We cannot do better than give a brief summary from the Patent Book[194] of the chief improvements proposed to be made in typefounding prior to 1830, premising that many of the schemes advanced no further than the proposal, and that some of the most important improvements which actually did take place were not registered in the Patent Book at all.
- 1790.—WILLIAM NICHOLSON proposed to cast type in the usual manner, except that instead of leaving a space in the mould for the stem of the letter only, several letters are cast at once in ordinary moulds, communicating by a common groove at the top. The types are also to be scraped in dressing, so as to render the tail of the letter gradually smaller the more remote it is from the face; thus enabling them to be set imposed upon a cylindrical surface.
- 1790.—ROBERT BARCLAY. A method of making punches on broken steel, the irregular figures in the grain of which will effectually obviate counterfeit. Punches may be formed of steel broken as above, by cutting, drilling, punching, bending parts of the letters, and leaving the grain of the steel to form the lines or strokes; and in this way complex founts of type might be cast, every letter of which would vary in its lines from every other.
- 1802.—PHILIP RUSHER.[195] Improvements in the form of printing types. Each capital letter, with few exceptions, should be comprised in the compass of an oval. Each small letter is to be without tail-piece or descender, and the metal (both in small letters and capitals) is to extend no lower than the body of the letter. The letters above the line have their heads shortened or lowered about one-third.
- 1806.—ANTHONY FRANCIS BERTE. A machine for casting type. The casting is performed by applying the mould to one of several apertures in the side of the metal pot, through which, by the removal of a lock or valve, the metal is made suddenly to flow into the mould with a force proportionate to the height of the surface of the type-metal in the vessel.[196] {120}
- 1806.—ELIHU WHITE. A machine for casting types; consisting of a matrix-box containing a certain number of matrices, which is applied to a complex mould having a similar number of apertures, through which the metal is poured, thus forming several types at one operation.
- 1807.—ANTHONY FRANCIS BERTE. Improvements on his former patent. The metal is forced through the aperture by means of a plug or piston, and the machine is so contrived as to regulate the quantity of metal ejected at each application of the mould.
- Another improvement consists of making the body of the mould in four adjustable pieces instead of two, which will admit of changes in the body, as well as the thickness of the types. The moulds are without nicks,[197] and the type, when cast, is expelled by a punch or other tool, without opening the mould.
- 1809.—JOHN PEEK. A machine for the more expeditious casting of types, by which three motions out of the five ordinarily made use of in casting, are saved. This consists in the addition of two parts to the ordinary hand-mould; that to the upper part being a plate with a socket in which the matrix is suspended on pivots, and that to the lower part being a bolt which presses the matrix to the mould, where it is kept by a spiral spring round the bolt, and by the withdrawal of which the matrix is tilted, another spiral spring keeping it in that position till the mould recloses. The bolt is worked by a lever.[198]
- 1812.—WILLIAM CASLON. An improved printing type. The face or letter part of the type is made of the usual thickness, and in the usual way, “but the body, which is commonly made about seven-eighths of an inch, I make only three-sixteenths of an inch in thickness; and the front of the said body I make sloping or bevelling upwards from the outer side towards the face, as well as the opposite side or back, by which means the upper part of the body is about one-eighth of an inch narrower than the under part of the same.” These short types are raised to the requisite height to paper by stands of the necessary thickness. “Or the body may, without being bevelled, be fixed by nails or otherwise, upon blocks of wood of a proper width and height. Or the stands may be made of the whole width of the body of the type, with only one projecting part, the other being screwed on after the types are put on the stands. The advantage of these types is in economy of weight and space; the former being one-half, and the latter one-third to one-half of the ordinary types.”
- 1814.—AMBROISE FIRMIN DIDOT. An improvement in the method of making types. In Roman text, running hand or any other hand consisting more or less in hair strokes or fine lines, from letter to letter, the projecting extremities of each letter are extended so as to form a join with the next. In the case of inclined letters “I do, by suitable alteration in my moulds, cast my types and the beards and shanks or tails thereof with the same or nearly the same inclination or slope of surface as aforesaid; and to prevent such types sliding upon each other {121} when set up, a protuberance or projecting part is cast on one face, and a cavity or indentation corresponding to it in the opposite one; or otherwise I do, by angular or curved deviations from, in, or as to the straight direction of the said surfaces, render it impossible that any sliding should take place between the same.”
- 1816.—ROBERT CLAYTON. A new method of preparing metal . . . types. The specification mainly relates to plate-printing, but concludes: “Thirdly, I obtain what I shall term alto or high-relief, by producing metal castings from wooden moulds or matrices, punched in wood with a cross-grain, which has been previously slightly charred or baked.”[199] The metal is bismuth, tin and lead in equal parts, or tin (4), bismuth (4), lead (3), and antimony (1).
- 1822.—WILLIAM CHURCH. Machine for casting the types and arranging them ready to be transferred to the composing machinery. A matrix-bar containing a series of matrices is applied to a mould-bar, with a corresponding number of moulds. At the time of casting the latter is applied to jets leading from the metal chest, which is supplied from a metal fountain connected with the metal pot, and furnished with a valve to prevent the return of the metal. After the casting, the mould-bar, drawn endways, cuts off communication with the metal, and brings the said types beneath a series of punches, which descend and force them out at the same time that the matrix-box is unlocked, and descends clear of the types . . . The mould-bar is kept cool during the process by a stream of water passing through it . . . The metal is injected by the descent of a plunger into the metal chest. The type, as cast, is carried direct into a composing machine, where it is set up by means of a mechanism worked by keys, resembling the notes of a piano.[200]
- 1823.—LOUIS JOHN POUCHÉE[201] (communicated by Didot of Paris). Machine calculated to cast from 150 to 200 types at each operation, the operation being repeated twice or oftener in a minute. The moulds are composed of steel bars. The first has horizontal grooves at right angles to its length, and forms the body of the letter. The second is a matrix-bar, screwed to the bottom of the first. The third bar forms the fourth side of the type-body. The feet of the type are made by the fourth, a “break bar,” with orifices communicating with each type-mould. Two of these moulds are placed side by side so as to form a trough between them, in which the molten metal is poured, nearly as high as the orifices on the “break bar.” On pulling a trigger by a string, a plunger at the end of a lever falls into the trough, and injects the metal into the moulds. The lever is slightly raised after the casting, by a treadle, after which the workman raises it by hand until it passes a catch, which retains it until the string is pulled again. The mould is then unclamped, the mould-bars drawn asunder by wrenches, the types are found adhering to the break bar like the teeth of a comb, when they are broken off and dressed in the usual way.
- 1823.—JOHN HENFREY AND AUGUSTUS APPLEGARTH. Certain machinery for casting types. The type is cast in a space between two flanges, set at right angles on a spindle, and pressed to and drawn from one another alternately by a spring and a peculiarly arranged eccentric piece. A piece of steel, called the “body,” adjustable to the thickness of the particular type, is screwed to one of the flanges. The matrix is on a carriage, and is run through holes in the flanges for the casting, and kept in its place by a spring. The metal is {122} injected by the descent of a plunger, which recovers itself by a spring. After the casting the spindle begins to revolve, immediately upon which the matrix is disengaged from the type and withdrawn clear of the flanges. The flanges are then opened, and the cast type pushed from the mould by the action of spring pins. A type is thus cast for each revolution of the spindle. The “break” is disengaged from the letter by two small pins, one of which protrudes from each jaw after the casting.[202]
- 1828.—THOMAS ASPINWALL. An improved method of casting types, by means of a “Mechanical Type Caster.” The working parts of this machine are mounted on a table suspended so as to move to and from the melting-pot. The mould is in two parts, mounted on two sliding “carrier pieces” on the table, inclined to each other at a slight angle. The matrix is held during the casting by a spring. On the revolution of the crank shaft (by hand) a sliding rod on the table is made to move towards the melting-pot, and the carrier pieces being acted upon by a cross-bar attached to it by springs, are drawn forward so as to unite the two parts of the mould for the casting. By a further revolution of the crank shaft, a projecting piece on the end of the sliding rod, coming in contact with an adjusting screw on one end of a bent lever, causes it to turn on its centre, and by a friction roller at the other end forces down the plunger of a cylinder communicating with the metal pot, so as to inject the metal into a chamber, whence it ejects a portion previously there through a nozzle into the mould as it is moved forward by the forward motion of the table. The handle of the crank is then turned the reverse way, the table swings back from the metal pot, the plunger rises by a spring, the parts of the mould separate, the matrix is withdrawn from the cast type by a lever (which overcomes the force of the spring by which it is held during the casting), and the type itself loosened from the mould by coming in contact with an inclined plane.
We conclude these extracts with a proposal suggestive more of the primitive experiments of the first printers than of nineteenth century letter-founding.
- 1831.—JAMES THOMSON. Certain improvements in making or producing printing types. “My improvements consist in making printing types by casting or forming a cake of metal having letters formed and protruding on one side of it, and in afterwards sawing this cake directly or transversely, so as to divide it into single types.” The casting is effected in two ways. First by forming a mould from types set up, and immersing this within an iron box in a pot of melted type-metal, “as in making stereotype plates; with this difference, however, that in the present case, the plate must be as thick as the length of the intended type; and further, that in setting up the types for the cast, proper spaces must be made between each letter and between the lines, in order to allow for what will be taken away in the sawing.” The second mode is “by taking a plate of copper or other suitable metal, and making in it indentations or matrices with a punch having on it the letter for the intended type, taking care to make them in straight rows, direct and transverse. The plate being so indented, is put into an iron box and immersed in a pot of liquid type-metal, and kept there the proper depth and proper time, so as to enable the metal fully to enter into those indentations or matrices, that the letter may be well formed. The cake thus cast or formed, after being taken out and cooled, is sawed as before.”
CHAPTER V.
THE STATE CONTROL OF ENGLISH LETTER-FOUNDING.
UR Statute Books and Public Records do not throw any very important light on the early history of English letter-founding. Although a busy import trade in type appears to have been maintained by the earliest printers, and although as early as the days of De Worde, as we have seen, there were English printers who not only cast types for themselves, but are supposed to have supplied them to others, we search in vain for any definite reference to letter-founding in the decrees and proclamations which, prior to 1637, had for their object the regulation or repression of printing. It is true that the term printing was at that period wide enough to cover all its tributary arts, from paper-making to book-selling. At the same time, it is noteworthy that, whereas in many of the early decrees paper-making, book-binding and book-selling are distinctly mentioned, letter-founding is invariably ignored. If any inference is to be drawn from this fact, it is that type was one of the latest of the printer’s commodities to go into the public market. A printer’s type was his own, and no one else’s; and if occasionally one great printer was pleased to part with founts of his letter to his brother craftsmen, either by favour or for a consideration, it was not till late in the day—that is, not for about a century after the introduction of printing into England—that English-cast types became marketable ware in the country.