It was at the beginning of the nineteenth century that the great ballad printer J. Pitts appeared. It is said that “Johnny Pitts” was a female who had been a bumboat woman. The ballad sheets that issued from the Pitts’ press are all of interest, and many genuine folk-songs appear on them. A rival to Pitts came from Alnwick in the person of James Catnach, the son of a printer in that small Northumbrian town. James Catnach first commenced business in 1813, at 2 and 3 Monmouth Court, Seven Dials, and he made a complete revolution in ballad sheet printing. The early ballad-mongers used a rough grey, or blue tinted, paper and their type was none of the best, or clearest. Catnach changed the shape of the ballad sheet into Large Post Quarto (about 10 × 8 inches), used good, though thin, white paper, and clear type. Many of his wood-blocks were either by the Bewick brothers, or by their pupils. He put forth an enormous quantity of ballads and songs, and seems to have not only employed men to write songs on topical events, but also to have for the first time put into print many a stray folk-song which the ballad-singers, who flocked to buy his ballads, would recite to him. This latter fact accounts for a certain amount of ignorant mistakes that occur in the text. After founding an immense business he retired in 1838, and died in 1841. His married sister, Anne Ryle, took over the business and advertised that she had “4000 sorts” of ballad sheets. Her manager, James Paul, appears to have been some sort of an editor for her, and it is believed that he wrote, or re-wrote, certain of the ballads and songs she printed. He was, with others, proprietor of the business at one time, but finally it became the property of W. S. Fortey, who reprinted from Catnach’s old stereotypes. T. Batchelor, Piggot, and T. Birt were other ballad printers, a little later than Catnach. The broadsides printed by Henry Such are of considerable interest to the collector, as they contain versions of folk-songs which are generally good. He was printing in 1849, and his successors of the same surname reprinted his ballad sheets up to a recent date. Provincial ballad sheet printers are Walker of Durham (flourishing in 1839), and Harkness of Preston, of a somewhat later date. R. Barr of Leeds and J. Bebbington of Manchester were broadside printers of forty or fifty years ago, while Shelmerdine & Co. of Manchester date from about 1815. The folk-song collector cannot ignore the ballad sheet, for upon it are found the words of many folk-songs of which he may only obtain very fragmentary versions from the singer. It is not to be understood that the ballad sheet version of a folk-song is always an accurate one, but it is worth having, for the folk-song singer has generally learned his words, or at any rate refreshed his memory, from the broadside copy.