Yesterday’s Technology . . . Today!
John R. Rogers invented the Typograph in 1890. It was a simple linecaster, and so cheaper to buy than more complex machines. The Typograph was marketed to small print shops rather than to newspaper printers.
Its matrices were suspended on wires. As the operator selected characters from the keyboard, the corresponding matrix slid down the wire to the assembly point. After use the operator tilted back the frame of wires, and the matrices slid back to their original positions.
Built in Manchester, this Square-Based Model 1 Linotype is one of the first British-made linecasters. The model’s square base was later made smaller, and then changed to a star shape.
Model 1 Linotypes had a 90-character keyboard. The back-loaded single magazine could take matrices up to 11 point in type size.
THE WHITTAKER COLLECTION of linecasters was put together by Mr H Peter Whittaker whose company sold and repaired linecasters.
The collection is currently in storage room 2 at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester.
To see the various machines, use the Related Pages menu.
Many thanks to Graham Rains for digging out this very atmospheric photograph of him operating a Model G Intertype at Druckman Press, Hemel Hemstead, Hertfordshire, UK in 1984.
Intertype fan? Don’t miss the Intertype Chat section of the Metal Type Forum.
Many thanks to John Nixon for sending in this article. Says John: “The attached article appeared in The Imprint magazine, which was a printing union publication in New Zealand.
“The contributor, Tom Atkinson, was the Deputy Day Printer when I started my apprenticeship in 1970.
Superb 1957 photograph of the Heidelberg “windmill” press production line in Germany.
A rather cynical commentator has said: “And each worker adding a single impossible-to-remove taper-pinned part.” Sounds like the comment is a result of bitter experience!
Many thanks to Dave Gladwell for sending in these photographs, taken at Richard Clays, a large book printing company, based in Bungay, Suffolk, UK.
Taken from a Linotype brochure published in Berlin in the 1930s. Some quite unusual machines.
Linotype fan? Don’t miss the Linotype Chat section of the Metal Type Forum.
Thanks to Richard Goodwin for sending in these photographs taken at the Quincy Patriot Ledger between 1969 and 1975.
