Lord Stanhope was a most remarkable man. He was not only an ardent politician but also a notable man of science and an inventor. Among other things we owe to him the Stanhope lens; a system of logotypes, which was not received by the printing trade with much sympathy, because it lessened the need for hand labour, improvements in stereotyping, and above all the Stanhope press, which would have made a fortune for its inventor if he had wanted it. Lord Stanhope, however, gave his press to the Clarendon Press at Oxford, in exchange for a pension to his assistant. This press with its levers was for a long time the model for all printing presses used in this country.
But before the Stanhope press was invented, W. Nicholson, of London, had patented, in 1790, a device which was destined to supersede Lord Stanhope’s lever press and all others like it. This was the use of a revolving iron cylinder driven by steam to carry the paper over the inked surface of the type. Nicholson’s invention fell flat so long as it remained in his hands, but in about 1807 it was taken up by Koenig, of London, improved, and put upon the market, and it attracted the attention of Mr. Walter, of The Times.
In the issue of this paper on the 20th of November, 1814, readers were informed that it was printed by steam machinery driving the cylinders holding the paper. By cylinder presses upwards of 9,600 impressions can be made in an hour. Minor improvements since that time have been legion, and it may safely be said that no more wonderful sight is to be seen in the whole of London than the printing of one of our great daily papers.
Newspapers are usually printed from stereotypes fixed on cylinders; but books are always printed from flat formes, the paper being applied by cylinders. Paper can now be printed on both sides simultaneously. In Rotary machines both the printing as well as the receiving surfaces are arranged on cylinders.
The locking up of type in the case of long books was soon found to be a great inconvenience, and the idea of making a cast of such type in the form of a block, so as to set the original type free, was an obvious one. It was not, however, put into practical form until the early part of the nineteenth century, when someone unknown made casts from book types in plaster of Paris. Lord Stanhope made several improvements in this, and it is possible that the use of softened paper pulp—flong—for this purpose was his invention. Whether this is true or not, paper was certainly used for stereotyping in France about 1850, and it has been universally used in this important connection ever since.
The paper pulp is hammered on to the type by means of a hard brush, in exactly the same way that antiquaries make impressions from incised rock sculptures. The antiquaries, however, make their casts from the paper moulds in plaster of Paris, but the printer makes his in soft metal.
When the paper mould is properly dry and hard the melted metal is poured over it, and makes a perfect cast. Such casts can either be used flat for book printing, or curved to fix on cylinders for newspaper printing. The metal used is practically the same as type metal. It sets very quickly, and the heat necessary to melt it is so low, that several casts can be made from one paper mould.
Another way of making a harder printing plate is by means of a galvanic battery. In this case the mould from the type is made in wax, either impregnated or carefully dusted with black lead, and these moulds, when correct, are put into a galvanic bath, where a strong metallic deposit is laid all over them, the deposit being afterwards backed up with alloy.
Good types have always been difficult to design. The types used in block books, and in early printed books generally, were simply copies of the handwriting of the periods to which they belonged. Even in later and in modern times certain founts have been designed on the lines of cheirographic writing, for example, the “caractères de civilité,” much liked by French printers, imitated the graceful calligraphy of the eighteenth century.