In a few years Whittingham was recognized as the best printer in England and had built up a good and profitable business. He won this success in spite of the fact that he, even more than Baskerville, failed to get on with the publishers. The publishers wanted cheap printing and large profits. Whittingham refused to lower his standards to meet their desires and insisted on printing to suit himself and, as he believed, the public. Less ambitious than Baskerville, but equally conscientious, Whittingham published small books, well printed, which could be sold at a reasonable price, although not at the price of trash. He was right in his estimate of the public demand and, secure in public support, was able to defy the publishers. When they refused to give him their work he told them to keep it, and entirely disregarded their hostility. He carried the war into the enemies’ country by refusing to be bound by certain trade customs. These customs were survivals of the old privileges and monopolies which kept certain books in certain hands. There was no foundation for these customs except their antiquity, and Whittingham proposed to publish certain books which from time immemorial had been held to be the property of others. Of course, the publishers called him a pirate, but he never infringed upon a real copyright and his conduct in the matter is entirely free from moral reproach. Whittingham was an enterprising business man as well as desirous of artistic improvement. He bought the first Stanhope press which was sold to a printing house, in 1800, and his house was among the first to adopt improved machinery and methods of all sorts. There is, however, one notable exception. Whittingham and his nephew and successor believed that it was not possible to do the best work on anything but a hand press, and no power presses were used in the Chiswick Press until 1860. About the opening of the century a man by the name of Potts invented a process for making paper-stock from old rope by removing the tar and dirt. Whittingham got possession of this process and opened a paper-stock factory. He did not, however, open a paper mill, but sold the stock to Fourdrinier, the great French paper maker. The paper-stock mill was at Chiswick, and Whittingham opened in 1811 a second printing office in the neighborhood, which he called the Chiswick Press. For a time he carried on the two printing offices, the paper-stock mill, a book-shop, several publishing ventures, and a business of some sort, it is not now known what, in Jersey. It was not many years, however, before he saw the danger of this extension and gradually disposed of the outside things, concentrating his interest in the Chiswick Press, which he preferred to continue rather than the London office.