can be done and is done 
 to-day than at any previous period, owing to 
 these improvements in ink, paper, and machines. 
 Photography has, no doubt, closed many doors 
 to chromo-litho work, but there are many fields 
 in which it retains its supremacy. Artists have 
 turned their attention to it in recent years, and 
 many auto-chromo-lithos have been produced. 
 The style found to harmonise best with the 
 process is curiously,, similar to the plates in 
 the first book printed by Hullmandci by his 
 chromo-lithographic method. It is possible that 
 there are greater artistic developments ahead 
 for this method of work. 
 
 The offset machine which I described in the 
 third lecture has been adapted for colour 
 work. Here its ability to print on any surface 
 paper is of exceptional value, and the softness 
 of the colouring of some offset productions is 
 very effective. 
 
 Copperplate Printing in Colours. 
 Intaglio plates — that is, mezzotints, stipples, 
 and line engravings —are printed i a colours t o - d ay 
 in exactly the same way as in the eighteenth 
 
23 
 
 century. The plate is inked by hand with all 
 the colours necessary — practically painted — ■ 
 and the whole printed at one impression. The 
 modern development described as colour etching 
 has various exponents. By some the plate is 
 printed twice, first for the broad masses of 
 colour, and secondly for the actual lines of the 
 etching. The specimens shown by Hugh Paton 
 and V. Preisler sufficiently indicate the scope 
 and method of this process. 
 
 Wood-block Colour Printing. 
 
 In relief printing the most interesting process 
 after 1850 is wood-block colour printing. This 
 process, where separate blocks are used for each 
 colour, gives an impression of transparency 
 which cannot be obtained by any other. 
 
 This method of colour work was carried to a 
 considerable pitch of excellence by Savage about 
 1 820, and it was probably after seeing his work 
 that Thomas Bewick suggested the printing of 
 pictures in colours by means of wood-blocks. 
 It was not, however, until about 1850 that 
 wood-block printing became at all common. 
 
 The two most effective English workers in 
 chromo-xylography were Edmund Evans and 
 Benjamin Fawcett. The latter is a striking 
 instance of unaided genius working alone and 
 producing effective work. His illustrations to 
 Morris's "British Birds" will alone suffice to 
 keep his name in the annals of great colour 
 printers. The book illustrations of Edmund 
 Evans are, perhaps, the best examples of pure 
 wood-block colour work carried out in this 
 country. 
 
 The most typical works of Evans in later 
 years have been the books of Walter Crane, 
 Kate Greenaway, and Randolph Caldecott, 
 specimens of whose works are on show, together 
 with some earlier productions for the purpose 
 of comparison. 
 
 Chromo-xylography is not prominent in the 
 colour work of the Continental printers. But 
 there is one exception. The firm of Knofler, 
 of Vienna, founded about 1856, has produced 
 work of the highest character by this process. 
 Religious prints of all kinds have been their 
 speciality, and the transparency of the colours 
 and the general beauty of their work give the 
 firm a very high place among colour printers. 
 
 Miscellaneous Methods. 
 There are a few processes of colour printing 
 which do not quite come under any of the head- 
 ings 1 have adopted, and these I propose to take, 
 perhaps out of their order, so that the latter 
 
 part of my lecture can be devoted to the 
 photographic processes. An important machine 
 in this class is the Orloff. This is the invention 
 of a Russian engineer, and is used in the State 
 Printing Office at Petrograd for printing bank 
 notes and similar colour work. The method 
 of printing is quite different from any other. 
 On a large cylinder are fastened the various 
 printing blocks, one for each colour. A series 
 of inking devices apply the correct colour to each 
 block as the cylinder revolves. These blocks 
 transfer their colours to composition rollers, 
 which in turn apply it to the " form " block. 
 All the colours are by this means superimposed 
 on this form block, which then comes in contact 
 with the paper and deposits the whole of the 
 colours at one impression. It might be imagined 
 that this process of superimposition of wet 
 colours would cause smudging or blurring, but 
 work produced by the Orloff press *is noticeable 
 for clearness of outline and delicacy of detail. 
 The machine has been put on the English market 
 once or twice, but has never been adopted. 
 
 Another recent process of interest is stencilling 
 by machine. This method has been considerably 
 used for roughly colouring plates. It has now 
 been made possible to stencil by machine, 
 Orsoni's Aquatype having been invented in 
 1898 and since perfected. The sheets or prints 
 to be coloured are fed on to a travelling band, 
 which carries them in turn under as many 
 stencils as there are colours to be applied, when 
 another portion of the mechanism passes a 
 colour brush over the stencil then in position on 
 the sheet. Some of the French fashion papers 
 have their plates tinted by this machine, which 
 is also extensively used for picture postcards. 
 
 Photographic Processes. 
 The whole of the photographic colour pro- 
 cesses may be divided into tAvo series. The 
 first includes all those in which the photograph 
 is merely the basic plate or outline, and the 
 colours are selected by eye and printed over it. 
 Postcards, for instance, are frequently printed 
 with a collotype basis and lithographic colour- 
 ing. As far back as 1858 Geo. Baxter patented 
 a method of colouring photographic prints 
 lithographically. These combinations are too 
 numerous to mention. 
 
 Photogravure. 
 
 Photogravure plates are frequently printed 
 
 from in colour by the old eighteenth- century 
 
 method of inking the plate with all the colours 
 
 and printing at one impression. The facsimiles 
 
n 
 
 of the paintings of G. P. Watts have been 
 produced by Messrs. Emery Walker in this 
 manner. Before leaving photogravure it must 
 be mentioned that constant attempts have been 
 made to print photogravures in colour by 
 machine. This process has been adapted to 
 fast rotary printing in monochrome, and flat- 
 bed machine photogravure is common ; but 
 with the exception of a few experiments, 
 machine-printed photogravure in colours belongs 
 to the history of the future, and is therefore 
 outside the scope of this paper. 
 
 There is. however, one process which has not 
 yet been made public that I may refer to. 
 This is a combination of the intaglio and offset 
 methods, and the experimental prints have been 
 made by Mr. Geo. W. Jones. The machine is 
 called the Renaissance, and is made by Lino- 
 type & Machinery, Ltd. Instead of a copper 
 cylinder, as ' hi the ordinary photogravure 
 machines, a strip or sheet of copper is used, and 
 the picture etched on the flat sheet, Avhich is 
 then bent round the cylinder. The wiping is 
 done with rollers instead of the ordinary steel 
 knife, and the impression is taken on a rubber 
 cylinder, which transfers it to the paper. The 
 first experiment made in colour on this machine 
 was a reversed half-tone three-colour, but later 
 photogravure negatives have been used with 
 very effective results. A high-grade softness 
 of colour is produced, and the high lights are 
 better cleaned than with the pure photogravure 
 method. It will be very interesting to see the 
 later work of this machine. The colour prints 
 by the Rembrandt Intaglio Engraving Co. in 
 two and three printings are by a secret photo- 
 gravure process. 
 
 Three-colour Process. 
 I now have to deal with the three-colour 
 process, and describe how the automatic 
 selection of colour was invented and developed. 
 The idea of three-colour printing was not new, 
 having been used by Le Blon in the eighteenth 
 century. His ideas were based on the investiga- 
 tions of Sir Isaac Newton. Further researches 
 in the early part of the nineteenth century by 
 Dr. Thomas Young led him to put forward the 
 theory of three primary colour sensations; but 
 until Helmholtz revived it in 1853 it had been 
 shelved. In 1860 Clerk Maxwell made a com- 
 plete study of the subject, with the result that 
 in 1861 he was able to take three photographs 
 of a piece of coloured ribbon through three 
 coloured light filters By superimposing the 
 three images obtained, and projecting them in 
 
 an optical lantern through the three filters, he 
 obtained a coloured image of the ribbon. This 
 image was not perfect, owing to the fact that 
 photographic jilates were not at that time 
 sensitive to red and green. It was suggested, 
 very shortly after, to apply the principle to 
 colour printing, but the photographic plate 
 difficulty was not removed until 1873, and then 
 only partially, while the complete discovery 
 of the principle of colour sensitive plates did 
 not come about until the early eighties. Dr. 
 E. Vogel in Germany, and Mr. P. E. Ives in 
 America, were proceeding on very similar lines. 
 Mr. Ives had already invented the cross -fine 
 screen, and it is owing to his researches that the 
 three-colour block process became possible. 
 
 He exhibited at the Philadelphia Exhibition of 
 18S5 prints made by this process, but thought so 
 little of it that he did not trouble to patent it. 
 At that time the colour filters and the half- 
 tone screens were comparatively imperfect, and 
 commercial work was still some distance off. 
 Xot until 1891 was any commercial work put 
 forward, and in the latter part of this year 
 several English firms took the process up. One 
 of the first three-colour prints produced in 
 this country was a plate representing the 
 famous racehorse that won the Derby in 1890. 
 This was produced by Messrs. Waterlow & Son 
 in February, 1892, as a supplement to the 
 paper Land and Water. The improvements in 
 the process that have taken place since that 
 time are purely technical, the character of the 
 process remaining the same. 
 
 The technical description of the process which 
 follows is taken from Gen. Waterhouse's intro- 
 duction to the catalogue of the photo-engraving 
 exhibition at South Kensington : — - 
 
 " The problem to be solved in photographic 
 three-colour printing is a complicated one. 
 because the light reflected from the objects to 
 be reproduced must first be analysed and divided 
 into its three components, red, green, and blue- 
 violet, by means of carefully selected coloured 
 screens or filters, so that each of them may 
 impress a negative image, or colour-record, upon 
 three suitably sensitised photographic plates of 
 the parts of the object containing it, the densities 
 of the three images being proportionate to the 
 quantity of each light passing through the 
 screens and its luminosity. These three images 
 must correspond exactly in size, so that they 
 may register correctly. 
 
 "■ Prom these three colour-sensation negatives, 
 positive prints are made suitable for the process 
 selected, whether by superposition of transparent 
 
films, collotype or block printing, and must be 
 printed in three colours or pigments, comple- 
 mentary to 'the filters used, viz., cyan-blue for 
 the red sensation negative, crimson for the green, 
 and yellow for the blue -violet. 
 
 " The correct combination of these three 
 should reproduce the colours of the original. 
 Owing to the difficulty of obtaining suitable 
 permanent pigments to meet the theoretical 
 requirements in three-colour block printing, 
 some workers add a fourth block printed in grey 
 or black, to give strength and harmonise the 
 colours. The greatest care has to be taken 
 throughout in the proper selection and adjust- 
 ment of filters, photographic plates and printing 
 colours. The least divergence throws out the 
 balance and produces a false effect. 
 
 " Practically it means the mutual adjustment 
 of at least three different sets of three variable 
 factors with almost mathematical accuracy. 
 The printing processes are still imperfect, but 
 the discovery of new sensitisers for the photo- 
 graphic plates, and fuller researches into theory 
 and practice, are bringing about constant 
 improvements, and it seems likely that before 
 long their use will be greatly extended." 
 
 The method of photographic colour selection 
 can be and is applied to the other photographic 
 processes, but not yet to anything like the same 
 extent as to the half-tone process. 
 
 The improvement in printing due to the 
 introduction of more perfect machinery has 
 had a considerable influence on the three-colour 
 process. The two-revolution type of machine, 
 such as the Miehle or Century, was found to 
 give better register and possess more inking 
 power, which has helped the process. Then, too, 
 the platen press has of late years improved in 
 strength of impression and inking power, which 
 has enabled it to be used for colour work. The 
 question of the ink is a serious one. It has 
 improved in quality and in accuracy of tint, but 
 the permanency of the colours still leaves much 
 to be desired. 
 
 Several machines for simultaneous printing 
 of colours have been invented. With the 
 exception of the Orloff already mentioned, none 
 appear to have survived. The Miehle machine 
 has been adapted for continuous colour printing 
 by joining three machines together by means 
 of a special delivery apparatus, so that when 
 the sheet leaves one machine it passes to the 
 next, and so to the third. 
 
 The four-colour process is described in the 
 following extract from Mr. W. Gamble's 
 article on "Modern Colour Processes" : — 
 
 " Whether to use three or four colours has 
 long been one of the contested points in colour 
 work. The theoretical advocates of three 
 colours have stoutly held out for three-colour ; 
 but many practical men hold the faith that three 
 colours can never give an entirely satisfactory 
 rendering of the subject. The weakness of the 
 three-colour process is chiefly found in the 
 rendering of blue in all its gradations, in its 
 inability to yield a good grey, and in the im- 
 perfection of the blacks, which, according to 
 theory, should be formed by the superposing 
 of the three colours in equal strength. The 
 remedy proposed is to use a black or neutral 
 grey as a fourth printing. Dr. Albert advocated 
 this in his citochrome process, and many leading 
 Continental workers have followed him. In 
 America a firm known as the Quadricolour 
 Company make it a rule to use four colours, and 
 do admirable work. It is, indeed, quite general 
 in America to find four-colour being given the 
 preference to three, especially in blocks produced 
 by hand processes. In England, though four- 
 colour work is not so general, a fourth printing 
 in black is often resorted to, or one of the 
 trichromatic colours is run twice through to 
 get increased strength. 
 
 " An interesting attempt to found a four- 
 colour system of colour printing was the 
 complementary colour process of Mr. C. G. 
 Zander, which Avas patented in 1905. The 
 inventor assumed that it was necessary to use, 
 not three but four fundamental colours, viz., 
 red, yellow, green, and blue, by mixtures of 
 which in suitable proportions any colours in 
 Nature could be matched or produced. The 
 hues of these four fundamental (or mono- 
 chromatic) colours may in popular terms be 
 described as magenta red, lemon yellow, 
 emerald green, and ultramarine blue. The 
 four colours were grouped into two pairs of 
 complementary colours, viz., red and green, 
 yellow and blue, so that when the elements of 
 either pair were mechanically mixed as pigments, 
 by printing or staining they produced black. At 
 first sight it might seem that the only difference 
 from the ordinary process was the addition of 
 a green printing colour, but actually the other 
 colours have been scientifically adjusted or 
 readjusted, so that they form two pairs of 
 complementary colours. The author of this 
 process claimed that practically the whole 
 range of the spectrum colours could be produced 
 by it, besides extra -spectral purples, dense 
 pure black, and homogeneous greys. Mr. Zander 
 asserts that no pure black can be reproduced at 
 
26 
 
 all in three-coleur printing, whilst by his new 
 process either of the two pairs would produce 
 black or grey. Several specimens were produced 
 by this process, and it certainly appeared 
 capable of rendering more brilUantly the bright 
 colours of flowers, ribbons etc. ; but the results 
 were not entirely convincing, probably through 
 the engravers not having sufficient practice 
 with the new method. Printers did not view 
 with favour the idea of a fourth printing, and 
 on the whole the process was received so coldly 
 that the inventor has not pushed it further." 
 
 Collotype. 
 Experiments with a view to using the collotype 
 process for colour printing were made by 
 Albert in Munich and Husnik of Prague in 
 the early seventies, and the State Paper Office 
 in Petrograd was producing colour collotypes 
 by 1878. H. W. Vogel introduced colour- 
 sensitive photographic plates about this time, 
 and prints in collotype by this means were 
 extensively made in Germany in the late 
 eighties. Several firms in England adopted 
 the process about 1890, among them Messrs. 
 Waterlow & Sons. In 1890-91 this firm 
 produced some very excellent work, but the 
 process was not suitable for the English climate, 
 and the introduction of the three-colour half- 
 tone resulted in its abandonment as far as 
 rapid commercial work was concerned. Of 
 
 recent years collotype colour work has again 
 come to the front, principally on the Continent, 
 although a few English firms have done very 
 well with the process. Messrs. Emery Walker 
 have produced some very fine specimens of 
 collotype in colours, which I am able to 
 show. 
 
 During this survey of the recent history 
 of colour printing, we see in the first period 
 the rise of chromo-lithography and its only 
 rival, chromo - xylography. With the excep- 
 tion of a few experiments, these two methods 
 hold their own until the coming of three- 
 colour work about 1890. The triumphal march 
 of the three-colour process, with its accom- 
 panying disadvantages of clay-coated paper 
 and fugitive inks, still continues, but there are 
 signs of improvement. The development of 
 the litho offset and photogravure processes 
 are all for the betterment of colour work. The 
 same disadvantages do not apply to them, and 
 so there is a hope that we may presently have 
 a process of colour reproduction that will lie 
 accurate, cheap, printed in fast colours, and 
 on paper that will not fall to pieces after a 
 few years or turn into a clay brick if it gets 
 damp. 
 
 [Note. — Each lecture was illustrated by 
 lantern-slides and an exhibition of specimens 
 of printing. The exhibits were individually 
 described after the lecture. 1 
 
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