A History of the Cambridge University Press, 1521-1921Roberts, S. C. (Sydney Castle)
History
A History of the Cambridge University Press, 1521-1921
Roberts, S. C. (Sydney Castle)
Cambridge University Press -- Bibliography; Cambridge University Press -- History
The control of the printing thus came into the hands of Mr
Clay, whilst Mr Seeley received the sole agency for the sale of
Cambridge bibles and prayer-books; Mr Seeley, however, retired two
years later and Mr Clay entered into a fresh agreement with the
university.
The period of Mr Clay's management was one of great expansion. At
the end of his first ten years of office it was estimated that
the Press produced about four or five times as much as when he
first undertook the management; in 1876, and again in 1886, the
Syndics reported to the Senate that the business had attained a
considerable magnitude and that large additions had been made to
the machinery and plant.
Increase of business naturally demanded increased accommodation and
in 1863 a foundry was built upon the site of some old cottages in
Black Lion Yard. Eight years later new machine-rooms and warehouses
were built on the site of Diamond Court, leading out of Silver
Street, and a still larger addition was made in 1877-78, when a
three-storied building was erected in the south-west corner of
the quadrangle. The most recent additions are the extensions of
the warehouse and machine-room on the Silver Street side and the
red brick building (containing the syndicate room and secretarial
offices), which forms the south side of the quadrangle[138].
In 1882 Mr John Clay, son of Mr C. J. Clay, was admitted into the
partnership with the university and from 1886 to 1904 Mr C. F.
Clay was also associated with it. Mr John Clay became university
printer on his father's retirement in 1895 and held the office
until his death in 1916, when the partnership was dissolved and
the present printer, Mr J. B. Peace, Fellow of Emmanuel College,
was appointed. From 1917 to 1919 the Syndics also employed the
services of Mr Bruce Rogers, whose distinguished work as a printer
is well known on both sides of the Atlantic. One of the best known
figures in the Press in the later half of the nineteenth century
was that of Alfred Mason. His remarkable personality dominated the
counting-house for a long period and when he died in 1919 he had
been for 65 years in the service of the Press.
The present buildings of the Press include machine-rooms,
containing large quad royal and quad demy perfectors, revolution
presses, and single cylinder machines; a foundry comprising
a stereotyping department, an electro-moulding room, an
electro-battery room, and two finishing rooms; type storerooms,
composing-rooms, and monotype-rooms; an art department for
lithographic, half-tone, and other process work; and the warehouse,
where the finished sheets are stored ready to be sent away for
binding. Every month an average of 40 tons of printed matter leaves
the Press to be delivered to London binders.
Printing is done in a wide variety of languages, including Hebrew,
Arabic, Pali, Coptic, Sanskrit, Hausa, Syriac and Amharic, and the
type catalogue makes a volume of about 200 pages.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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