LETTER-FOUNDING AS AN ENGLISH MECHANICAL TRADE.—1477–1830.
It will be convenient, now that we have reached a point at which
letter-founding enters upon a new stage as a distinct trade, to take
a brief survey of its progress as a mechanical industry; availing
ourselves of such records and illustrations as may be met with, to
trace its development and improved appliances during the period covered
by this narrative.
As has already been stated, the reticence of our first printers leaves
us almost entirely in the dark as to the particular processes by which
they produced their earliest types. Mr. Blades leans to the opinion
that Caxton, in his first attempts at typefounding, adopted the methods
of the rude Flemish or Dutch School, of whose conjectured appliances
we have spoken in the introductory chapter. “The English printers,”
he says, “whose practice seems to have been derived from the Flemish
School, were far behind their contemporaries in the art. Their types
show that a very rude process of founding was practised; and the use
. . . of old types as patterns for new, evinces more of commercial
expediency than of artistic ambition.”
At the same time, there seems reasonable ground for inferring, from
the peculiarities attending the re-casting of Caxton’s Type 4 as
4*, to which allusion has already been made, that at least as early
as 1480 Caxton was possessed of the secret of the punch, and matrix
and adjustable mould; while the {103} excellent works of De Worde
and his contemporaries demonstrate that, however rudely, the art may
have begun, England was, in the early years of the sixteenth century,
abreast of many of her rivals, both as to the design and workmanship of
her founts.
The frequent indications to be met with of the transmission of founts
from one printer to another, as well as the passing on of worn types
from the presses of the metropolis to those of the provinces, are
suggestive of the existence (very limited, indeed) of some sort of
home trade in type even at that early date. For a considerable time,
moreover, after the perfection of the art in England, the trade in
foreign types, which dated back as early as the establishment of
printing in Westminster and Oxford, continued to flourish. With
Normandy, especially, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, a
brisk commerce was maintained. Not only were many of the English
liturgical and law books printed abroad by Norman artists, but Norman
type found its way in considerable quantities into English presses.
M. Claudin, whose researches in the history of the early provincial
presses of France entitles him to be considered an authority on the
matter, states that Rouen, at the beginning of the sixteenth century,
was the great typographical market which furnished type not to England
only, but to other cities in France and to Switzerland. “It evidently
had special typographical foundries,” he observes. “Richard Pynson, a
London printer, was a Norman; Will Faques learned typography from J.
le Bourgeois, a printer at Rouen. These two printers had types cast
expressly for themselves in Normandy. Wynkyn de Worde must have bought
types in Normandy also, and very likely from Peter Olivier and Jean
de Lorraine, printers in partnership at Rouen.”[177] And with regard
to the first printer of Scotland, M. Claudin has no doubt that Myllar
learned his art in Normandy, and that the types with which his earliest
work was printed were those of the Rouen printer, Hostingue.
It is reasonable to suppose that English printers would endeavour,
if possible, to provide themselves, not with types merely, but with
matrices of the founts of their selections; and, indeed, we imagine
some explanation of the marked superiority of our national typography
at the close of the fifteenth century over that of half a century
later, is to be found in the fact that, whereas many of the first
printers used types wholly cut and cast for them by expert foreign
artists, their successors began first to cast for themselves from
hired or purchased matrices, and finally to cut their own punches and
justify their own matrices. Printing entered on a gloomy stage of its
career in England after Day’s time, {104} and as State restrictions
gradually hemmed it in, crushing by its monopolies healthy competition,
and by its jealousy foreign succour, every printer became his own
letter-founder, not because he would, but because he must, and the art
suffered in consequence.
[Illustration: 23. From Jost Amman’s _Stände und Handwerker_.
Frankfurt, 1568.]
[Illustration: 24. Letter-founding and Printing, _circa_ 1548. (From
the cut in the Harleian MSS.)]
Of the operations of a sixteenth century letter-foundry, we are
fortunately able to form some idea from the quaint engraving preserved
to us by Jost {105} Amman in his _Book of Trades_[178] in 1568, and
reproduced here. The picture represents the Frankfort founder seated at
his small brick furnace, casting type in a mould. This mould differs
from the modern hand-moulds in being pyramidical in shape, and holding
the matrix as a fixture in its interior. One of the moulds on the
shelf shows a hole in the side, into which the matrix was probably
inserted. From the manner in which the caster is grasping the mould,
it would seem that it was bipartite, and needed the two halves holding
together during casting. The cast types lying in the bowl have “breaks”
attached to them, which at that date were in all probability cast so
as to be easily detached. Behind the caster are some drawers, probably
intended to contain matrices, of which one or two lie on the top
waiting their turn for use. On the lower of the two shelves above the
furnace are some crucibles, in which the metals would be mixed before
filling up the casting-pan. On the upper shelf, besides three more
moulds, are some sieves, suggestive of the use of sand, either for
moulding large letters, or, as Mr. Blades suggests, for running the
small ingots of metal into for use in the melting-pot. The small room
in which this caster is operating in all probability formed part of a
printing-office; and another interesting engraving of perhaps a still
earlier date, which we here reproduce from the original in the British
Museum,[179] shows the two departments of the typographer’s art going
on in {106} adjoining apartments. In this case, as in the Frankfort
cut, the caster is sitting; but his mould, large as it is, appears
to be furnished with a spring at the bottom, more like the later
hand-moulds.
In the lines accompanying Amman’s picture the founder is made to say
that he casts types made of “Bismuth, Tin and Lead,” a statement which,
if correct, shows that the Frankfort types of that day must have been
cast in terribly soft metal, of about the substance and durability of
modern solder. The presence of the crucibles, however, points to the
use of some fourth metal, of sufficient hardness to require a violent
heat to fuse it. The founder also states that he can correctly justify
his letters, which may refer either to the dressing of the types after
casting, or the more important justification of the matrix to adapt it
to the mould.
Another interesting memorial of a sixteenth century foundry is to be
met with in a visit to the once famous printing-office of Christopher
Plantin at Antwerp.[180] The foundry of the great Netherlands
“Archi-typographus,” which is still preserved in its pristine
condition, was on the upper floor of his house, and consisted of two
rooms, one devoted wholly to the casting, the other being a store-room
for types awaiting use at the press. In the casting-room is still to
be seen a large brick furnace covered with an earthenware slab. To
the right of this is a smaller furnace, surmounted by the metal pot,
which even yet contains some of the old type-alloy. On the walls hang
tongs, ladles, knives and moulds. In a box are preserved small parcels
of pattern-types for setting the moulds by, among which the visitor is
shown three or four types of silver.[181] In another box are a {107}
large number of punches[182] and moulds of all sizes. A bench extends
along one side of the room, doubtless for the use of the dressers or
rubbers.
In all these points we recognise that even in Plantin’s day the
general appointments of a letter-foundry differed very little from
those of the modern foundry before the introduction of machinery.
Although we have no description of any English foundry before Moxon’s
time, we know that the processes in use among us boast a much earlier
origin. Moxon described no new method, but the old-established
practice which had obtained, if not from the infancy of the art, at
least from the commencement of that gradual divorce between printing
and letter-founding which led, about 1585, to the establishment of
foundries for the public use. We have no reason to suppose that the
foundries connected with the presses of Day, Wolfe and others differed
in practice from those of their Frankfort and Antwerp contemporaries,
or that when, in 1597, Benjamin Sympson, a letter-founder, gave bond to
the Stationers’ Company not to cast type for the printers without due
notice, he, or the founders who followed him, knew any other methods of
producing their type than those already familiar to every printer at
home and abroad.
Turning now to Moxon’s account of English letter-founding as it was
in his day, we find no lack of detail as to every branch of the art
and every appliance in use by the artist. It is not our purpose here
to follow these descriptions further than as they give a general idea
of the practice and method of letter-founding two centuries ago,—a
practice and method which, as we have said, existed long before his
day, and were destined to be in common use for nearly a century and
a half after. We shall best indicate the processes and appliances he
describes by giving a brief analysis of that portion of his book which
is {108} devoted to the mechanics of letter-founding,[183] reserving
for a later chapter a general summary of the complete work.
Naturally beginning with punch-cutting, he first describes in detail
the various tools made use of by the engraver, viz., the forge, the
using file, the flat gauge, the sliding gauges, the face gauges, the
Italic and other standing gauges, the liner, the flat table, the tach,
and other furniture of the bench. Every one of these tools is to be
found in the punch-cutter’s room of the present day, scarcely changed
in form or use from the woodcuts which illustrate Moxon’s description.
Turning from the tools to the workman, Moxon next proceeds to describe
his choice of steel for the punches; the making and striking of the
counter-punches on the polished face of the punch; the “graving and
sculping” of the insides of the letters; together with certain rules in
the use of the gravers, small files, etc., employed in this delicate
operation.
With regard to the process described as counter-punching, it is
necessary to admit that this constituted a refinement of the art of
punch-cutting apparently unknown to the first printers. The freedom
of their letters, consequent on the imitation of handwriting, which
served as their earliest models, makes it evident that they cut by eye,
rather than by mathematical rule. But as typography gradually made
models for itself, the best artists, particularly those who aimed at
producing regular Roman and Italic letters, discovered the utility and
expediency of arriving at uniformity in design and contour, by the use
of these counter-punches, which stamped on to the steel the impress of
the hollow portions of the letters they were about to cut, leaving it
to the hand of the engraver to cut round these hollows the form of the
required character.
The punches being cut, finished and hardened, Moxon next deals with the
various parts of the type-mould, describing in turn the “Making” of
the mould: The Carriage,[184] (a); the Body, (b); the Male Gauge, (c);
the Mouthpiece, (d e); the Register, (f i); the Female Gauge, (g); the
Hag, (h); the Bottom Plate, (_a_); the Wood, (_b_); the Mouth, (_c_);
the Throat, (_d_); the Pallat, (_e_ _d_); the Nick, (_f_); the Stool,
(_g_); the Spring, (_h_).
[Illustration: 25. Letter-founding in 1683. (From Moxon’s _Mechanick
Exercises_.)
A. Ladle. B. Leather mould-guard. _a, b, c, d._ Furnace-top. _e._ Pan.
_f._ Funnel. _g._ Stoke-hole. _i._ Air-hole. _k._ Ash-hole. ]
Here again we have described, with scarcely a difference, the mould in
which scores of men yet living have in their day cast types for the
trade. The {111} justification of the mould is then described; after
which the important operation of striking the steel punch into copper,
and forming and justifying the matrix, is treated of, with instructions
for “botching” matrices in the event of a mistake in the latter
process. The matrices being thus ready, the founder is instructed
how to adjust them to the mould in preparation for casting,—a solemn
process which may be best described in the writer’s own language:―
“Wherefore, placing the under-half of the Mold in his left hand, with
the Hook or Hag forward, he clutches the ends of its Wood between
the lower part of the Ball of his Thumb and his three hind-Fingers.
Then he lays the upper half of the Mold upon the under half, so as
the Male-Gages may fall into the Female Gages, and at the same time
the Foot of the Matrice place itself upon the Stool. And clasping his
left-hand Thumb strong over the upper half of the Mold, he nimbly
catches hold of the Bow or Spring with his right-hand Fingers at the
top of it, and his Thumb under it, and places the point of it against
the middle of the Notch in the backside of the Matrice, pressing
it as well forwards towards the Mold, as downwards by the Sholder
of the Notch close upon the Stool, while at the same time with his
hinder-Fingers as aforesaid, he draws the under half of the Mold
towards the Ball of his Thumb, and thrusts by the Ball of his Thumb the
upper part towards his Fingers, that both the Registers of the Mold
may press against both sides of the Matrice, and his Thumb and Fingers
press both Halves of the Mold close together. Then he takes the Handle
of the Ladle in his right Hand, and with the Boll of it gives a Stroak
two or three outwards upon the Surface of the Melted Mettal to scum or
cleer it from the Film or Dust that may swim upon it. Then he takes up
the Ladle full of Mettal, and having his Mold as aforesaid in his left
hand, he a little twists the left side of his Body from the Furnace,
and brings the Geat of his Ladle, (full of Mettal) to the Mouth of the
Mold, and twists the upper part of his right-hand towards him to turn
the Mettal into it, while at the same moment of Time he Jilts the Mold
in his left hand forwards to receive the Mettal with a strong Shake
(as it is call’d) not only into the Bodies of the Mold, but while the
Mettal is yet hot, running swift and strongly into the very Face of the
Matrice to receive its perfect Form there as well as in the Shanck.”
This done, the mould is opened, and the type released; Moxon adding
that a workman will ordinarily cast 4,000 such letters in a day.
Then follow rules to be observed in breaking off, rubbing, kerning,
setting-up and dressing, with descriptions of the dressing-sticks,
block-groove, hook, knife and “plow.” That these operations, as well
as the casting, had undergone no alteration nearly a century after
Moxon’s day, may be judged from the fact that Moxon’s descriptions are
used verbatim to accompany the view of the {112} interior of Caslon’s
foundry, shown in the _Universal Magazine_ of 1750, where all these
operations are exhibited in active progress.
With regard to the preparation of the type-metal, Moxon’s account is
minute and a trifle peculiar. This metal was, according to his account,
made of lead hardened with iron.[185] Stub-nails were chosen as the
best form of iron to melt, and the mixture was made with the assistance
of antimony, of which an equal amount with the iron was added to the
lead, in the proportion of 3 lb. of iron to 25 lb. of lead. The great
heat required to melt the iron necessitated open furnaces of brick,
built out of doors, in a broad, open place, well exposed to the wind,
into which the iron and antimony mixture was put in pots surrounded
with charcoal. After half an hour’s time the metal men were to “lay
their Ears near the Ground and listen to hear a Bubling in the Pots,”
which is the sign that the iron is melted. They then were to erect
another small furnace, “on that side from whence the Wind blows,” which
was to contain the large pot full of lead. The lead being melted, they
were to carry it at a great heat, with a “Labour would make Hercules
sweat,” to the open furnace, filling up the pots of iron and antimony
with the lead, and stirring at the same time. The open furnace was
to be then demolished, and the mixed metal left to cool in the pots.
And “now,” says Moxon, “(according to Custom), is Half a Pint of Sack
mingled with Sallad Oyl provided for each Workman to Drink; intended
for an Antidote against the Poysonous Fumes of the Antimony, and to
restore the Spirits that so Violent a Fire and Hard Labour may have
exhausted.”
Such is a brief account of the practice of typefounding in Moxon’s
time. Of the trade customs of the day our author also presents us with
a curious picture, in his account of the Chapel.
“A Founding-House,” he says, “is also call’d a Chappel: but I suppose
the Title was originally assum’d by Founders to make a Competition with
Printers. The Customes used in a Founding-House are made as near as
maybe those of a Printing-House; but because the Matter they Work on
and the manner of their Working is different, therefore such different
Customes are in Use as are suitable to their Trade, as:―
“First, To call Mettle Lead, a Forfeiture.
“Secondly, A Workman to let fall his Mold, a Forfeiture.
“Thirdly, A Workman to leave his Ladle in the Mettle Noon or
Night, a Forfeiture.” {113}
We are given to understand that in the case of other offences, common
to both printing and typefounding, such as swearing, fighting,
drunkenness, abusive language, or giving the lie in the chapel, or
the equally heinous offence of leaving a candle burning at night, the
journeyman founder was liable to be “solaced” by his fellow-workmen,
in the same hearty and energetic way which characterised the
administration of justice among the printers.
After Moxon’s time we meet with numerous accounts of foundries and
their appointments. The interesting inventory of the Oxford foundry,
appended to the specimen of the press in 1695, gives a good idea of
the extent of that establishment. There were apparently two casters,
two rubbers, and two or three dressers, and the foundry possessed
twenty-eight moulds. The punches were sealed up in an earthen pot,
possibly to protect them from rust or injury; or possibly, because
having once served their purpose in striking the matrices, they were
put aside as of little or no use. The small value put upon punches
after striking is constantly apparent about this period. Very few
punches came down with the foundries which were absorbed by that of
John James; and of those that did, the greater portion were left
to take their chance among the waste as worthless. The small value
set upon the punches of Walpergen’s music, in the inventory of his
plant,[186] shows that they were considered the least important of his
belongings. Matrices did not wear out in the old days of hand-moulds
and soft metal, as they do now under steam machines and “extra hard”;
but the liability to loss or damage, and the importance of protecting
and preserving the steel originals of their types, can hardly have been
less with the founders of a century and a half ago than it is to-day.
The entertaining letters of Thomas James from Holland, in 1710,[187]
point to a curious practice in that country, which we believe has never
obtained in this. We refer to the habit of lending casters and matrices
by one founder to another. In each of the two foundries he visited
there were places for four casters; but in one case only one man was
at work, and in the other no one was to be found, for this reason.
This system of interchange is hardly consistent with the jealousy and
suspicion shown by the same Dutch founders towards their English rival
in his endeavours to procure sets of matrices from their punches. In
this endeavour, however, he succeeded, much to his own satisfaction.
He also purchased moulds, which, like all the other Dutch moulds he
saw, were made of brass. Voskens’ foundry, which he visited, appears
to have been “a great business, having five or six men constantly at
the furnace, besides boys to rub, and himself and a brother {114} to
do the other work.” He also found artists who, like Cupi and Rolij,
were punch-cutters only, not attached to any one foundry, but doing
work for founders generally. Van Dijk was a cutter only, who kept a
founder of his own named Bus, and this founder cast, not at his own
or Van Dijk’s house, but at the house of Athias, by whom probably he
was also engaged. The Voskens, who succeeded Van Dijk, did their own
casting, but their punches and matrices were supplied them by Rolij,
who, as an independent artist, was free to sell duplicate matrices of
his letters to James. This division of letter-founding into one or more
trades, though common abroad, was never a common practice in England,
where jealousy and lack of enterprise conspired to keep each founder’s
business a mystery known only to himself.[188]
In the course of this book we shall have constant occasion to point
out the intimate relations which existed at the beginning of the
eighteenth century between English printers and Dutch founders. There
was probably more Dutch type in England between 1700 and 1720 than
there was English. The Dutch artists appeared for the time to have the
secret of the true shape of the Roman letter; their punches were more
carefully finished, their matrices better justified, and their types of
better metal, and better dressed, than any of which our country could
boast. Nor was it till Caslon developed a native genius that English
typography ceased to be more than half Dutch.
Thiboust’s quaint Latin poem on the excellence of printing,[189]
though throwing little new light on the practice of the art, is
worth recording here, not only for the description it gives of
letter-founding in France at the time, but for the sake of the curious
woodcut which accompanies it. The latter represents a round furnace in
the centre of a room, surmounted by a metal pot, at which two casters
are standing, with ladle and mould in hand. The moulds, of which a
number are to be seen in a rack against the wall, are almost cubic in
shape, and apparently without the hooks shown in Moxon’s illustration.
One of the casters is holding his mould low, as in the act of casting.
A workman sitting on a stool is setting up in a stick the newly-cast
type from a box on the {115} floor—possibly breaking them off at the
same time. Beyond is a dresser grooving out the break in a stick of
types.
[Illustration: 26. Letter-founding in France in 1718. (From Thiboust’s
_Typographiæ Excellentia_.)]
Of the portion of the poem devoted to letter-founding,[190] we venture
to give the following rough translation:― {116}
“The founder see, whose molten metal glows
Above the blazing furnace. From the pot
His ladle nimbly feeds the curious mould,
Whence straight the type in perfect fashion falls.
The willing servant, he, of all the Schools,
Whether in Latin they would write, or Greek,
Or in the Hebrew tongue their minds disclose,
Or in the German. He, for all prepared,
Skilful, for each his character provides.
See with what art the several types are cast,
Each from its parent matrix; see how bright,
Trimmed by the dresser’s cunning knife, they lie.
He the redundant metal first breaks off,
Then on the stick in order sets the type,
And with his plane their equal height assures.
Such is the founder’s craft, whose arduous round
Of toil ’midst ardent heats is daily found.”
A still more satisfactory view of an eighteenth century foundry is
to be found in the _Universal Magazine_ of 1750. This engraving, of
which our frontispiece is a facsimile, represents the interior of
Caslon’s foundry, with the processes of casting, breaking-off, rubbing,
setting-up, and dressing, all in operation. The casting is specially
interesting, in the light of Moxon’s graphic account of the attitudes
and contortions of the caster. Unlike their French brethren, each of
Caslon’s casters stands partitioned off from his neighbour, with a
furnace and pan to himself. One of them is dipping his ladle in the pot
for a new cast; the next holds his mould lowered, at the commencement
of a “pour”; the third has evidently completed the upward jerk
necessary to force the metal into the matrix; and the fourth, with his
mould again lowered, is apparently throwing out the type and preparing
for the next casting.
A set of three views of the interior of a French foundry, from an
_Encyclopædia_[191] of about this date, presents a few interesting
points of contrast between foreign and English methods. In the first
view the process of punch-cutting is displayed.[192] One man is
finishing a punch with his file; another is striking a counter-punch
(with perhaps undue energy) into the steel face of a punch; while the
third, at a large forge, is hammering a piece of steel in readiness
for the engraver. The second view shows metal making, casting,
breaking-off, and {117} rubbing, in operation. There are two men at
the large furnace, one watching the melting of antimony in a crucible,
the other pouring off the mixed metal into ingots. At the small metal
pot with three divisions, in the centre of the room, are three casters,
one of whom is about to cast, another has finished his “throw,” and the
third is loosening his spring so as to open the mould. At the table in
the rear sit two girls, one breaking off, the other rubbing. The third
view represents a dressing-room, where a girl is setting up the rubbed
types on a stick. The dresser is ploughing the “break” from the foot of
a stick of types, which is placed in the blocks, not lengthways along
the bench, but across it. An apprentice sitting at the table completes
the dressing, holding one end of the stick tilted while he passes
his scraper over the front and back of the row of types. Drawings of
all the tools and parts of tools used in typefounding complete the
illustration.
Fournier, the French Moxon, in 1764 devoted the latter part of vol. i
of his _Manuel Typographique_[193] to the appliances and instruments
used in type-casting. His work enters in detail into the form and use
of every tool used in every department of the trade, from the cutting
of the punch to the storage of the finished types, giving careful and
accurate woodcuts of each. Allowing for a few national peculiarities,
and certain improvements in casting, there is scarcely anything but
the date of the book to distinguish it from a mechanical handbook to
typefounding in the middle of the nineteenth century.
The operations of punch-cutting and justifying appear to have been
kept a mystery from the earliest days of the trade. To lay minds,
the one work of the founder was to cast types; but the preliminary
operations on which his whole reputation as a founder depended, were
little understood by any but the founder himself. And even he, as in
the case of the first two Caslons, carried on this part of the mystery
stealthily, and with closed doors even against his own apprentices. In
many cases, especially with the originators of the great foundries,
Caslon, Cottrell and Jackson, it was the master himself who designed
and cut his own punches. It was not till the unusual demand for
artists at the close of last century broke down this exclusiveness
that outsiders arose to work for the trade in general. And even these,
it was the policy and endeavour of each founder to attach to himself,
treating him as a gentleman at large, and free from the obligations
imposed on his other workmen.
_The Rules and Regulations of Thorne’s Foundry_, printed about the
year 1806, give an interesting glimpse into the internal economy of a
foundry of that period. After fixing the prices to be paid for work
(for casting, rubbing, and kerning were {118} all paid by “piece”),
they provide that the dressers shall have 25_s._ a week, “abiding by
the old custom of leaving work at four o’clock on Mondays. Each man
to dress after four casters.” The fines for “foot-ale” imposed on new
hands are ordered to be deposited with the master, who is to keep an
account of the same, and divide it equally among the men at Christmas.
The foundry hours are from six in the morning to eight in the evening
in summer, and from seven to eight in winter, “beginning when
candle-light commences.” The dressers are to work from seven to eight
in summer, and eight to eight in winter. Any man losing or damaging
a mould, matrix, or tool, to make good the loss on the following
Saturday. Any man leaving his lamp or candle alight after hours is to
pay 6_d._, and the master for a similar offence is to fine himself
1_s._ Rubbers must grind their stones once a fortnight, “if requested
to do so either by the master or foreman.” No work to be taken out of
the foundry. Casters and rubbers must take their turn at carrying in
metal. Breaking-off and setting-up boys shall earn 10_d._ a week for
each man they set-up after. Many of these customs are traditional, and
survive at the present time.
Conservatism, indeed, has been a marked feature in the history of
British letter-founding. Between 1637 and 1837 the number of important
foundries rarely exceeded the limit prescribed by the Star Chamber
decree of the former year. The methods and practice of the art, as
we have seen, remained virtually unchanged during the whole period.
The traditional customs, the trade _argot_, the relations of men
to men, and men to masters, even the tricks and gestures of the
caster, suffered nothing by the lapse of two centuries. The relations
of the founders among themselves during the period underwent more
vicissitudes. At all times jealous of their mystery, they mistrusted
in turn the printers and one another. As the new school of Caslon
and his apprentices rose up to oust the old Dutch school of James,
mutual antagonism was the order of the day. The literary duel between
the Caslons and the Frys was perhaps the least injurious outcome of
this spirit. This antagonism resolved itself, at the close of last
century, into a combination of London founders against their rising
Scotch competitors. An Association was formed in 1793, which continued
for three years. In 1799 it was re-formed, and this time lasted four
years; and again in 1809 it was revived and continued till 1820,
when it terminated. In the early days of this Association the lady
Caslons took a prominent part in its deliberations, which, however,
frequently consisted of little more than the imposition of fines for
non-attendance. The prices of type during this period, chiefly owing
to the fluctuations in the value of metals during the French war,
were constantly changing. Pica in 1793 was 1_s._ 1 1/2_d._ a pound,
in 1800 1_s._ 4_d._, in 1810 3_s._, and in 1816 (after the price of
antimony had gone down from £400 to £200 a {119} ton), 2_s._ The
Scotch founders, however, joined presently by the Sheffield houses,
continued to underbid the London founders in their own market; and at
one time a combination of all the English houses existed in opposition
to the unfortunate new foundry of the Frenchman, Pouchée.
* * * * *
Our survey does not extend beyond the year 1830, but before concluding
this hasty outline of the progress of letter-founding as a mechanical
trade, it will be interesting to notice the gradual changes in the
process of casting which led to the final abandonment of the venerable
hand-mould in favour of machinery.
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.”
{123}
[Illustration]