Journalism in 1900 London: The Daily Telegraph: Printing Press

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Arthur H. Beavan continued his survey of journalism in Imperial London, published in 1901, with a look at the Daily Telegraph printing machinery:

An increased output of copies necessitates a corresponding augmentation of steam for driving the extra machinery, more of the force so aptly described by Matthew Doulton when showing Prince Potemkin over the works at Soho:

"What do you sell here?" inquired the distinguished Russian visitor.

"We make and sell here," replied James Watts' partner, "that which all the world wants - Power."

Beneath the ground floor in the deeply excavated basement, there are no fewer than nine boilers to supply the steam for engines aggregating 1200 horse-power, a driving-force that many a tramp steamer, pounding through the Bay of Biscay, would be glad to possess.

Arranged so that it can be duplicated in case of need, this engine-power, including auxiliaries for the damping and foundry apparatus, and also for the electric lighting, drives by shaftings and gearings a wonderful plant of printing-machines.

Seven of the most improved "Hoes" print off from stereotype plates, each day's issue.

Each machine is fed by two mighty reels of paper, and, as if endowed with sentient powers, can print ten or twelve-paged newspapers, pasting in the "Inset" portion, cutting, folding, and delivering them complete for the publisher, at the rate of 24,000 copies an hour.

Thus the seven Hoes can turn out 168,000 an hour; the time occupied in printing one ton of Daily Telgraphs being less than four minutes!

Of reels of paper, made at Dartford, about 144 tons are used every week, each reel measuring four miles in length, and weighing 16 cwt.

The casting of these is accomplished in a lofty white brick-lined room, where sixteen machines and four melting-pots are employed every night in manipulating some six tons of metal into half-cylinder-shaped plates for the Hoes.

As a preliminary to the casting operation, a papier-mache mould has to be taken from Linotype matter, which arrives from the composing-rooms in "formes," ie type arranged in order, disposed into pages, and "locked up," or secured, ready to receive an impression.

The Daily Telegraph has thirty of these Linotype machines in the composing-room, and when they are all at work, it is the most interesting sight in the building.

The wonderful mechanism that produces innumerable copies of the great "Dailies" has frequently been explained since the Great Exhibition of 1851, when all London looked with astonishment at the Illustrated News being run off by steam-power; but with the inner arrangements of a newspaper-office the public are not so familiar.

Next: Journalims in 1900 London: the Daily Telegraph: Editorial Departments