Inventor Edward Cowper "On Printing Machines, Especially Those Used in Printing "The Times" Newspaper"

In 1850 English printing engineer, inventor, and academic Edward Cowper published a paper entitled "On Printing Machines, Especially Those Used in Printing 'The Times' Newspaper." This paper was published in Institution of Civil Engineers. Minutes of Proceedings, Vol. 9 (1850) 409-427. The paper was to a certain extent the summation of his career, as Cowper, who was born in 1790, in the era of hand press printing, died two years after this paper was published. Cowper's role in the advance of printing from 200-250 copies per hour on a hand press to 10,000 copies per hour when he published this paper, was, of course, monumental.

Cowper began his paper with a recap of the historically significant paper that he published in 1828. He then discussed in considerable detail Applegath's 8 cylinder vertical machine, which, when fed by 8 boys at sufficient speed, could print 10,000 impressions per hour. One of the main drawbacks of this system was that it required hand feeding of paper, and was thus dependent upon the speed of the humans feeding it.

At the end of Cowper's paper he mentioned that printing at The Times was "performed" by four of Applegath and Cowper's four-cylinder horizontal machines, each "producing five thousand sheets per hour,and two of Applegath's new eight-clinder vertical machines, each producing ten thousand sheets per hour." Twenty-five pressmen operated the printing machines at The Times; the vast amount of hand typesetting required by The Times was accomplished by 110 compositors.