March 6, 2023 • 46 mins
We visit the Penrith Museum of Printing and find out how the Sydney Morning Herald was printed from its beginning in 1831 to now.
Museum president Bob Lockley gives us a tour of the fully operational machinery and tells us about the history of the printing press and the relevance of the printing and typography trades today.
Video examples (of varying quality) of the machines spoken about in this episode:
- Linotype machine (inter type): https://youtu.be/MN0N8OgljA0?t=43
- Ludlow machine: https://youtu.be/DI-xZdVdyyM?t=48
- Chandler & Price machine: https://youtu.be/7ruDo8BT7k4?t=138
- Wharfedale machine: https://youtu.be/WHOtaGGQh4w
- Arab machine: https://youtu.be/m--awJqwomo
Printing press ASMR (yes omg it’s a thing!): https://youtu.be/a5UFos_ysz8
Subscribe to the podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/roadshow-and-tell/id1666756225
Follow us on Instagram to see photos of stuff mentioned in this episode: @roadshowandtellpodcast
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Bob (00:00):
So the news is two days old before you get it.
Kate (00:04):
Wanted a cook none but a sober person Need apply.
Bob (00:10):
we need to make this museum last because we are the only
operational museum
Kate (00:19):
Welcome to Roadshow and tell a podcast for people hoping
to improve their pub trivia teamscore.
I'm your host, Kate, and I'llvisit museums so you can learn
things you never knew you wantedto.
Today we're visiting Penrith, asuburb in Greater Western
Sydney, about 50 minutes fromthe c CBD and we'll be visiting
(00:42):
the Penrith Museum of Printing.
In this episode, we'll learn howcompositors used to set out
newspaper columns, how theLinotype machine revolutionized
print production, and how theSydney Morning Herald was
produced before electricity.
So today I'm at the PenrithMuseum of Printing with Bob
(01:02):
Lockley, the president.
Welcome, Bob.
Bob (01:04):
Thank you.
Kate (01:05):
So Bob, whose land are we on today?
Bob (01:07):
We're on the Dharug People's land.
Kate (01:09):
Why Penrith for this museum?
Bob (01:11):
Well, the, museum started in Penrith and it should be
really called Australia's PrintHeritage Center, but it's the
Penrith Museum of Printingbecause the gentleman who used
to work at the Nepean timesmanaged to score the equipment.
We've got some 1857 SydneyMorning Heralds here.
And the reason we focus on thestory of the Sydney Morning
Herald, cause the Sydney Heraldslash Sydney Morning Herald is
Australia's longest continuousrunning daily newspaper.
(01:35):
okay.
So the history of printingstarts for us in 1450 when,
Johan Gutenberg invented movabletype in a larger scale than what
was previously done by theKoreans and the Chinese.
So he invented metal moveabletype, which then spread the word
around the world.
And Johan Gutenberg was fromManse in Germany.
And we've got what we believe tobe the first way the printing
(01:58):
evolved back in those days byhand setting each letter one
word at a time..
And lasted from 1450 rightthrough till 1880 when they
invented a linotype machine toautomatically set lines of type
instead of word at a time thatcould print set line at a time.
And during that time, there wasno change in technology for 450
years.
And we get a change oftechnology every three and a
(02:18):
half minutes today, but backthen we only had a change in
technology from 1450 to 1890.
18 80, 1890s.
Kate (02:25):
So when the printing equipment came to Australia that
used the line by line pressrather than the letter by
letter?
Bob (02:31):
Mm-hmm.
Kate (02:32):
And how cubersome was it to create maybe one page of
printing?.
Bob (02:35):
On the old fashioned style of the Gutenberg style, it
would've taken eight hours toset a column in a newspaper, but
on these new linotype machinescalled a line of type for that
very reason, they would printthat same column in 20 minutes.
And and I'm specifically talkingabout the Sydney Morning Herald.
Kate (02:51):
20 minutes.
So they could pretty easily pushout a whole paper of about how
many pages?
Bob (02:57):
Well, they printing eight pages at a time b ack in the day
from 1831.
And when, when the Linotypescame in, in the 1880s, well then
they were able to increase thepagination as the population
grew.
Kate (03:06):
What's the history of printing in Australia?
Bob (03:09):
The history of printing in Australia goes back to,
obviously just after CaptainCook landed, and people started
producing small newspapers fordifferent areas and importing
all the knowledge and equipmentfrom the people from London at
England et cetera.
Kate (03:22):
When they imported the equipment from England, did they
also bring over people that weretrained to use it?
Bob (03:27):
Well, I can give you a specific example of one of the
pieces of equipment in thebuilding.
It's from 1841 and it wastransported out here by a boat
and with, it would've come, anengineer or somebody, a printer
who could run it.
And that piece of equipment wasstarted printing the Carcoar
Chronicle in 1841 through to1939 and that piece of equipment
is, is in here and operationaltoday.
(03:47):
And we demonstrate it all thetime, and it's the same press
that was used to print theSydney Herald in 1830.
Kate (03:53):
And could all the people in the colonies read what was
printed?
Bob (03:56):
Yes, I would say so.
And that's what helped educateeverybody with the printed word
being spread.
And it wasn't just newspapers,it was all kinds of manner of
printing, like business cardsand letterheads and all
different types of presses toprint different types of
product.
But most of it was imported fromEngland in the very, very early
days.
And then over time, moreequipment came from other parts
of the world to Australia as thecolony grew.
Kate (04:16):
tell me more about the history of the SMH.
Bob (04:19):
Okay.
They started out as the SydneyHerald in 1831 and two gentlemen
from England came to Sydney andthey imported a Colombian
printing press very similar tothe one we've got in this
building on display that printedthe Carcoar Chronicle.
Now the Sydney Herald wasprinted on this Columbian
printing press for 22 years.
It started out as a weeklypublication.
(04:39):
For the first nine years of itstime, it became a commercial
success and became the SydneyMorning Herald in 1840.
And in 1841 it was bought by theFairfax family who owned it from
1841 through till about threeyears ago when Channel Nine
bought it.
So back in 1831 when the SydneyHerald started, they were
(05:01):
printing 750 copies a week for apopulation of 70,000 people in
Australia, Melbourne wasn't evenheard of then.
Kate (05:08):
And what sort of stuff would be in the newspaper at
that time?
Bob (05:11):
It's mostly classified, I think.
It is.
Kate (05:13):
Mostly classified?
Bob (05:14):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Kate (05:15):
Well, that's what made print run, wasn't it,
classifieds.
Bob (05:17):
Actually, the answer to the question was that Sydney Morning
Herald back in the was mostly aclassified section with no
display ads, no photographs, andno phone numbers.
The ads on the front pages ofthe paper you'll read will be a
request for a skill set.
And please go to George Street,Sydney, number 25 for an
interview.
Kate (05:36):
And these people would pay for the ads?
Bob (05:38):
Yes, they would've, yes.
They would've paid for the adsand they would've paid for the
paper.
Six pence, in fact.
Kate (05:43):
A six pence.
Wow.
So even from the early days, itreally was classified powering
the newspaper printing?
Bob (05:49):
Definitely financially, definitely.
Kate (05:51):
So the printing presses then on a good day, would
average about two copies perminute with two people working
it.
Then they'd have to wait for theink to dry, turn it over and
print the other pages because itwas a broad sheet.
So how long did it take to dothis print run of 750 copies of
the SMH
Bob (06:10):
Taken'em probably two days.
So the news is two days oldbefore you get it.
That's why newspapers are introuble today because we get the
news on our phone every threeand a half minutes.
But the Sydney Morning Herald,or the Telegraph last night
would've been printed off thepresses at 11 o'clock.
So anything after 11 o'clockdoesn't make the presses cause
they gotta distribute thenewspapers all around the
country.
So it's a big job to get'em outon time.
(06:30):
So people say, Why would wewanna read newspapers?
We don't wanna read yesterday'snews..
So we're teaching you how theyused to read and print
yesterday's news.
Kate (06:39):
It's more than just keen typographers and members of the
public that are interested inthis museum.
Film crews love the PrintingMuseum for its authentic
equipment and rustic set.
Bob (06:50):
We've had quite a few movies made here.
Wild boys have used this sitefor part of their shows,
especially the peter Rabbits oneand two have taken pieces of
equipment and used it in theirshoots.
Ladies in Black was shot herewith Shane Jacobson operating
our linotype machine at theSydney Morning Herald in 1958
when he was setting the resultsfor the High School certificates
for the Ladies in Black.
Kate (07:11):
I remember that scene.
Bob (07:12):
And Bruce Beresford, who was the director, had Shane
Jacobson's role as aproofreader..
But when he came in here and sawthe uh, linotype machines, he
changed his role immediately toa type setter.
So our guys had to teach ShaneJacobson how to operate this
machine.
And in the show on his job is alinotype operator at the Sydney
Morning Herald.
And that scene, was shot in hereon these very machines.
(07:34):
And some of our members are inthe shoot.
Kate (07:35):
And how did he go operating the linotype machine?
Bob (07:37):
He was bloody hopeless.
Kate (07:40):
Let's not get him back then.
Bob (07:41):
No, no, no.
He, he was brilliant.
He did well, It looked like hewas very proficient at what he
did.
Oh, that's part of being anactor, I suppose, So we're
becoming very popular of latefor that kind of memorabilia
movies, shoots, plays oranything to do with the past.
So people wanting to create thehistory using the exact
equipment, it's all here andavailable.
Kate (08:01):
How many fonts have you got, Bob?
Bob (08:02):
That's a great question.
How many fonts have we got?
We've probably got a hundreddifferent fonts here.
And each font is in a differentprinting case.
So unlike your computer at home,if you wish to set a line at
home, you just choose your font,press the button and go for your
life.
But here, if you wanna change afont from eight point times
Roman to 12 point times Roman,you've gotta close the case,
(08:24):
then go down two cases and pullout the next case, and then
start setting from that case.
Then if you wanna put a line ofitalic in, you gotta go to
another case to get the italics.
If you wanna make it bold, yougotta go to a different case to
get the bold if you want it tobe.
It was condensed or expanded.
Once again, you've gotta go to adifferent case.
We've got Courants we've gotTimes Roman we've got
Kate (08:42):
down list of fonts.
Bob (08:44):
got all kind of manner of fonts here, too numerous to
mention.
Kate (08:48):
And what's your favorite font?
Bob (08:50):
Probably Coronet.
Ones that they used to use toprint wedding invitations on.
Kate (08:54):
So it's really curly...
Bob (08:55):
really curly and nice and, there's serif fonts and sans
serif fonts,.
So it's a great array of fontsto keep.
I mean, fonts range from fourpoint, which is smaller than
classifies, which are usuallyabout six points in the old
talk.
And today we, we run up to about72 point in lead types.
Then we have to go to woodentype to get the large letters.
So we've got a great array ofwooden letters here as well,
(09:17):
which is what we use for ourposter courses.
And everybody loves to come uphere being creative, especially
graphic artists who have no clueabout what they're doing up
here, but enjoy it immensely..
Kate (09:26):
What's your connection to printing?
Bob (09:28):
Well, my connection to the printing, I started as a
compositor, who was the personwho would've started setting by
hand back in 1966, but I didn'tdo a great deal of that cause
the linotype machines.
And I went through a placecalled Cumberland Newspapers for
18 years, then into rural pressfor the next 20 years, and then
the last 10 years with Fairfaxfrom 2007 to 2017 as CEO of
Print and Distribution and thenI found an interest in this
(09:49):
museum and restoring and saving,or trying to preserve the past
method of printing for thefuture generations as time moved
on.
So I became involved in thisabout eight years ago.
The museum itself started in2001, so it's been going for 22
years and was able to helporganize some funds for them to
grow and extend the building.
And we we're very fortunate thatwe're on the grounds of the
(10:11):
Paceway at Penrith because weget accommodation for free.
But we had to purchase thebuilding and run it as a, as a
self-funding operation full ofvolunteers started by one
fellow, who used to work as alinotype operator for the Nepean
times.
And when the Nepean times closedin 1962, after opening in 1880
(10:31):
or 82 he managed to score twopieces of equipment and start a
museum in 2001, and we've grownfrom that to where we are today.
So our, our motto is Preservingthe past for the future.
And and my aim is with thisgroup here is to find somewhere
with larger premises and makesure we can preserve the
knowledge and the equipment.
Cause the bigger deal about thismuseum is we are the only live
(10:55):
operating print museum in thesouthern hemisphere of this
size, as opposed to most museumsof any kind, which are usually
static.
And you just go and look atvarious pieces of equipment or
what's on show in a glasscabinet.
None of that here.
It's all operated by tradesman.
Everybody can participate insetting lines like they did back
in the Gutenberg day.
Or we can set their lines forthem on these machines, or we
(11:16):
show them how to print on handoperated machines and foot
operated machines.
And then finally we got power.
So if you think about it for aminute, there was no phone
numbers in the Sydney Heraldcause the telephone wasn't
invented till 1876 and there wasno pictures because there was no
camera till 1880.
So it was a pretty interestingtime for newspapers back then.
(11:36):
So we wanna try and keep thismuseum going for as long as we
can.
We're about 50 members andnearly all the people here are
from the trade, and they'requite enthusiastic about showing
the equipment, how it works topeople.
And the people who come here arequite amazed.
Most people, as you wouldimagine, would think that it
was, Oh, who wants to go to aprint museum and look at stuff?
But that's not the case here.
Kate (11:56):
What are the challenges facing the running of the
museum?
Bob (11:58):
The biggest challenge we've got in general is having enough
people coming through who areyounger to learn the process
here.
It's not hard to teach them howall this equipment works, but
it's getting people who come inand want to do the courses to
learn the machine and then staywith us.
There are quite a few boutiqueletter press printing operations
in Australia but every time theycome here and learn about our
(12:21):
equipment, they usually go offand start a boutique business.
However, we've run courses herenow for composing courses or
learning how to, to set type andprint.
We do actual printing courses ontop of that..
Then we do poster courses and weget a lot of young people who
come in to do these courses anddo it really well.
And they are young and they areshowing a big interest in us.
And as recently as last Friday,we had two young people come in,
(12:44):
graphic artists who did postercourses and were very creative
and learnt a lot about how itused to be and loved it.
So our aim is to keep thatgoing, attract younger members
to learn the skill because to befair, in about 10 or 15 years,
we won't be doing it..
Somebody needs to come in and,and, and shine the torch, if you
like, on this part of the trade.
And our biggest fear is we'dhate to see it just scrapped and
(13:07):
all this equipment either put ina basement somewhere or off to
SIM's metal, which is whathappens with most of it.
Kate (13:13):
Oh, that would be terrible.
That's very sad to think about.
What was the effect of covid onthe museum and visitorship?
Bob (13:20):
The last two years have been really difficult.
We had a whole lot of covidprocedures to try and stay open,
but people were naturally quitescared.
So we lost a couple of years,although we did still have quite
a few tours booked in, buteverybody had to take covid
precautions.
But it certainly impacted us onrevenue.
We didn't get as many visitorsand we didn't get as many tours
as what we normally get.
Kate (13:39):
What does the future look like for the museum?
Bob (13:42):
The future of the museum is in a bit of, difficulty at the
moment because InfrastructureNew South Wales are trying to
buy the Paceway, which is thesite on which the museum sits.
And they wanna build a newfootball stadium.
Now, the Paceway's been here for177 years and the Paceway owns
the land, which is about 11acres, and then there are six
businesses on this site,including the museum, the other
(14:03):
five are commercial enterprises.
They've looked after us for allthat time, which we greatly
appreciate.
We've gotta find a home withthem somewhere or somewhere else
to go, probably within the nextsix to 12 months.
Otherwise, we'll be forced toclose.
Our biggest fear in closing isthat we won't get the members
back cause they're not exactlyyoung people.
(14:23):
And secondly, we lose that skillset.
We'll be joining the rest of thelost trades skills that is
happening to most industries ofold.
So we are looking very, veryhard at the time now to raise as
much money as we can so we canthen look like a good
opportunity for someone to comein and take us on.
And then I've approached StuartAyres and many other ministers
about help.
(14:44):
And so far we haven't quite gotthere, but we are working with
the Paceway and the Pacewaywould want us to come with them,
but we'd have to have fund, ourown building..
So we need to get a grant tofund this museum going forward.
Kate (14:55):
So if you are or know anybody who is a wealthy
philanthropist and has a largeunoccupied building in Western
Sydney, please get in touch withBob.
Bob (15:05):
And as I said before, we need to make this museum last
because we are the onlyoperational museum.
Static museums is something wedon't wanna be.
Kate (15:15):
Why should people come and visit the Museum of Printing?
Bob (15:17):
You wanna come and visit this museum just to see exactly
how it was done, and you canplay an active role in what's
happening.
For instance, we'll set yourname and print it right in front
of your eyes.
We'll do all kinds of thingsthat you don't normally see and
you'll see it live.
You'll be able to touch and feeland have a go if you want to.
You'll be able to look at guysactually printing pedal operated
machines and printing, notnewspapers, but all and sundry
(15:40):
of commercial type work if theywish to.
And if they look at thephotographs around the walls in
here, you'll see that all thecompositors and the printers
were all well dressed.
Gentleman of an area youwould've thought would've been
all like a coal mine.
But it's not.
It was a highly respected tradeback in the day.
And they were all wearing whiteshirts and ties, and obviously
dust coats or aprons to protectthemselves, but it was a well
(16:01):
thought of trade back in theday.
So people wanna come and learnhow it was done and all about
it.
And especially children who'venever heard of anything about
how it was done in the past.
All they know is Google.
It's it's quite a history lessonfor the kids and a lot of the
kids are quite fascinated whenthey come in here.
And especially recently when thePenrith show was on, we had over
700 people through the doorshere.
(16:22):
Looking at all the equipmentwith their parents, and it was
terrific.
So we had a great deal of peopleshowing an interest and Wow, we
didn't even know you were here.
And that's our other biggestproblem.
We didn't even know you werehere.
Well, we got a good presence ona website, but it's not one of
those museums where you think,Oh, I must rush out and have a
look.
Kate (16:40):
Okay, enough chatting.
Bob's going to take us on a tourand show us how some of these
machines work.
Bob (16:45):
Not only will I show you how they work, I'll make you
operate them.
Kate (16:51):
We start the tour by looking at an 1857 edition of
the Sydney Morning Herald at thefront entrance.
Bob (16:57):
This is the daily, right?
So you just read a couple of,remember I told you there's no
phone numbers or No, nothing.
Kate (17:01):
Look at this one wanted by a respectable young lady lately
from England, A situation ashousekeeper.
Bob (17:07):
You're right.
And how do you get the person
Kate (17:09):
from the post office in Glebe?
Bob (17:11):
Yeah.
And then you gotta go here, careof Spring Street.
Like not even in Sydney.
can never believe that.
Like wanted a good what's saygood straw hand.
Kate (17:19):
a good straw hand! Mrs.
Bowering, Paramatta Street,
Bob (17:23):
So that's it.
So note, there's no pictures,right?
and there's no display ads.
You know, there's eight pages,all money.
Rivers are gold.
This is where the rivers a goldterm from the remember Fairfax
actually had the rivers of gold.
You heard that saying?
Kate (17:35):
So earlier in our chat, Bob and I worked out that we had
both worked at Fairfax for aperiod of time.
Rivers of gold was indeed aphrase I had heard.
It refers to the bulky,classified section of the
newspaper.
It was a very lucrative businessthat enabled Fairfax to power
its independent journalism untilthe internet really took off.
(17:57):
Then platforms like Gumtree,eBay and Seek disrupted the need
for paid classified.
Bob (18:03):
Back in the probably about 2005, 2007.
Like the rivers a gold.
They're just flowing money.
You know?
All the whole back of the bookwas classified, wasn't it?
Yeah.
And now the whole start of thebook was classified as not one
story in here.
Kate (18:16):
So there's no actual news in the newspaper?
Bob (18:19):
Public meetings.
Oh, I guess you'd call that newsbut they're public notices so
that's, page seven and pageeight.
Then your next one.
So they had eight pages onlyback in 1857.
And then this is all set, oneletter at a time, line by line.
Right.
So you can imagine how long ittake you, it'll take you
probably longer than eight hoursto do that, they'd have three
people working on that.
Kate (18:37):
And they would've had 50 people setting it to get it
done.
Bob (18:40):
and there's this little trick to knowing, somebody told
me that when you look at a line,sometimes you'll see more space
between the words at the end ofthe line.
They had to put a bit of extraspace in it.
it's lead, This big to make itfit and justify.
Whereas when they built this newmachine, it had different kind
of space bands between the wordsthat would justify them equally.
Whereas on this thing, you hadto do it all by hand.
(19:02):
So 1831, this started as aweekly, then it became a daily
at 1840, and this is 1857.
No phone numbers, no pictures
Kate (19:12):
wanted a cook none but a sober person Need apply.
Crown Inn, George Street South.
Bob (19:19):
There's a whole lot of that.
You think, oh my God, youwouldn't get away at that today.
I
Kate (19:21):
know Wanted a partner in a lucrative business to an active
young man with capital say 50pounds.
It's a first rate opportunity,which may not occur again.
for particulars apply 18 MarketStreet.
Bob (19:35):
See, not even Sydney.
Just Market Street.
Just Market
Kate (19:37):
Street.
Bob (19:37):
You see how they've got like a capital here, like a
drop, drop cap.
Well, when they're setting this,these lines here, whichever ad
they're doing, they've gottastart with the drop cap out of
this case, right?
And then get the go down to thelower, the six point out this
case, right?
So I'll just explain this toyou.
In inside, you're gonna see thisone here with all capitals in
it.
right?
And this one here with alllowercase, hence uppercase,
(20:00):
lowercase.
Right.
So that's where we, that's wherecase came from.
From That's where your uppercasecame from.
That's the terminology that's,and that's common today.
And that's lowercase.
And then that's how they firststarted doing the printing.
With 1450s, et cetera.
And then somebody in Americadecided we've gotta build
another one.
They called it a Californiancase.
Which was all in the one, theyhad the capitals here and all
the rest of the stuff was inhere.
(20:20):
So they redesigned the case.
And you'll notice that all theholes are different sizes.
Because you don't need many J's,Q's or Z's, you need lots of a E
I o U, you know?
That's why they're all differentsize holes.
Because every time you, set aline when you're finished, and
the job's printed, well thenyou've gotta give it to the
apprentice.
He's gotta come back and put allthe letters back in the right
hole.
Now if you don't put him in theright spot, that's not good for
(20:42):
the next person who has to comealong and set.
Cuz you can't throw'em away cuzthey couldn't afford it, right?
And in the cases inside the P'Sthere and the Q's there, right?
So when you're putting a B C PQ, putting them back in one
letter at a time, you put the pin the queue in the wrong.
That comes a saying, watch yourp's and q's! And then people say
(21:03):
it's all points type, right?
So that's 10 point, 12 point, 13point whatever.
do you measure in imperial ormetric?
I say no, you don't measure ineither.
You were measuring points andpicas and ems and ens.
Ems, ens and picas Right?
12 points in a pica, y yada,yada.
and they say, why is that?
And I say, well, you've gottahave a universal print size.
Cause Americans are all doingall this stuff in Imperial.
(21:25):
Europeans are all doing it inmetric.
So that's why they have aprinters measure.
Otherwise it'll be a disaster,wouldn't it?
It
Kate (21:31):
Ems, ens, picas and points does it sound familiar?
Shout out to all the programmersout there who know that we still
use the same universal units ofmeasurements of ems in CSS and
print designers still use ems,picas and points.
Bob (21:47):
this is where all the different type cases are and,
and how you set the job up backin the early days.
Kate (21:52):
Bob's showing me how to set up a page using the
Californian job case and acomposing stick.
The case is a wooden box withdifferent sized compartments for
each letter or character.
It includes spaces of differentwidth as well.
Bob (22:06):
So you get your copy.
Not typed because you haven'tgot typewriters yet.
So someone's handwritten thecopy and they want to write a
story for the newspaper.
So you've got all these guyswith a, with a setting stick
like this.
The compositors were the peoplewho had to work out how many
words per line and how manylines per page and all that.
So you, you'd have to go overhere, you set this to whatever
size line you wanted, you know,so most column newspapers are
(22:27):
nine ems wide.
So you set that to the nine emswide.
You stand beside a rack likethis of what size type you want,
and there's all your letters,right?
And they're not marked.
Kate (22:36):
Each tray has letters that aren't marked and apprentices
are taught at a young age tomemorize which cases are which.
Bob (22:43):
and he wants to change type now or change font.
So you gotta go a differentdraw.
30, 36 point Century Schoolbook, 42 point old style
condensed.
So there's all these cases, alldifferent fonts, all different
fonts.
So one case italic, one could bebold, one could be expanded, one
could be condensed.
All different typefaces.
All that stuff up the backthere.
That's what they call furniture.
(23:04):
Cuz after we build the page,you've gotta space it out to get
it ready to print.
And if you come over here, thisone here, that's four point,
Kate (23:11):
that's tiny.
Bob (23:12):
So you, you grab hold of that and hold it.
Um, that.
So you gotta sit at one of thesecases and set this size, type.
that's what those composites aredoing back in, back in the day
Kate (23:21):
Bob then shows me what looks like a stamp with
individual letters set out init, each letter by letter.
Within it, my untrained eye canspot at least three different
typefaces-Roman, italics, andcaps.
It took Steve, anothervolunteer, about half an hour to
create this.
How, how long did it take?
That's half an hour.
And what does it say?
Bob (23:42):
You read it
Kate (23:43):
To read the stamp, I need to read back to front and upside
down.
But, the flowery typefaces withdecorative ascenders and
descenders make it really hardto distinguish the shape of each
letter.
Bob (23:57):
Now read it.
Just start from the left and goacross That way
Kate (24:00):
It will lead you.
Dreams.
No.
Bob (24:03):
Go.
Go.
Kate (24:03):
Down, down, mate.
Yep.
It will leadyou the Down down,no.
Stuck on the left.
Down the bog road.
Road.
Road.
Two of, of happiness.
Yeah.
We don't wanna go down the bog.
stuck in the mud.
Bob (24:22):
So you can imagine doing that.
Do you, do you wanna set?
And her name?
I will set her name for her.
Kate (24:29):
Oh, awesome.
Steve (24:29):
Ready for this is the old Fashion case.
The big letters up on tops Uhhuhdown.
Kate (24:37):
Upper Cape.
Yeah.
Right.
So miniscule and magiscule?
Steve (24:41):
Okay.
So what is your name?
Kate (24:43):
Kate.
K a t e.
Steve (24:44):
Oh, see that's easy.
Bob (24:45):
No wait minute.
What about Maryanne make himwork hard for his money.
Steve (24:50):
I can do that.
Kate (24:51):
Do you charge by the letter?
Bob (24:52):
Yeah, absolutely.
So you're watching go K A T E.
Why is a J in the U in adifferent spot, Graham?
Kate (25:00):
That's because in ancient times there was no Letter U,
they actually used the letter V.
You might have seen some statuesof Julius Caesar, where it's
spelled J V l i v s as the V wasused as the U.
Interestingly, the letter J wasused as a decorative variant of
(25:21):
the letter I by the ancientRomans.
In 1524, a bloke called, Who wasan Italian renaissance
grammarian, made the J part ofthe alphabet.
He then became known as thefather of the letter J.
And, the ampersand character.
(25:41):
How do we get that?
Well, the letters e and t werewritten together to mean"and".
When scribes used cursive,they'd connect the two letters
into one symbol.
And if you look hard at theampersand, you can sort of
visualize those two letterstoday.
So that's a long-winded story onwhy the last three letters in
(26:01):
the type case, that's the woodenbox that stores the movable type
are j, u, and ampersand it'sbecause they weren't added until
after the fact.
Bob (26:10):
And that's why they were later.
Kate (26:11):
So how long was the compositor's apprenticeship for
them?
Bob (26:14):
Five years.
Oh, six years in the early days,Then I went, then I went to
four.
Four.
You did four, didn't you?
I learned, I learned mine infour.
You, you were smarter than theother blokes.
So this is all our wooden type.
So you can imagine what funyou'd have doing like a poster
course, sitting all poster up inthese wooden, they're beautiful
typefaces And all this lead isjust amazing, you know?
So, he's made up his little jobthere, right?
And then he's gonna put onthere, he's gonna proof it, and
(26:36):
then if he's got anycorrections, he's gotta go there
and take that little letter outand put the other letter in.
Or if he's missed a word, he'sgotta turn the line right over
or the whole line.
we've got, we've got racks andracks and racks of this.
And people love it, you know?
So the point I'm trying to makeis, there's a lot of history
here.
You can't let go.
It's just too much.
Kate (26:50):
There's a book from poster courses of flourishy,
motivational posters.
One says, I did a letter pressworkshop, and I made this
poster.
Bob (26:59):
So all these guys made all these things over the years
here.
Kate (27:02):
Life isn't about finding yourself, it's about creating
yourself.
Ralph (27:07):
So they, we tell'em to come up with a, idea, some
people do lyrics from a song.
Something they just make up orsomething from a book, and they
come here and put it together.
Kate (27:16):
So that was the old style of type setting that used a
composing stick where youmanually composed words out of
individual letters andpunctuation marks stored in a
shallow subdivided trays, or"cases" as we just learned.
Bob (27:30):
Now, so what happens after that?
that era last from 1450 to the1880s.
1890s, right.
Then somebody at the New YorkPost said, we've gotta find a
better way of setting.
Kate (27:40):
Now this is the linotype machine that Bob talked about
before, and it reduced the timeneeded to set a newspaper column
from six to eight hours to just20 minutes.
So though the Linotype machinecame about in about 1880, this
particular machine is a 1950smodel and it's called an inter
type.
Any audio description of whatthis linotype machine looks like
(28:03):
will be absolutely paltry incomparison to its real life
version, simply because it's socomplex.
It basically looks like amachine from a Studio Ghibli
movie with so many separateparts, whirring and clicking and
moving in different rhythms allto make it work.
Bob (28:21):
There's your keyboard, all your capitals there, it's all
your numbers, punctuation, andyour lower case there, right?
So you put your copy in here,someone's handwritten, your
copy, and you're a newspapercomp and, copy comes in here so
you start setting.
So that's, that's how this thingworks.
There's your space.
You do your word space.
The quick brown fox jumped overthe lazy cow, boom, boom, boom,
(28:44):
boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,boom.
Then you get to the end of yourline.
So there, and you can see itcomes down through there, simple
as that's a belt shoot some alldown at the right.
Kate (28:57):
In physical terms, it's like a desk that you sit at with
a typewriter as the desk baseand a very high back to the desk
that kind of resembles a churchorgan.
Each letter in the typewriterpart is attached to a slide of
individual letters above thedesk.
The typewriter part is a 90character keyboard, and when you
(29:18):
quite loudly hit each letter, itkind of drops an individual mold
of that letter-called a mat-into another section of the
machine called an escapement.
And as you hit each letter, itcomposes a whole line of text in
the escapement.
That line is called a slug.
Bob (29:38):
Then it punches, it pops outta line with the letters on
the line.
And to do that, instead of usingthose lead letters over there,
now we have brass letters.
See, each one of these is abrass letter.
And that's got two things on it.
You've got Roman and italic,right?
So this machine will let youpush this up to make it Roman.
Or italic.
And then you use these spacesand they, they sort of slide up
(30:00):
and down.
So when the line's sitting inhere, it'll make your lines all
equal
Kate (30:04):
So once you create a slug or a line of type, the
compositor will tell the machinethat the line is complete and it
moves it to a casting section bya series of levers.
The casting process heats theslug and melts it all together,
so that the finished product isa molded metal line of type,
ready to be added to a column!
Bob (30:27):
there's a hunk of lead on that chain, it goes into that
molten lead there.
So the molten lead round therecomes out of there straight
away, and then you've got yourfinished line set and already
set.
But it's bloody hot, you know?
Kate (30:38):
They must go through so many of them.
Bob (30:39):
Yeah.
Yeah, you do.
So what happens here is overthere, when you finish your
line, it's printed and all thatsort of stuff.
Then you put your lines back inthe box.
But here, when we finishprinting the newspaper or
whatever job, if the job's notgonna be a repeat, you'll put
all this back in the meltingpot.
It's a hundred percent recycledbut if you're keeping it, you
might keep this for a hundredyears, cuz you might pull it out
(31:00):
and put, run it again in thenewspaper.
you An ad usually ads they tieup and put in a rack, go back
and get the, you know, theDunlop tyre ad, and put it back
in the page, So you can imaginehow much expertise would've been
in getting those four right atthe right time.
And the bloke who invented thisthing was a the watchmaker, And
then the guy, the guys are sogood.
Mm-hmm.
When they're setting this stuff,they were piece operators.
(31:22):
So they got paid by how muchthey set, and you had to set it
right.
So just say this all goes over.
So it's a newspaper.
This all gets picked up by anapprentice or somebody.
When he finishes, the story,taken over to somewhere else.
Put ink on it.
Puts a bit of wet paper on it,pats it down, sends the copy and
the proof to the readers.
The readers read it, copy themistakes in.
It comes back to the operatorwho sent it or comes back to any
(31:45):
operator.
He sets a new line, wraps it upin a bit of paper, takes it back
to the comp room over on the,bench then, and he takes the old
line out and puts the new linein.
Right.
And that's linotype.
So that's 136 of these Sydney,Morning Herald 24 7.
Kate (31:59):
From getting the news two days later, now you can get the
news and the classified everysingle day, but alas, the
linotype machine didn't doeverything, there is a separate
machine that does the headingscalled the Ludlow.
Bob (32:13):
This is the machine that does the headings, These only go
up to about 12.8 and they've gotfour different cases in there.
So you just change cases bywinding it up.
Then you just change cases.
That's how simple that is.
This machine sets the headingsbecause you can only go up to
about 14 points there.
Yeah.
So you've set your name in hereby doing the same thing.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
Yeah.
One letter at a time and thenyou pop it in here and you press
press, press it down, press thebutton, and it spits out a line
(32:34):
of type
Kate (32:35):
do not touch.
Bob (32:36):
Yeah.
So that's how you set all theheadings on this machine.
Kate (32:38):
In addition to the 136 Linotype machines, they would've
had 20 heading machines at thesmh.
Now that we've set newspapercolumns and added a heading, how
do we make it into a printedpage?
Then you add some borders bycutting lead pieces into the
shape of the border that youwant.
Then you assemble the page withother blocks of reusable things
(32:59):
like logos
Bob (33:01):
And this is the Columbian press I told you about.
So this is an 1841 Columbianpress built in England, but
American design due to theeagle.
So this bloke, put all fancystuff on it to, you know, get
his moniker on it, if you like.
Kate (33:15):
The Columbian press is a very elaborate cast iron press.
It uses a flatbed, so there'ssort of two flat metal plates
operated by levers.
The eagle itself on the top ofthe machine is said to weigh 23
kilograms and actually acts as acounterweight to raise one of
the metal plates after printing.
Bob (33:35):
And this is how they have to do paper, right?
So we show everybody all this.
So under, here's a, there's a 16page booklet, right?
All handset.
All handset over there.
Kate (33:43):
The booklet is a small, A6 size booklet titled The Penrith
Museum of Printing.
By handset Bob means thatsomebody assembled the letters
by hand as shown before.
Because we want the 16 pagebooklet to be front to back and
right side up, there's a littlebit of brain work to do to make
sure this happens.
Bob (34:02):
So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
Then you print it, then you turnit and you what they call work
and turn it.
So you work it, then you turnit, and then you print on the
other side of the paper, andthen you end up with this So
page five.
So it'll be on the back of that.
It'll be your four or six, 11,12.
So then you've gotta fold it up.
So you gotta have'em in theright order to fold.
This is called imposition,right?
(34:23):
And this, this still appliestoday.
So you end up with that, andthen we put hand staples in it
and you gotta chop the top, thefront and the bottom with a
couple of staples.
now you've got your little 16page booklet.
Kate (34:34):
That's a lot of effort for a 16 page book.
Bob (34:36):
You might print 10,000 of 'em, but you imagine doing it,
doing it on here.
So how this works is so this isall set over there, right the
compositor and he puts it inthis steel frame.
And all these things are little,little things to stretch it out
so it doesn't all fall the bits.
Cause if you've got individualletters and you pick it up,
that'll drop out.
Kate (34:50):
And this is why newspaper copy had to be justified a
hundred percent so that theletters wouldn't fall out.
Bob (34:57):
So you get your inking rolls here, you ink it all up,
then you lay a bit of paper ontop.
Then you pop this thing down.
We've inked it, we put our paperon.
We roll are under.
Then I've gotta turn it over anddo the page two or the, sorry,
front and back
Kate (35:10):
times eight times 750.
Bob (35:11):
Yeah, that's it.
Yeah.
Wow.
And then you pick that up andthen you'll have all your image
on there.
Right.
So that's the, that's how theydid it in 1840, all by hand.
This thing is from 1864, and itwas used by Angus and Coote in
Sydney, So that's how they didit before you had electricity.
So you printed off a flatbedlike that for newspapers for a
(35:32):
hundred years.
Then they had to get a bitsmarter and a bit faster cause
they had these things, right?
So in 1860s before these wereinvented, they invented faster
machines.
Kate (35:40):
Bob shows me some of what are called job machines.
Machines used to print smallerjobs like letters, business
cards and pamphlets, notnewspapers.
There's one called an Arab and aChandler and Price, and I would
highly recommend watching videosof how these work on YouTube.
Bob (35:56):
Now this one is the Wharfedale which the Nepean
Times started.
and this thing it runs about1500 copies an hour.
Hey Ralph, if you wanna do ademo.
Yeah.
Well, you want me to do it See,I knew I'd get him Start her up
and get into it.
Now,
Kate (36:11):
the Wharfedale press is huge, maybe four meters long and
a meter high.
It has a flatbed and a bigcylinder.
The flatbed, which is called aform, holds the paper and moves
backwards and forwards while therotating cylinder makes the
impression on the paper.
It looks incredibly complex tomanage and has so many literal
(36:34):
moving parts when in operationand they all make different
noises, you'll soon hear them.
It's so rhythmic, I wouldn't besurprised if the Wharfedale
press is added to asm sleepsound apps.
Bob (36:46):
So this thing here, you watch this it's a beauty, so
you've got a hand feed at onesheet at a time.
Whoops.
He's, he's got a belt court.
Kate (36:55):
Are you an expert at this one, Bob?
Bob (36:57):
No, no.
I'm, I'm learning So in here,see the forme in there?
Kate (37:01):
Yep.
Bob (37:02):
So that's The Age, right?
That's The Age newspaper, nowlet me tell you, what year do
you reckon we were still usingLead?
That's the last lead front pageof the age.
Oh.
Produced like that?
Kate (37:13):
The eighties?
Bob (37:13):
83.
Kate (37:14):
83?
Bob (37:15):
Yeah.
You wouldn't think so, wouldyou?
You think all photo composingand all that sort of stuff.
So the rollers go across.
There's ink up in there.
Well, what's it, Ralph?
This, this roller is not inthat, is that right?
Is that the space on that angle?
Okay.
Ralph (37:28):
Oh, you always put'em on an angle, right?
It helps to break the ink up
Bob (37:31):
right on.
Okay.
Ralph (37:32):
That's another trick that you learn every day.
See?
Bob (37:35):
there's a joy about working here.
we don't work here, Ralph, weplay here.
So you're printing the front andback at the same time.
So instead of doing what I justshowed you over there, Sydney,
Morning, Herald.
Now we're doing that and this,we've gotta hand feed the sheets
in, which we'll do in a second.
Stick a bit of paper in Ralph.
(37:57):
so we cut that sheet size to thesize of whatever size of book is
you gotta print.
Ralph (38:01):
Yep.
These a broad sheet newspaper
Bob (38:02):
Fix it up back there on the other side.
You put the next sheet in, backit up.
You're getting 15,000 hour.
15,
Kate (38:13):
1500.
Sorry.
1500.
1500.
So pretend that's a blank sheet,right?
Yep.
We're gonna put
Bob (38:17):
that in now.
It goes through blank nowprinting and now it comes out
the top rolled over.
Then you pull the sheet out andcheck it to make sure it's done
(38:37):
properly.
Kate (38:39):
How long does it take the ink to dry usually?
Bob (38:40):
Oh, it's like a normal newspaper.
Couple hours.
So that's, that's, that's a goodexample of that's what started
the museum.
Kate (38:47):
So what happened to the Nepean Times?
Bob (38:49):
Just, just folded.
Just folded.
Like a lot of newspapers.
They all just fold.
Kate (38:52):
Yes.
Newspapers tend to fold.
Bob (38:56):
This would be pretty, spot on what you'd see in any country
commercial print shop.
In the 18, 19 hundreds.
Yeah through it in about 1940probably before they made these
things So there's yourColombian, that's that one over
there.
But then they said, okay,instead of feeding it by a
sheet, let's put a roll in, anewsprint in there.
Cause let's be a bit smarter.
This is 1888, right.
So let's put a roll in and runit through all here, through all
(39:17):
the rollers, and then let'sprint both sides of the paper at
the same time.
So how can you do that on a big,flat hunk of metal like this?
Right.
that's what they were printingoff, right?
Kate (39:29):
So you can't print around a cylinder with the flatbeds as
it doesn't bend.
What they did is they made apaper mache of the page and
called it a flong, it's like amold.
Bob (39:39):
Then they put that mold in a curved cylinder thing Uhhuh
and made that plate just there.
That thing there.
You wanna try and lift that up?
So there was one of these forevery day?
Yep.
Kate (39:48):
One of these.
Oh my God.
That'll do you.
Bob (39:52):
So that's one tabloid, one broad sheet page.
Kate (39:54):
Yeah.
Right.
Bob (39:54):
And you put one side of the cylinder.
And then one on the other sideof the cylinder.
And then you're print two pagesa time.
but he's still catching'em byhand.
So then they said, okay, welllet's make a folder, which is
this thing here.
So it goes through here.
And these things have may justcome out and this thing now has
got the roll and newsprint, andnow it's coming through the
machine and print.
16 pages probably then slittingthe slitting, this roll here in
(40:17):
half up here, then folding itand spitting out a finished
paper.
Right?
That's how much it changed then.
Kate (40:22):
It's a steam powered rotary printing press, which
enabled the mass production ofnewspapers through a continuous
press.
The press operated at up to 2000revolutions per hour, and each
revolution produced four pageimages giving the press a
throughput of 8,000 pages perhour.
How it worked is that basicallythere are two cylinders that
(40:45):
turn in opposite directions.
One roll has a curved printingplate attached to the surface,
and the other cylinder works topress the paper to the inked
plates.
The rolls have a big enoughcircumference that they can have
two or more plates, so that witheach revolution, the cylinder
prints two or more copies of thesame page.
Bob (41:06):
So when one roll runs out, the next roll speeds up to the
speed of the press.
It's got a pace pattern on it.
Something forces the incomingsheet on the outgoing sheet cuts
it off and it runs straight upthrough here without stopping
Comes all the way through hereand it comes out as a finished
book at the end.
Now we're doing 30,000 copies anhour.
Kate (41:22):
So those 1938 copies of the SMH we spoke about before?
They would've been done on amachine like that, and the
printing presses were inBroadway in Sydney.
That's right- jones Street,where the shopping center is
now.
They would've had 136 linotypemachines and nine printing
presses that are four storieshigh.
Bob (41:42):
And when I was a kid I used to go and, insert papers on
Friday night for a hundred bucksa night.
We used to think it wasChristmas
Kate (41:48):
But wait, that's only black and white ink.
How did we get the crisp fullcolor newspapers that we know
today?
Bob (41:54):
So they said, oh, let's put another unit on top.
And we'll put red ink in it
Kate (41:58):
And after they experimented with Red Ink, they
invented new printing pressesthat had C M Y K in it, cyan,
magenta, yellow, and black.
Bob (42:07):
Paper go straight up through the middle.
Get the timing right.
You get 16 pages of full color.
Kate (42:12):
Wow.
So getting colour was feedingthe paper up vertically in
Bob (42:16):
In newspapers.
So that's how it went fromletterpress printing from 1450,
all through that, up to this to1996.
Kate (42:24):
And how did they do it after 1996?
Bob (42:27):
Instead of printing on that plate that I just showed you,
round one, they went to Offset,which is this plate.
and we go straight from computerto plate now.
Kate (42:34):
Today, most newspaper printers are powered by
computers, using the same offsetprinting technique.
It starts with a computerizeddesktop publishing version of
the whole edition of anewspaper, which is transferred
to an etching station, whichthen produces aluminium positive
plates of each page.
These plates are inked andmounted on a specialized press
(42:56):
in such a way that they transferthe image to a set of rubber
rollers, which in turn transferthe image of each page onto the
paper.
The process is called offsetbecause the aluminium plates do
not actually touch the papergoing through the press.
They transfer the image onto therubber rollers instead.
Although the presses are reallybig and noisy, the rollers are
(43:19):
remarkably gentle on thenewsprint and can feed the
newsprint through its rollswithout tearing.
These complex machines arecalled web presses because they
use streaming paper instead ofindividual sheets.
The web presses are veryexpensive and can reach seven
stories tall.
Today's presses also combine allof the steps of printing,
(43:41):
cutting, and assembling anewspaper into one unit.
So the final output is anewspaper in correct sequence.
And the stats?
A modern offset press can churn70,000 copies an hour onto
conveyor belts.
So Bob, thank you so much forcoming on the podcast today.
Bob (43:59):
My pleasure.
Absolutely delighted to be here.
Kate (44:08):
The Museum of Printing is open every Sunday and entry is
$5.
Tours are run for groups of allshapes and sizes, and last about
two and a half hours, whichincludes a punchy history of
printing and a demonstration ofthe operational linotype
machines.
I'm told probus groups love themuseum tours, and to organize
(44:29):
one, you can get in touch withthe museum.
The museum in its currentpremise is on one flat level and
is wheelchair accessible.
There is ample car parking andchairs are offered for group
tours.
So Boomers, I hope you neverhave to Google"how to print"
again, as this episode shouldhave given you a pretty good
(44:52):
idea on how to print.
I think it's so amazing thatwe've gone from printing letter
by letter to line by line, andthen front and back pages at the
same time, and so on and so on.
We haven't even delved into thepower of the printed word, but
just the technology behind it Ithink is so fascinating.
(45:16):
Thanks for listening to Roadshowand Tell.
If you enjoyed this deep diveinto a specialty museum, make
sure you subscribe so you don'tmiss an episode.
We're a new podcast.
So if you wanna help support us,please share it with a friend
and leave a rating and review.
If you are involved with or knowof a regional or specialty
museum that should be featured,please get in touch at
(45:37):
roadshowandtell@gmail.com.
I'm your host, Kate.
Roadshow and Tell was edited andproduced on the lands of the
Gadigal people.
I acknowledge the TraditionalCustodians of the various lands
on which you may be listeningfrom, and the lands that the
museums featured in this podcastreside on.
(45:59):
I also acknowledge anyAboriginal or Torres Strait
Islander people listening tothis podcast.
I pay my respects to elderspast, present, and emerging, and
celebrate the diversity ofAboriginal peoples and their
ongoing cultures and connectionsto the lands and waters of
Australia.
So the news is two days old before you get it.
Kate (00:04):
Wanted a cook none but a sober person Need apply.
Bob (00:10):
we need to make this museum last because we are the only
operational museum
Kate (00:19):
Welcome to Roadshow and tell a podcast for people hoping
to improve their pub trivia teamscore.
I'm your host, Kate, and I'llvisit museums so you can learn
things you never knew you wantedto.
Today we're visiting Penrith, asuburb in Greater Western
Sydney, about 50 minutes fromthe c CBD and we'll be visiting
(00:42):
the Penrith Museum of Printing.
In this episode, we'll learn howcompositors used to set out
newspaper columns, how theLinotype machine revolutionized
print production, and how theSydney Morning Herald was
produced before electricity.
So today I'm at the PenrithMuseum of Printing with Bob
(01:02):
Lockley, the president.
Welcome, Bob.
Bob (01:04):
Thank you.
Kate (01:05):
So Bob, whose land are we on today?
Bob (01:07):
We're on the Dharug People's land.
Kate (01:09):
Why Penrith for this museum?
Bob (01:11):
Well, the, museum started in Penrith and it should be
really called Australia's PrintHeritage Center, but it's the
Penrith Museum of Printingbecause the gentleman who used
to work at the Nepean timesmanaged to score the equipment.
We've got some 1857 SydneyMorning Heralds here.
And the reason we focus on thestory of the Sydney Morning
Herald, cause the Sydney Heraldslash Sydney Morning Herald is
Australia's longest continuousrunning daily newspaper.
(01:35):
okay.
So the history of printingstarts for us in 1450 when,
Johan Gutenberg invented movabletype in a larger scale than what
was previously done by theKoreans and the Chinese.
So he invented metal moveabletype, which then spread the word
around the world.
And Johan Gutenberg was fromManse in Germany.
And we've got what we believe tobe the first way the printing
(01:58):
evolved back in those days byhand setting each letter one
word at a time..
And lasted from 1450 rightthrough till 1880 when they
invented a linotype machine toautomatically set lines of type
instead of word at a time thatcould print set line at a time.
And during that time, there wasno change in technology for 450
years.
And we get a change oftechnology every three and a
(02:18):
half minutes today, but backthen we only had a change in
technology from 1450 to 1890.
18 80, 1890s.
Kate (02:25):
So when the printing equipment came to Australia that
used the line by line pressrather than the letter by
letter?
Bob (02:31):
Mm-hmm.
Kate (02:32):
And how cubersome was it to create maybe one page of
printing?.
Bob (02:35):
On the old fashioned style of the Gutenberg style, it
would've taken eight hours toset a column in a newspaper, but
on these new linotype machinescalled a line of type for that
very reason, they would printthat same column in 20 minutes.
And and I'm specifically talkingabout the Sydney Morning Herald.
Kate (02:51):
20 minutes.
So they could pretty easily pushout a whole paper of about how
many pages?
Bob (02:57):
Well, they printing eight pages at a time b ack in the day
from 1831.
And when, when the Linotypescame in, in the 1880s, well then
they were able to increase thepagination as the population
grew.
Kate (03:06):
What's the history of printing in Australia?
Bob (03:09):
The history of printing in Australia goes back to,
obviously just after CaptainCook landed, and people started
producing small newspapers fordifferent areas and importing
all the knowledge and equipmentfrom the people from London at
England et cetera.
Kate (03:22):
When they imported the equipment from England, did they
also bring over people that weretrained to use it?
Bob (03:27):
Well, I can give you a specific example of one of the
pieces of equipment in thebuilding.
It's from 1841 and it wastransported out here by a boat
and with, it would've come, anengineer or somebody, a printer
who could run it.
And that piece of equipment wasstarted printing the Carcoar
Chronicle in 1841 through to1939 and that piece of equipment
is, is in here and operationaltoday.
(03:47):
And we demonstrate it all thetime, and it's the same press
that was used to print theSydney Herald in 1830.
Kate (03:53):
And could all the people in the colonies read what was
printed?
Bob (03:56):
Yes, I would say so.
And that's what helped educateeverybody with the printed word
being spread.
And it wasn't just newspapers,it was all kinds of manner of
printing, like business cardsand letterheads and all
different types of presses toprint different types of
product.
But most of it was imported fromEngland in the very, very early
days.
And then over time, moreequipment came from other parts
of the world to Australia as thecolony grew.
Kate (04:16):
tell me more about the history of the SMH.
Bob (04:19):
Okay.
They started out as the SydneyHerald in 1831 and two gentlemen
from England came to Sydney andthey imported a Colombian
printing press very similar tothe one we've got in this
building on display that printedthe Carcoar Chronicle.
Now the Sydney Herald wasprinted on this Columbian
printing press for 22 years.
It started out as a weeklypublication.
(04:39):
For the first nine years of itstime, it became a commercial
success and became the SydneyMorning Herald in 1840.
And in 1841 it was bought by theFairfax family who owned it from
1841 through till about threeyears ago when Channel Nine
bought it.
So back in 1831 when the SydneyHerald started, they were
(05:01):
printing 750 copies a week for apopulation of 70,000 people in
Australia, Melbourne wasn't evenheard of then.
Kate (05:08):
And what sort of stuff would be in the newspaper at
that time?
Bob (05:11):
It's mostly classified, I think.
It is.
Kate (05:13):
Mostly classified?
Bob (05:14):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Kate (05:15):
Well, that's what made print run, wasn't it,
classifieds.
Bob (05:17):
Actually, the answer to the question was that Sydney Morning
Herald back in the was mostly aclassified section with no
display ads, no photographs, andno phone numbers.
The ads on the front pages ofthe paper you'll read will be a
request for a skill set.
And please go to George Street,Sydney, number 25 for an
interview.
Kate (05:36):
And these people would pay for the ads?
Bob (05:38):
Yes, they would've, yes.
They would've paid for the adsand they would've paid for the
paper.
Six pence, in fact.
Kate (05:43):
A six pence.
Wow.
So even from the early days, itreally was classified powering
the newspaper printing?
Bob (05:49):
Definitely financially, definitely.
Kate (05:51):
So the printing presses then on a good day, would
average about two copies perminute with two people working
it.
Then they'd have to wait for theink to dry, turn it over and
print the other pages because itwas a broad sheet.
So how long did it take to dothis print run of 750 copies of
the SMH
Bob (06:10):
Taken'em probably two days.
So the news is two days oldbefore you get it.
That's why newspapers are introuble today because we get the
news on our phone every threeand a half minutes.
But the Sydney Morning Herald,or the Telegraph last night
would've been printed off thepresses at 11 o'clock.
So anything after 11 o'clockdoesn't make the presses cause
they gotta distribute thenewspapers all around the
country.
So it's a big job to get'em outon time.
(06:30):
So people say, Why would wewanna read newspapers?
We don't wanna read yesterday'snews..
So we're teaching you how theyused to read and print
yesterday's news.
Kate (06:39):
It's more than just keen typographers and members of the
public that are interested inthis museum.
Film crews love the PrintingMuseum for its authentic
equipment and rustic set.
Bob (06:50):
We've had quite a few movies made here.
Wild boys have used this sitefor part of their shows,
especially the peter Rabbits oneand two have taken pieces of
equipment and used it in theirshoots.
Ladies in Black was shot herewith Shane Jacobson operating
our linotype machine at theSydney Morning Herald in 1958
when he was setting the resultsfor the High School certificates
for the Ladies in Black.
Kate (07:11):
I remember that scene.
Bob (07:12):
And Bruce Beresford, who was the director, had Shane
Jacobson's role as aproofreader..
But when he came in here and sawthe uh, linotype machines, he
changed his role immediately toa type setter.
So our guys had to teach ShaneJacobson how to operate this
machine.
And in the show on his job is alinotype operator at the Sydney
Morning Herald.
And that scene, was shot in hereon these very machines.
(07:34):
And some of our members are inthe shoot.
Kate (07:35):
And how did he go operating the linotype machine?
Bob (07:37):
He was bloody hopeless.
Kate (07:40):
Let's not get him back then.
Bob (07:41):
No, no, no.
He, he was brilliant.
He did well, It looked like hewas very proficient at what he
did.
Oh, that's part of being anactor, I suppose, So we're
becoming very popular of latefor that kind of memorabilia
movies, shoots, plays oranything to do with the past.
So people wanting to create thehistory using the exact
equipment, it's all here andavailable.
Kate (08:01):
How many fonts have you got, Bob?
Bob (08:02):
That's a great question.
How many fonts have we got?
We've probably got a hundreddifferent fonts here.
And each font is in a differentprinting case.
So unlike your computer at home,if you wish to set a line at
home, you just choose your font,press the button and go for your
life.
But here, if you wanna change afont from eight point times
Roman to 12 point times Roman,you've gotta close the case,
(08:24):
then go down two cases and pullout the next case, and then
start setting from that case.
Then if you wanna put a line ofitalic in, you gotta go to
another case to get the italics.
If you wanna make it bold, yougotta go to a different case to
get the bold if you want it tobe.
It was condensed or expanded.
Once again, you've gotta go to adifferent case.
We've got Courants we've gotTimes Roman we've got
Kate (08:42):
down list of fonts.
Bob (08:44):
got all kind of manner of fonts here, too numerous to
mention.
Kate (08:48):
And what's your favorite font?
Bob (08:50):
Probably Coronet.
Ones that they used to use toprint wedding invitations on.
Kate (08:54):
So it's really curly...
Bob (08:55):
really curly and nice and, there's serif fonts and sans
serif fonts,.
So it's a great array of fontsto keep.
I mean, fonts range from fourpoint, which is smaller than
classifies, which are usuallyabout six points in the old
talk.
And today we, we run up to about72 point in lead types.
Then we have to go to woodentype to get the large letters.
So we've got a great array ofwooden letters here as well,
(09:17):
which is what we use for ourposter courses.
And everybody loves to come uphere being creative, especially
graphic artists who have no clueabout what they're doing up
here, but enjoy it immensely..
Kate (09:26):
What's your connection to printing?
Bob (09:28):
Well, my connection to the printing, I started as a
compositor, who was the personwho would've started setting by
hand back in 1966, but I didn'tdo a great deal of that cause
the linotype machines.
And I went through a placecalled Cumberland Newspapers for
18 years, then into rural pressfor the next 20 years, and then
the last 10 years with Fairfaxfrom 2007 to 2017 as CEO of
Print and Distribution and thenI found an interest in this
(09:49):
museum and restoring and saving,or trying to preserve the past
method of printing for thefuture generations as time moved
on.
So I became involved in thisabout eight years ago.
The museum itself started in2001, so it's been going for 22
years and was able to helporganize some funds for them to
grow and extend the building.
And we we're very fortunate thatwe're on the grounds of the
(10:11):
Paceway at Penrith because weget accommodation for free.
But we had to purchase thebuilding and run it as a, as a
self-funding operation full ofvolunteers started by one
fellow, who used to work as alinotype operator for the Nepean
times.
And when the Nepean times closedin 1962, after opening in 1880
(10:31):
or 82 he managed to score twopieces of equipment and start a
museum in 2001, and we've grownfrom that to where we are today.
So our, our motto is Preservingthe past for the future.
And and my aim is with thisgroup here is to find somewhere
with larger premises and makesure we can preserve the
knowledge and the equipment.
Cause the bigger deal about thismuseum is we are the only live
(10:55):
operating print museum in thesouthern hemisphere of this
size, as opposed to most museumsof any kind, which are usually
static.
And you just go and look atvarious pieces of equipment or
what's on show in a glasscabinet.
None of that here.
It's all operated by tradesman.
Everybody can participate insetting lines like they did back
in the Gutenberg day.
Or we can set their lines forthem on these machines, or we
(11:16):
show them how to print on handoperated machines and foot
operated machines.
And then finally we got power.
So if you think about it for aminute, there was no phone
numbers in the Sydney Heraldcause the telephone wasn't
invented till 1876 and there wasno pictures because there was no
camera till 1880.
So it was a pretty interestingtime for newspapers back then.
(11:36):
So we wanna try and keep thismuseum going for as long as we
can.
We're about 50 members andnearly all the people here are
from the trade, and they'requite enthusiastic about showing
the equipment, how it works topeople.
And the people who come here arequite amazed.
Most people, as you wouldimagine, would think that it
was, Oh, who wants to go to aprint museum and look at stuff?
But that's not the case here.
Kate (11:56):
What are the challenges facing the running of the
museum?
Bob (11:58):
The biggest challenge we've got in general is having enough
people coming through who areyounger to learn the process
here.
It's not hard to teach them howall this equipment works, but
it's getting people who come inand want to do the courses to
learn the machine and then staywith us.
There are quite a few boutiqueletter press printing operations
in Australia but every time theycome here and learn about our
(12:21):
equipment, they usually go offand start a boutique business.
However, we've run courses herenow for composing courses or
learning how to, to set type andprint.
We do actual printing courses ontop of that..
Then we do poster courses and weget a lot of young people who
come in to do these courses anddo it really well.
And they are young and they areshowing a big interest in us.
And as recently as last Friday,we had two young people come in,
(12:44):
graphic artists who did postercourses and were very creative
and learnt a lot about how itused to be and loved it.
So our aim is to keep thatgoing, attract younger members
to learn the skill because to befair, in about 10 or 15 years,
we won't be doing it..
Somebody needs to come in and,and, and shine the torch, if you
like, on this part of the trade.
And our biggest fear is we'dhate to see it just scrapped and
(13:07):
all this equipment either put ina basement somewhere or off to
SIM's metal, which is whathappens with most of it.
Kate (13:13):
Oh, that would be terrible.
That's very sad to think about.
What was the effect of covid onthe museum and visitorship?
Bob (13:20):
The last two years have been really difficult.
We had a whole lot of covidprocedures to try and stay open,
but people were naturally quitescared.
So we lost a couple of years,although we did still have quite
a few tours booked in, buteverybody had to take covid
precautions.
But it certainly impacted us onrevenue.
We didn't get as many visitorsand we didn't get as many tours
as what we normally get.
Kate (13:39):
What does the future look like for the museum?
Bob (13:42):
The future of the museum is in a bit of, difficulty at the
moment because InfrastructureNew South Wales are trying to
buy the Paceway, which is thesite on which the museum sits.
And they wanna build a newfootball stadium.
Now, the Paceway's been here for177 years and the Paceway owns
the land, which is about 11acres, and then there are six
businesses on this site,including the museum, the other
(14:03):
five are commercial enterprises.
They've looked after us for allthat time, which we greatly
appreciate.
We've gotta find a home withthem somewhere or somewhere else
to go, probably within the nextsix to 12 months.
Otherwise, we'll be forced toclose.
Our biggest fear in closing isthat we won't get the members
back cause they're not exactlyyoung people.
(14:23):
And secondly, we lose that skillset.
We'll be joining the rest of thelost trades skills that is
happening to most industries ofold.
So we are looking very, veryhard at the time now to raise as
much money as we can so we canthen look like a good
opportunity for someone to comein and take us on.
And then I've approached StuartAyres and many other ministers
about help.
(14:44):
And so far we haven't quite gotthere, but we are working with
the Paceway and the Pacewaywould want us to come with them,
but we'd have to have fund, ourown building..
So we need to get a grant tofund this museum going forward.
Kate (14:55):
So if you are or know anybody who is a wealthy
philanthropist and has a largeunoccupied building in Western
Sydney, please get in touch withBob.
Bob (15:05):
And as I said before, we need to make this museum last
because we are the onlyoperational museum.
Static museums is something wedon't wanna be.
Kate (15:15):
Why should people come and visit the Museum of Printing?
Bob (15:17):
You wanna come and visit this museum just to see exactly
how it was done, and you canplay an active role in what's
happening.
For instance, we'll set yourname and print it right in front
of your eyes.
We'll do all kinds of thingsthat you don't normally see and
you'll see it live.
You'll be able to touch and feeland have a go if you want to.
You'll be able to look at guysactually printing pedal operated
machines and printing, notnewspapers, but all and sundry
(15:40):
of commercial type work if theywish to.
And if they look at thephotographs around the walls in
here, you'll see that all thecompositors and the printers
were all well dressed.
Gentleman of an area youwould've thought would've been
all like a coal mine.
But it's not.
It was a highly respected tradeback in the day.
And they were all wearing whiteshirts and ties, and obviously
dust coats or aprons to protectthemselves, but it was a well
(16:01):
thought of trade back in theday.
So people wanna come and learnhow it was done and all about
it.
And especially children who'venever heard of anything about
how it was done in the past.
All they know is Google.
It's it's quite a history lessonfor the kids and a lot of the
kids are quite fascinated whenthey come in here.
And especially recently when thePenrith show was on, we had over
700 people through the doorshere.
(16:22):
Looking at all the equipmentwith their parents, and it was
terrific.
So we had a great deal of peopleshowing an interest and Wow, we
didn't even know you were here.
And that's our other biggestproblem.
We didn't even know you werehere.
Well, we got a good presence ona website, but it's not one of
those museums where you think,Oh, I must rush out and have a
look.
Kate (16:40):
Okay, enough chatting.
Bob's going to take us on a tourand show us how some of these
machines work.
Bob (16:45):
Not only will I show you how they work, I'll make you
operate them.
Kate (16:51):
We start the tour by looking at an 1857 edition of
the Sydney Morning Herald at thefront entrance.
Bob (16:57):
This is the daily, right?
So you just read a couple of,remember I told you there's no
phone numbers or No, nothing.
Kate (17:01):
Look at this one wanted by a respectable young lady lately
from England, A situation ashousekeeper.
Bob (17:07):
You're right.
And how do you get the person
Kate (17:09):
from the post office in Glebe?
Bob (17:11):
Yeah.
And then you gotta go here, careof Spring Street.
Like not even in Sydney.
can never believe that.
Like wanted a good what's saygood straw hand.
Kate (17:19):
a good straw hand! Mrs.
Bowering, Paramatta Street,
Bob (17:23):
So that's it.
So note, there's no pictures,right?
and there's no display ads.
You know, there's eight pages,all money.
Rivers are gold.
This is where the rivers a goldterm from the remember Fairfax
actually had the rivers of gold.
You heard that saying?
Kate (17:35):
So earlier in our chat, Bob and I worked out that we had
both worked at Fairfax for aperiod of time.
Rivers of gold was indeed aphrase I had heard.
It refers to the bulky,classified section of the
newspaper.
It was a very lucrative businessthat enabled Fairfax to power
its independent journalism untilthe internet really took off.
(17:57):
Then platforms like Gumtree,eBay and Seek disrupted the need
for paid classified.
Bob (18:03):
Back in the probably about 2005, 2007.
Like the rivers a gold.
They're just flowing money.
You know?
All the whole back of the bookwas classified, wasn't it?
Yeah.
And now the whole start of thebook was classified as not one
story in here.
Kate (18:16):
So there's no actual news in the newspaper?
Bob (18:19):
Public meetings.
Oh, I guess you'd call that newsbut they're public notices so
that's, page seven and pageeight.
Then your next one.
So they had eight pages onlyback in 1857.
And then this is all set, oneletter at a time, line by line.
Right.
So you can imagine how long ittake you, it'll take you
probably longer than eight hoursto do that, they'd have three
people working on that.
Kate (18:37):
And they would've had 50 people setting it to get it
done.
Bob (18:40):
and there's this little trick to knowing, somebody told
me that when you look at a line,sometimes you'll see more space
between the words at the end ofthe line.
They had to put a bit of extraspace in it.
it's lead, This big to make itfit and justify.
Whereas when they built this newmachine, it had different kind
of space bands between the wordsthat would justify them equally.
Whereas on this thing, you hadto do it all by hand.
(19:02):
So 1831, this started as aweekly, then it became a daily
at 1840, and this is 1857.
No phone numbers, no pictures
Kate (19:12):
wanted a cook none but a sober person Need apply.
Crown Inn, George Street South.
Bob (19:19):
There's a whole lot of that.
You think, oh my God, youwouldn't get away at that today.
I
Kate (19:21):
know Wanted a partner in a lucrative business to an active
young man with capital say 50pounds.
It's a first rate opportunity,which may not occur again.
for particulars apply 18 MarketStreet.
Bob (19:35):
See, not even Sydney.
Just Market Street.
Just Market
Kate (19:37):
Street.
Bob (19:37):
You see how they've got like a capital here, like a
drop, drop cap.
Well, when they're setting this,these lines here, whichever ad
they're doing, they've gottastart with the drop cap out of
this case, right?
And then get the go down to thelower, the six point out this
case, right?
So I'll just explain this toyou.
In inside, you're gonna see thisone here with all capitals in
it.
right?
And this one here with alllowercase, hence uppercase,
(20:00):
lowercase.
Right.
So that's where we, that's wherecase came from.
From That's where your uppercasecame from.
That's the terminology that's,and that's common today.
And that's lowercase.
And then that's how they firststarted doing the printing.
With 1450s, et cetera.
And then somebody in Americadecided we've gotta build
another one.
They called it a Californiancase.
Which was all in the one, theyhad the capitals here and all
the rest of the stuff was inhere.
(20:20):
So they redesigned the case.
And you'll notice that all theholes are different sizes.
Because you don't need many J's,Q's or Z's, you need lots of a E
I o U, you know?
That's why they're all differentsize holes.
Because every time you, set aline when you're finished, and
the job's printed, well thenyou've gotta give it to the
apprentice.
He's gotta come back and put allthe letters back in the right
hole.
Now if you don't put him in theright spot, that's not good for
(20:42):
the next person who has to comealong and set.
Cuz you can't throw'em away cuzthey couldn't afford it, right?
And in the cases inside the P'Sthere and the Q's there, right?
So when you're putting a B C PQ, putting them back in one
letter at a time, you put the pin the queue in the wrong.
That comes a saying, watch yourp's and q's! And then people say
(21:03):
it's all points type, right?
So that's 10 point, 12 point, 13point whatever.
do you measure in imperial ormetric?
I say no, you don't measure ineither.
You were measuring points andpicas and ems and ens.
Ems, ens and picas Right?
12 points in a pica, y yada,yada.
and they say, why is that?
And I say, well, you've gottahave a universal print size.
Cause Americans are all doingall this stuff in Imperial.
(21:25):
Europeans are all doing it inmetric.
So that's why they have aprinters measure.
Otherwise it'll be a disaster,wouldn't it?
It
Kate (21:31):
Ems, ens, picas and points does it sound familiar?
Shout out to all the programmersout there who know that we still
use the same universal units ofmeasurements of ems in CSS and
print designers still use ems,picas and points.
Bob (21:47):
this is where all the different type cases are and,
and how you set the job up backin the early days.
Kate (21:52):
Bob's showing me how to set up a page using the
Californian job case and acomposing stick.
The case is a wooden box withdifferent sized compartments for
each letter or character.
It includes spaces of differentwidth as well.
Bob (22:06):
So you get your copy.
Not typed because you haven'tgot typewriters yet.
So someone's handwritten thecopy and they want to write a
story for the newspaper.
So you've got all these guyswith a, with a setting stick
like this.
The compositors were the peoplewho had to work out how many
words per line and how manylines per page and all that.
So you, you'd have to go overhere, you set this to whatever
size line you wanted, you know,so most column newspapers are
(22:27):
nine ems wide.
So you set that to the nine emswide.
You stand beside a rack likethis of what size type you want,
and there's all your letters,right?
And they're not marked.
Kate (22:36):
Each tray has letters that aren't marked and apprentices
are taught at a young age tomemorize which cases are which.
Bob (22:43):
and he wants to change type now or change font.
So you gotta go a differentdraw.
30, 36 point Century Schoolbook, 42 point old style
condensed.
So there's all these cases, alldifferent fonts, all different
fonts.
So one case italic, one could bebold, one could be expanded, one
could be condensed.
All different typefaces.
All that stuff up the backthere.
That's what they call furniture.
(23:04):
Cuz after we build the page,you've gotta space it out to get
it ready to print.
And if you come over here, thisone here, that's four point,
Kate (23:11):
that's tiny.
Bob (23:12):
So you, you grab hold of that and hold it.
Um, that.
So you gotta sit at one of thesecases and set this size, type.
that's what those composites aredoing back in, back in the day
Kate (23:21):
Bob then shows me what looks like a stamp with
individual letters set out init, each letter by letter.
Within it, my untrained eye canspot at least three different
typefaces-Roman, italics, andcaps.
It took Steve, anothervolunteer, about half an hour to
create this.
How, how long did it take?
That's half an hour.
And what does it say?
Bob (23:42):
You read it
Kate (23:43):
To read the stamp, I need to read back to front and upside
down.
But, the flowery typefaces withdecorative ascenders and
descenders make it really hardto distinguish the shape of each
letter.
Bob (23:57):
Now read it.
Just start from the left and goacross That way
Kate (24:00):
It will lead you.
Dreams.
No.
Bob (24:03):
Go.
Go.
Kate (24:03):
Down, down, mate.
Yep.
It will leadyou the Down down,no.
Stuck on the left.
Down the bog road.
Road.
Road.
Two of, of happiness.
Yeah.
We don't wanna go down the bog.
stuck in the mud.
Bob (24:22):
So you can imagine doing that.
Do you, do you wanna set?
And her name?
I will set her name for her.
Kate (24:29):
Oh, awesome.
Steve (24:29):
Ready for this is the old Fashion case.
The big letters up on tops Uhhuhdown.
Kate (24:37):
Upper Cape.
Yeah.
Right.
So miniscule and magiscule?
Steve (24:41):
Okay.
So what is your name?
Kate (24:43):
Kate.
K a t e.
Steve (24:44):
Oh, see that's easy.
Bob (24:45):
No wait minute.
What about Maryanne make himwork hard for his money.
Steve (24:50):
I can do that.
Kate (24:51):
Do you charge by the letter?
Bob (24:52):
Yeah, absolutely.
So you're watching go K A T E.
Why is a J in the U in adifferent spot, Graham?
Kate (25:00):
That's because in ancient times there was no Letter U,
they actually used the letter V.
You might have seen some statuesof Julius Caesar, where it's
spelled J V l i v s as the V wasused as the U.
Interestingly, the letter J wasused as a decorative variant of
(25:21):
the letter I by the ancientRomans.
In 1524, a bloke called, Who wasan Italian renaissance
grammarian, made the J part ofthe alphabet.
He then became known as thefather of the letter J.
And, the ampersand character.
(25:41):
How do we get that?
Well, the letters e and t werewritten together to mean"and".
When scribes used cursive,they'd connect the two letters
into one symbol.
And if you look hard at theampersand, you can sort of
visualize those two letterstoday.
So that's a long-winded story onwhy the last three letters in
(26:01):
the type case, that's the woodenbox that stores the movable type
are j, u, and ampersand it'sbecause they weren't added until
after the fact.
Bob (26:10):
And that's why they were later.
Kate (26:11):
So how long was the compositor's apprenticeship for
them?
Bob (26:14):
Five years.
Oh, six years in the early days,Then I went, then I went to
four.
Four.
You did four, didn't you?
I learned, I learned mine infour.
You, you were smarter than theother blokes.
So this is all our wooden type.
So you can imagine what funyou'd have doing like a poster
course, sitting all poster up inthese wooden, they're beautiful
typefaces And all this lead isjust amazing, you know?
So, he's made up his little jobthere, right?
And then he's gonna put onthere, he's gonna proof it, and
(26:36):
then if he's got anycorrections, he's gotta go there
and take that little letter outand put the other letter in.
Or if he's missed a word, he'sgotta turn the line right over
or the whole line.
we've got, we've got racks andracks and racks of this.
And people love it, you know?
So the point I'm trying to makeis, there's a lot of history
here.
You can't let go.
It's just too much.
Kate (26:50):
There's a book from poster courses of flourishy,
motivational posters.
One says, I did a letter pressworkshop, and I made this
poster.
Bob (26:59):
So all these guys made all these things over the years
here.
Kate (27:02):
Life isn't about finding yourself, it's about creating
yourself.
Ralph (27:07):
So they, we tell'em to come up with a, idea, some
people do lyrics from a song.
Something they just make up orsomething from a book, and they
come here and put it together.
Kate (27:16):
So that was the old style of type setting that used a
composing stick where youmanually composed words out of
individual letters andpunctuation marks stored in a
shallow subdivided trays, or"cases" as we just learned.
Bob (27:30):
Now, so what happens after that?
that era last from 1450 to the1880s.
1890s, right.
Then somebody at the New YorkPost said, we've gotta find a
better way of setting.
Kate (27:40):
Now this is the linotype machine that Bob talked about
before, and it reduced the timeneeded to set a newspaper column
from six to eight hours to just20 minutes.
So though the Linotype machinecame about in about 1880, this
particular machine is a 1950smodel and it's called an inter
type.
Any audio description of whatthis linotype machine looks like
(28:03):
will be absolutely paltry incomparison to its real life
version, simply because it's socomplex.
It basically looks like amachine from a Studio Ghibli
movie with so many separateparts, whirring and clicking and
moving in different rhythms allto make it work.
Bob (28:21):
There's your keyboard, all your capitals there, it's all
your numbers, punctuation, andyour lower case there, right?
So you put your copy in here,someone's handwritten, your
copy, and you're a newspapercomp and, copy comes in here so
you start setting.
So that's, that's how this thingworks.
There's your space.
You do your word space.
The quick brown fox jumped overthe lazy cow, boom, boom, boom,
(28:44):
boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,boom.
Then you get to the end of yourline.
So there, and you can see itcomes down through there, simple
as that's a belt shoot some alldown at the right.
Kate (28:57):
In physical terms, it's like a desk that you sit at with
a typewriter as the desk baseand a very high back to the desk
that kind of resembles a churchorgan.
Each letter in the typewriterpart is attached to a slide of
individual letters above thedesk.
The typewriter part is a 90character keyboard, and when you
(29:18):
quite loudly hit each letter, itkind of drops an individual mold
of that letter-called a mat-into another section of the
machine called an escapement.
And as you hit each letter, itcomposes a whole line of text in
the escapement.
That line is called a slug.
Bob (29:38):
Then it punches, it pops outta line with the letters on
the line.
And to do that, instead of usingthose lead letters over there,
now we have brass letters.
See, each one of these is abrass letter.
And that's got two things on it.
You've got Roman and italic,right?
So this machine will let youpush this up to make it Roman.
Or italic.
And then you use these spacesand they, they sort of slide up
(30:00):
and down.
So when the line's sitting inhere, it'll make your lines all
equal
Kate (30:04):
So once you create a slug or a line of type, the
compositor will tell the machinethat the line is complete and it
moves it to a casting section bya series of levers.
The casting process heats theslug and melts it all together,
so that the finished product isa molded metal line of type,
ready to be added to a column!
Bob (30:27):
there's a hunk of lead on that chain, it goes into that
molten lead there.
So the molten lead round therecomes out of there straight
away, and then you've got yourfinished line set and already
set.
But it's bloody hot, you know?
Kate (30:38):
They must go through so many of them.
Bob (30:39):
Yeah.
Yeah, you do.
So what happens here is overthere, when you finish your
line, it's printed and all thatsort of stuff.
Then you put your lines back inthe box.
But here, when we finishprinting the newspaper or
whatever job, if the job's notgonna be a repeat, you'll put
all this back in the meltingpot.
It's a hundred percent recycledbut if you're keeping it, you
might keep this for a hundredyears, cuz you might pull it out
(31:00):
and put, run it again in thenewspaper.
you An ad usually ads they tieup and put in a rack, go back
and get the, you know, theDunlop tyre ad, and put it back
in the page, So you can imaginehow much expertise would've been
in getting those four right atthe right time.
And the bloke who invented thisthing was a the watchmaker, And
then the guy, the guys are sogood.
Mm-hmm.
When they're setting this stuff,they were piece operators.
(31:22):
So they got paid by how muchthey set, and you had to set it
right.
So just say this all goes over.
So it's a newspaper.
This all gets picked up by anapprentice or somebody.
When he finishes, the story,taken over to somewhere else.
Put ink on it.
Puts a bit of wet paper on it,pats it down, sends the copy and
the proof to the readers.
The readers read it, copy themistakes in.
It comes back to the operatorwho sent it or comes back to any
(31:45):
operator.
He sets a new line, wraps it upin a bit of paper, takes it back
to the comp room over on the,bench then, and he takes the old
line out and puts the new linein.
Right.
And that's linotype.
So that's 136 of these Sydney,Morning Herald 24 7.
Kate (31:59):
From getting the news two days later, now you can get the
news and the classified everysingle day, but alas, the
linotype machine didn't doeverything, there is a separate
machine that does the headingscalled the Ludlow.
Bob (32:13):
This is the machine that does the headings, These only go
up to about 12.8 and they've gotfour different cases in there.
So you just change cases bywinding it up.
Then you just change cases.
That's how simple that is.
This machine sets the headingsbecause you can only go up to
about 14 points there.
Yeah.
So you've set your name in hereby doing the same thing.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
Yeah.
One letter at a time and thenyou pop it in here and you press
press, press it down, press thebutton, and it spits out a line
(32:34):
of type
Kate (32:35):
do not touch.
Bob (32:36):
Yeah.
So that's how you set all theheadings on this machine.
Kate (32:38):
In addition to the 136 Linotype machines, they would've
had 20 heading machines at thesmh.
Now that we've set newspapercolumns and added a heading, how
do we make it into a printedpage?
Then you add some borders bycutting lead pieces into the
shape of the border that youwant.
Then you assemble the page withother blocks of reusable things
(32:59):
like logos
Bob (33:01):
And this is the Columbian press I told you about.
So this is an 1841 Columbianpress built in England, but
American design due to theeagle.
So this bloke, put all fancystuff on it to, you know, get
his moniker on it, if you like.
Kate (33:15):
The Columbian press is a very elaborate cast iron press.
It uses a flatbed, so there'ssort of two flat metal plates
operated by levers.
The eagle itself on the top ofthe machine is said to weigh 23
kilograms and actually acts as acounterweight to raise one of
the metal plates after printing.
Bob (33:35):
And this is how they have to do paper, right?
So we show everybody all this.
So under, here's a, there's a 16page booklet, right?
All handset.
All handset over there.
Kate (33:43):
The booklet is a small, A6 size booklet titled The Penrith
Museum of Printing.
By handset Bob means thatsomebody assembled the letters
by hand as shown before.
Because we want the 16 pagebooklet to be front to back and
right side up, there's a littlebit of brain work to do to make
sure this happens.
Bob (34:02):
So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
Then you print it, then you turnit and you what they call work
and turn it.
So you work it, then you turnit, and then you print on the
other side of the paper, andthen you end up with this So
page five.
So it'll be on the back of that.
It'll be your four or six, 11,12.
So then you've gotta fold it up.
So you gotta have'em in theright order to fold.
This is called imposition,right?
(34:23):
And this, this still appliestoday.
So you end up with that, andthen we put hand staples in it
and you gotta chop the top, thefront and the bottom with a
couple of staples.
now you've got your little 16page booklet.
Kate (34:34):
That's a lot of effort for a 16 page book.
Bob (34:36):
You might print 10,000 of 'em, but you imagine doing it,
doing it on here.
So how this works is so this isall set over there, right the
compositor and he puts it inthis steel frame.
And all these things are little,little things to stretch it out
so it doesn't all fall the bits.
Cause if you've got individualletters and you pick it up,
that'll drop out.
Kate (34:50):
And this is why newspaper copy had to be justified a
hundred percent so that theletters wouldn't fall out.
Bob (34:57):
So you get your inking rolls here, you ink it all up,
then you lay a bit of paper ontop.
Then you pop this thing down.
We've inked it, we put our paperon.
We roll are under.
Then I've gotta turn it over anddo the page two or the, sorry,
front and back
Kate (35:10):
times eight times 750.
Bob (35:11):
Yeah, that's it.
Yeah.
Wow.
And then you pick that up andthen you'll have all your image
on there.
Right.
So that's the, that's how theydid it in 1840, all by hand.
This thing is from 1864, and itwas used by Angus and Coote in
Sydney, So that's how they didit before you had electricity.
So you printed off a flatbedlike that for newspapers for a
(35:32):
hundred years.
Then they had to get a bitsmarter and a bit faster cause
they had these things, right?
So in 1860s before these wereinvented, they invented faster
machines.
Kate (35:40):
Bob shows me some of what are called job machines.
Machines used to print smallerjobs like letters, business
cards and pamphlets, notnewspapers.
There's one called an Arab and aChandler and Price, and I would
highly recommend watching videosof how these work on YouTube.
Bob (35:56):
Now this one is the Wharfedale which the Nepean
Times started.
and this thing it runs about1500 copies an hour.
Hey Ralph, if you wanna do ademo.
Yeah.
Well, you want me to do it See,I knew I'd get him Start her up
and get into it.
Now,
Kate (36:11):
the Wharfedale press is huge, maybe four meters long and
a meter high.
It has a flatbed and a bigcylinder.
The flatbed, which is called aform, holds the paper and moves
backwards and forwards while therotating cylinder makes the
impression on the paper.
It looks incredibly complex tomanage and has so many literal
(36:34):
moving parts when in operationand they all make different
noises, you'll soon hear them.
It's so rhythmic, I wouldn't besurprised if the Wharfedale
press is added to asm sleepsound apps.
Bob (36:46):
So this thing here, you watch this it's a beauty, so
you've got a hand feed at onesheet at a time.
Whoops.
He's, he's got a belt court.
Kate (36:55):
Are you an expert at this one, Bob?
Bob (36:57):
No, no.
I'm, I'm learning So in here,see the forme in there?
Kate (37:01):
Yep.
Bob (37:02):
So that's The Age, right?
That's The Age newspaper, nowlet me tell you, what year do
you reckon we were still usingLead?
That's the last lead front pageof the age.
Oh.
Produced like that?
Kate (37:13):
The eighties?
Bob (37:13):
83.
Kate (37:14):
83?
Bob (37:15):
Yeah.
You wouldn't think so, wouldyou?
You think all photo composingand all that sort of stuff.
So the rollers go across.
There's ink up in there.
Well, what's it, Ralph?
This, this roller is not inthat, is that right?
Is that the space on that angle?
Okay.
Ralph (37:28):
Oh, you always put'em on an angle, right?
It helps to break the ink up
Bob (37:31):
right on.
Okay.
Ralph (37:32):
That's another trick that you learn every day.
See?
Bob (37:35):
there's a joy about working here.
we don't work here, Ralph, weplay here.
So you're printing the front andback at the same time.
So instead of doing what I justshowed you over there, Sydney,
Morning, Herald.
Now we're doing that and this,we've gotta hand feed the sheets
in, which we'll do in a second.
Stick a bit of paper in Ralph.
(37:57):
so we cut that sheet size to thesize of whatever size of book is
you gotta print.
Ralph (38:01):
Yep.
These a broad sheet newspaper
Bob (38:02):
Fix it up back there on the other side.
You put the next sheet in, backit up.
You're getting 15,000 hour.
15,
Kate (38:13):
1500.
Sorry.
1500.
1500.
So pretend that's a blank sheet,right?
Yep.
We're gonna put
Bob (38:17):
that in now.
It goes through blank nowprinting and now it comes out
the top rolled over.
Then you pull the sheet out andcheck it to make sure it's done
(38:37):
properly.
Kate (38:39):
How long does it take the ink to dry usually?
Bob (38:40):
Oh, it's like a normal newspaper.
Couple hours.
So that's, that's, that's a goodexample of that's what started
the museum.
Kate (38:47):
So what happened to the Nepean Times?
Bob (38:49):
Just, just folded.
Just folded.
Like a lot of newspapers.
They all just fold.
Kate (38:52):
Yes.
Newspapers tend to fold.
Bob (38:56):
This would be pretty, spot on what you'd see in any country
commercial print shop.
In the 18, 19 hundreds.
Yeah through it in about 1940probably before they made these
things So there's yourColombian, that's that one over
there.
But then they said, okay,instead of feeding it by a
sheet, let's put a roll in, anewsprint in there.
Cause let's be a bit smarter.
This is 1888, right.
So let's put a roll in and runit through all here, through all
(39:17):
the rollers, and then let'sprint both sides of the paper at
the same time.
So how can you do that on a big,flat hunk of metal like this?
Right.
that's what they were printingoff, right?
Kate (39:29):
So you can't print around a cylinder with the flatbeds as
it doesn't bend.
What they did is they made apaper mache of the page and
called it a flong, it's like amold.
Bob (39:39):
Then they put that mold in a curved cylinder thing Uhhuh
and made that plate just there.
That thing there.
You wanna try and lift that up?
So there was one of these forevery day?
Yep.
Kate (39:48):
One of these.
Oh my God.
That'll do you.
Bob (39:52):
So that's one tabloid, one broad sheet page.
Kate (39:54):
Yeah.
Right.
Bob (39:54):
And you put one side of the cylinder.
And then one on the other sideof the cylinder.
And then you're print two pagesa time.
but he's still catching'em byhand.
So then they said, okay, welllet's make a folder, which is
this thing here.
So it goes through here.
And these things have may justcome out and this thing now has
got the roll and newsprint, andnow it's coming through the
machine and print.
16 pages probably then slittingthe slitting, this roll here in
(40:17):
half up here, then folding itand spitting out a finished
paper.
Right?
That's how much it changed then.
Kate (40:22):
It's a steam powered rotary printing press, which
enabled the mass production ofnewspapers through a continuous
press.
The press operated at up to 2000revolutions per hour, and each
revolution produced four pageimages giving the press a
throughput of 8,000 pages perhour.
How it worked is that basicallythere are two cylinders that
(40:45):
turn in opposite directions.
One roll has a curved printingplate attached to the surface,
and the other cylinder works topress the paper to the inked
plates.
The rolls have a big enoughcircumference that they can have
two or more plates, so that witheach revolution, the cylinder
prints two or more copies of thesame page.
Bob (41:06):
So when one roll runs out, the next roll speeds up to the
speed of the press.
It's got a pace pattern on it.
Something forces the incomingsheet on the outgoing sheet cuts
it off and it runs straight upthrough here without stopping
Comes all the way through hereand it comes out as a finished
book at the end.
Now we're doing 30,000 copies anhour.
Kate (41:22):
So those 1938 copies of the SMH we spoke about before?
They would've been done on amachine like that, and the
printing presses were inBroadway in Sydney.
That's right- jones Street,where the shopping center is
now.
They would've had 136 linotypemachines and nine printing
presses that are four storieshigh.
Bob (41:42):
And when I was a kid I used to go and, insert papers on
Friday night for a hundred bucksa night.
We used to think it wasChristmas
Kate (41:48):
But wait, that's only black and white ink.
How did we get the crisp fullcolor newspapers that we know
today?
Bob (41:54):
So they said, oh, let's put another unit on top.
And we'll put red ink in it
Kate (41:58):
And after they experimented with Red Ink, they
invented new printing pressesthat had C M Y K in it, cyan,
magenta, yellow, and black.
Bob (42:07):
Paper go straight up through the middle.
Get the timing right.
You get 16 pages of full color.
Kate (42:12):
Wow.
So getting colour was feedingthe paper up vertically in
Bob (42:16):
In newspapers.
So that's how it went fromletterpress printing from 1450,
all through that, up to this to1996.
Kate (42:24):
And how did they do it after 1996?
Bob (42:27):
Instead of printing on that plate that I just showed you,
round one, they went to Offset,which is this plate.
and we go straight from computerto plate now.
Kate (42:34):
Today, most newspaper printers are powered by
computers, using the same offsetprinting technique.
It starts with a computerizeddesktop publishing version of
the whole edition of anewspaper, which is transferred
to an etching station, whichthen produces aluminium positive
plates of each page.
These plates are inked andmounted on a specialized press
(42:56):
in such a way that they transferthe image to a set of rubber
rollers, which in turn transferthe image of each page onto the
paper.
The process is called offsetbecause the aluminium plates do
not actually touch the papergoing through the press.
They transfer the image onto therubber rollers instead.
Although the presses are reallybig and noisy, the rollers are
(43:19):
remarkably gentle on thenewsprint and can feed the
newsprint through its rollswithout tearing.
These complex machines arecalled web presses because they
use streaming paper instead ofindividual sheets.
The web presses are veryexpensive and can reach seven
stories tall.
Today's presses also combine allof the steps of printing,
(43:41):
cutting, and assembling anewspaper into one unit.
So the final output is anewspaper in correct sequence.
And the stats?
A modern offset press can churn70,000 copies an hour onto
conveyor belts.
So Bob, thank you so much forcoming on the podcast today.
Bob (43:59):
My pleasure.
Absolutely delighted to be here.
Kate (44:08):
The Museum of Printing is open every Sunday and entry is
$5.
Tours are run for groups of allshapes and sizes, and last about
two and a half hours, whichincludes a punchy history of
printing and a demonstration ofthe operational linotype
machines.
I'm told probus groups love themuseum tours, and to organize
(44:29):
one, you can get in touch withthe museum.
The museum in its currentpremise is on one flat level and
is wheelchair accessible.
There is ample car parking andchairs are offered for group
tours.
So Boomers, I hope you neverhave to Google"how to print"
again, as this episode shouldhave given you a pretty good
(44:52):
idea on how to print.
I think it's so amazing thatwe've gone from printing letter
by letter to line by line, andthen front and back pages at the
same time, and so on and so on.
We haven't even delved into thepower of the printed word, but
just the technology behind it Ithink is so fascinating.
(45:16):
Thanks for listening to Roadshowand Tell.
If you enjoyed this deep diveinto a specialty museum, make
sure you subscribe so you don'tmiss an episode.
We're a new podcast.
So if you wanna help support us,please share it with a friend
and leave a rating and review.
If you are involved with or knowof a regional or specialty
museum that should be featured,please get in touch at
(45:37):
roadshowandtell@gmail.com.
I'm your host, Kate.
Roadshow and Tell was edited andproduced on the lands of the
Gadigal people.
I acknowledge the TraditionalCustodians of the various lands
on which you may be listeningfrom, and the lands that the
museums featured in this podcastreside on.
(45:59):
I also acknowledge anyAboriginal or Torres Strait
Islander people listening tothis podcast.
I pay my respects to elderspast, present, and emerging, and
celebrate the diversity ofAboriginal peoples and their
ongoing cultures and connectionsto the lands and waters of
Australia.
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History is beautiful, brutal and, often, ridiculous. Join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown as they dive into some of the weirdest stories from across the span of human civilization in Ridiculous History, a podcast by iHeartRadio.