The business, however, did not succeed, as we find him in the following year carrying on a printing trade at Mayence. Having sold this business, he removed to Suhl in Thuringia. Here he was occupied with a stereotyping process, suggested by what he had read about the art as perfected in England by Earl Stanhope. He also contrived an improved press, provided with a moveable carriage, on which the types were placed, with inking rollers, and a new mechanical method of taking off the impression by flat pressure.
Koenig brought his new machine under the notice of the leading printers in Germany, but they would not undertake to use it. The plan seemed to them too complicated and costly. He tried to enlist men of capital in his scheme, but they all turned a deaf ear to him. He went from town to town, but could obtain no encouragement whatever. Besides, industrial enterprise in Germany was then in a measure paralysed by the impending war with France, and men of capital were naturally averse to risk their money on what seemed a merely speculative undertaking.
Finding no sympathisers or helpers at home, Koenig next turned his attention abroad. England was then, as now, the refuge of inventors who could not find the means of bringing out their schemes elsewhere; and to England he wistfully turned his eyes. In the meantime, however, his inventive ability having become known, an offer was made to him by the Russian Government to proceed to St. Petersburg and organise the State printing-office there. The invitation was accepted, and Koenig proceeded to St. Petersburg in the spring of 1806. But the official difficulties thrown in his way were very great, and so disgusted him, that he decided to throw up his appointment, and try his fortune in England. He accordingly took ship for London, and arrived there in the following November, poor in means, but rich in his great idea, then his only property.
As Koenig himself said, when giving an account of his invention:—"There is on the Continent no sort of encouragement for an enterprise of this description. The system of patents, as it exists in England, being either unknown, or not adopted in the Continental States, there is no inducement for industrial enterprise; and projectors are commonly obliged to offer their discoveries to some Government, and to so licit their encouragement. I need hardly add that scarcely ever is an invention brought to maturity under such circumstances. The well-known fact, that almost every invention seeks, as it were, refuge in England, and is there brought to perfection, though the Government does not afford any other protection to inventors beyond what is derived from the wisdom of the laws, seems to indicate that the Continent has yet to learn from her the best manner of encouraging the mechanical arts. I had my full share in the ordinary disappointments of Continental projectors; and after having lost in Germany and Russia upwards of two years in fruitless applications, I at last resorted to England."[1]
After arriving in London, Koenig maintained himself with difficulty by working at his trade, for his comparative ignorance of the English language stood in his way. But to work manually at the printer's "case," was not Koenig's object in coming to England. His idea of a printing machine was always uppermost in his mind, and he lost no opportunity of bringing the subject under the notice of master printers likely to take it up. He worked for a time in the printing office of Richard Taylor, Shoe Lane, Fleet Street, and mentioned the matter to him. Taylor would not undertake the invention himself, but he furnished Koenig with an introduction to Thomas Bensley, the well-known printer of Bolt Court, Fleet Street. On the 11th of March, 1807, Bensley invited Koenig to meet him on the subject of their recent conversation about "the discovery;" and on the 31st of the same month, the following agreement was entered into between Koenig and Bensley:—
"Mr. Koenig, having discovered an entire new Method of Printing by Machinery, agrees to communicate the same to Mr. Bensley under the following conditions:—that, if Mr. Bensley shall be satisfied the Invention will answer all the purposes Mr. Koenig has stated in the Particulars he has delivered to Mr. Bensley, signed with his name, he shall enter into a legal Engagement to purchase the Secret from Mr. Koenig, or enter into such other agreement as may be deemed mutually beneficial to both parties; or, should Mr. Bensley wish to decline having any concern with the said Invention, then he engages not to make any use of the Machinery, or to communicate the Secret to any person whatsoever, until it is proved that the Invention is made use of by any one without restriction of Patent, or other particular agreement on the part of Mr. Koenig, under the penalty of Six Thousand Pounds.
"(Signed) T. Bensley,
"Friederich Konig.
"Witness—J. Hunneman."
Koenig now proceeded to put his idea in execution. He prepared his plans of the new printing machine. It seems, however, that the progress made by him was very slow. Indeed, three years passed before a working model could be got ready, to show his idea in actual practice. In the meantime, Mr. Walter of The Times had been seen by Bensley, and consulted on the subject of the invention. On the 9th of August, 1809, more than two years after the date of the above agreement, Bensley writes to Koenig: "I made a point of calling upon Mr. Walter yesterday, who, I am sorry to say, declines our proposition altogether, having (as he says) so many engagements as to prevent him entering into more."
It may be mentioned that Koenig's original plan was confined to an improved press, in which the operation of laying the ink on the types was to be performed by an apparatus connected with the motions of the coffin, in such a manner as that one hand could be saved. As little could be gained in expedition by this plan, the idea soon suggested itself of moving the press by machinery, or to reduce the several operations to one rotary motion, to which the first mover might be applied. Whilst Koenig was in the throes of his invention, he was joined by his friend Andrew F. Bauer, a native of Stuttgart, who possessed considerable mechanical power, in which the inventor himself was probably somewhat deficient. At all events, these two together proceeded to work out the idea, and to construct the first actual working printing machine.
A patent was taken out, dated the 29th of March, 1810, which describes the details of the invention. The arrangement was somewhat similar to that known as the platen machine; the printing being produced by two flat plates, as in the common hand-press. It also embodied an ingenious arrangement for inking the type. Instead of the old-fashioned inking balls, which were beaten on the type by hand labour, several cylinders covered with felt and leather were used, and formed part of the machine itself. Two of the cylinders revolved in opposite directions, so as to spread the ink, which was then transferred by two other inking cylinders alternately applied to the "forme" by the action of spiral springs. The movement of all the parts of the machine were to be derived from a steam-engine, or other first mover.
"After many obstructions and delays," says Koenig himself, in describing the history of his invention, "the first printing machine was completed exactly upon the plan which I have described in the specification of my first patent. It was set to Work in April, 1811. The sheet (H) of the new Annual Register for 1810, 'Principal Occurrences,' 3000 copies, was printed with it; and is, I have no doubt, the first part of a book ever printed with a machine. The actual use of it, however, soon suggested new ideas, and led to the rendering it less complicated and more powerful"[2]