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The book starts with the following story:<\/p>\n
The other day we were told this story. A British Naval officer stepping ashore at a Chinese port several hundred miles up the Yangtze river walked into the British club there. Aimlessly he picked up a newspaper lying on a table. Then his eye caught the title and he turned the pages eagerly, scanning the sheets for news of home, thousands of miles away. He was a Shieldsman and the newspaper was The Shields Gazette, one of the five newspapers published by The Northern Press Ltd., South Shields.<\/p>\n
We were proud and pleased to receive this story. Proud, because The Shields Gazette (which has a longer record of continuous publication than any other provincial evening newspaper) once more had proved to be the link with home for a voyaging seafarer far from his native place; a role the paper is filling to an even greater degree nowadays than ever before. We were pleased, because the tradition that where’er a British ship sails are to be found men of Shields and The Shields Gazette worthily had been upheld.<\/p>\n
And when the windjammers left the shelter of South Shields harbour on a favourable wind for their destinations far away in the last days of February 1849 \u2013 one hundred years ago-tucked away somewhere aboard, no doubt, was a copy of The North and South Shields Gazette and Northumberland and Durham Advertiser (as The Shields Gazette was originally titled) for it was on the Saturday of February 24, 1849 that the first issue came off the press, printed laboriously by a method which had changed little since Caxton’s day, to announce modestly to a waiting town:<\/p>\n
“Our politics are not those of Movement but of improvement \u2013 repudiating the spirit Of restlessness that advocates only Change, we shall throw our weight into the scale of Progress. \u2026 we are to aid all who shew a wise hearted desire to promote the welfare of Society, our Country and the World. \u2026 is not such an organ needed \u2013 to rally our long broken ranks. \u2026 to cheer on the public spirited and energetic men who are now in the field, battling for rights and immunities. \u2026 to gain for Shields the place to which she is entitled by her position, wealth and importance in the scale of British towns. \u2026”<\/p>\n
Daily Telegraphic Edition<\/h2>\n
ln those first days it was a weekly paper \u2013 hemmed in and cramped by the tax on advertising and the Stamp Duty on newspapers, in truth a tax on knowledge. But on Monday, July 2, 1855, two days after Mr. Gladstone repealed the Stamp Duty on Saturday, June 30, a Daily Telegraphic Edition was issued and delivered free every night to subscribers to the weekly edition, specialising then, as now, in shipping news, hence its eventual acquisition of the sub-title, The Shipping Telegraph. It was a courageous and ambitious undertaking making use of the new electric telegraph.<\/p>\n This brief resume would not be complete without reference to the engineering branch of The Northern Press, a section of the firm’s activities which ended some time ago.<\/p>\n Following the inventive genius of Mr. Robert Cumming Annand, managing- director of the newspaper for a period of many years at the beginning of the century and a brother of the editor of the same name, the manufacture of fast web printing machinery brought a new industry to South Shields.<\/p>\n From small beginnings in a corner of The Shields Gazette printing room where small repairs were carried out grew an extensive business which achieved a world-wide reputation and The Shields Gazette became the only newspaper manufacturing its own machinery.<\/p>\n To meet this new side of the company’s activities the name was changed in l889 to The Northern Press and Engineering Company Ltd. Eventually, in 1920, the two activities of the company were separated.<\/p>\n The Northern Press Engineering Company Ltd. was formed to carry on the manufacture of printing machinery and the parent company reverted to the title of The Northern Press Ltd.<\/p>\n Many of the engineering company’s presses are still in existence and giving good service.<\/p>\n The Tyne had its prides then as it haas now, In 1849, was lost in the Arctic ice, the Lady Jane, last of the river’s whalers, and very popular, for each time she went to sea, schoolboys got a half-holiday to see her go out with garlands flying.<\/p>\n Another was the iron steamship Britannia, which maintained a passenger service between Newcastle and Leith, and was evidently an important vessel as the first issue of the Shields Gazette advertised lithographic prints of the ship at four shillings plain, six shillings coloured \u2013 a lot of money in those days.<\/p>\n The publication offers this brief description of the composing area:<\/p>\n From the Editorial Department the news copy passes to the Composing Room where it is set into type on Linotype machines.<\/p>\n The Linotype is a mechanical typesetter with a keyboard similar to that of a typewriter. The operator depresses the keys and brass matrices are released to form a line of column width.<\/p>\n Each line is automatically cast in metal (an alloy of lead, antimony and tin). For the larger headlines and type the brass letter matrices are set by hand and cast on a Ludlow machine.<\/p>\n When the lines of type have been set and assembled in proper sequence on long trays called “galleys” proofs are printed, or “pulled”, and sent to the readers who check the proof with the original copy for errors and deviation. The corrections are reset and checked again.<\/p>\n Next the type is placed in a metal frame called a “forme” and made into two pages of The Gazette. This is done by compositors who follow a plan supplied by the chief sub-editor. Blocks of pictures are now inserted in the page.<\/p>\n If you liked this story you may also like Printers’ Tales<\/strong><\/a> a compilation of similar stories, available in ebook and paperback formats.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"Shields](\"http:\/\/www.metaltype.co.uk\/photos\/images\/564.jpg\")
<\/a><\/a>SS Britannia<\/h2>\n
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