Men of Invention and Industry

by Samuel Smiles

Mr. Walter began his experiments, aided by an ingenious Italian founder named Dellagana, early in 1856. It was ascertained that when papier-mache matrices were rapidly dried and placed in a mould, separate columns might be cast in them with stereotype metal, type high, planed flat, and finished with sufficient speed to get up the duplicate of a forme of four pages fitted for printing. Steps were taken to adapt these type-high columns to the Applegath Presses, then worked with polygonal chases. When the Hoe machines were introduced, instead of dealing with the separate columns, the papier-mache matrix was taken from the whole page at one operation, by roller-presses constructed for the purpose. The impression taken off in this manner is as perfect as if it had been made in the finest wax. The matrix is rapidly dried on heating surfaces, and then accurately adjusted in a casting machine curved to the exact circumference of the main drum of the printing press, and fitted with a terra-cotta top to secure a casting of uniform thickness. On pouring stereotype metal into this mould, a curved plate was obtained, which, after undergoing a certain amount of trimming at two machines, could be taken to press and set to work within twenty-five minutes from the time at which the process began.

Besides the great advantages obtained from uniform sets of the plates, which might be printed on different machines at the rate of 50,000 impressions an hour, or such additional number as might be required, there is this other great advantage, that there is no wear and tear of type in the curved chases by obstructive friction; and that the fount, instead of wearing out in two years, might last for twenty; for the plates, after doing their work for one day, are melted down into a new impression for the next day's printing. At the same time, the original type-page, safe from injury, can be made to yield any number of copies that may be required by the exigencies of the circulation. It will be sufficiently obvious that by the multiplication of stereotype plates and printing machines, there is practically no limit to the number of copies of a newspaper that may be printed within the time which the process now usually occupies.

This new method of newspaper stereotyping was originally employed on the cylinders of the Applegath and Hoe Presses. But it is equally applicable to those of the Walter Press, a brief description of which we now subjoin. As the construction of the first steam newspaper machine was due to the enterprise of the late Mr. Walter, so the construction of this last and most improved machine is due in like manner to the enterprise of his son. The new Walter Press is not, like Applegath and Cowper's, and Hoe's, the improvement of an existing arrangement, but an almost entirely original invention.

In the Reports of the Jurors on the "Plate, Letterpress, and other modes of Printing," at the International Exhibition of 1862, the following passage occurs:—"It is incumbent on the reporters to point out that, excellent and surprising as are the results achieved by the Hoe and Applegath Machines, they cannot be considered satisfactory while those machines themselves are so liable to stoppages in working. No true mechanic can contrast the immense American ten-cylinder presses of The Times with the simple calico-printing machine, without feeling that the latter furnishes the true type to which the mechanism for newspaper printing should as much as possible approximate."

On this principle, so clearly put forward, the Inventors of the Walter Press proceeded in the contrivance of the new machine. It is true that William Nicholson, in his patent of 1790, prefigured the possibility of printing on "paper, linen, cotton, woollen, and other articles," by means of type fixed on the outer surface of a revolving cylinder; but no steps were taken to carry his views into effect. Sir Rowland Hill also, before he became connected with Post Office reform, revived the contrivance of Nicholson, and referred to it in his patent of 1835 (No. 6762); and he also proposed to use continuous rolls of paper, which Fourdrinier and Donkin had made practicable by their invention of the paper-making machine about the year 1804; but both Nicholson's and Hill's patents remained a dead letter.[2]

It may be easy to conceive a printing machine, or even to make a model of one; but to construct an actual working printing press, that must be sure and unfailing in its operations, is a matter surrounded with difficulties. At every step fresh contrivances have to be introduced; they have to be tried again and again; perhaps they are eventually thrown aside to give place to new arrangements. Thus the head of the inventor is kept in a state of constant turmoil. Sometimes the whole machine has to be remodelled from beginning to end. One step is gained by degrees, then another; and at last, after years of labour, the new invention comes before the world in the form of a practical working machine.

In 1862 Mr. Walter began in The Times office, with tools and machinery of his own, experiments for constructing a perfecting press which should print the paper from rolls of paper instead of from sheets. Like his father, Mr. Walter possessed an excellent discrimination of character, and selected the best men to aid him in his important undertaking. Numerous difficulties had, of course, to be surmounted. Plans were varied from time to time; new methods were tried, altered, and improved, simplification being aimed at throughout. Six long years passed in this pursuit of the possible. At length the clear light dawned. In 1868 Mr. Walter ventured to order the construction of three machines on the pattern of the first complete one which had been made. By the end of 1869 these were finished and placed in a room by themselves; and a fourth was afterwards added. There the printing of The Times is now done, in less than half the time it previously occupied, and with one-fifth the number of hands.

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

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

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