Otley and The Printers’ Engineers
By Jill Allman, Otley Museum and Archive Trust
In the 1830’s, Otley was a small, quiet town on the banks of the River Wharfe in West Yorkshire, home to about 3000 people. By the end of the century that was a distant memory as the town had become a global centre for the printing industry. From raw materials of coal and pig iron, the printers’ engineers designed their machines and made everything from cogs and bolts to flat beds and rollers in their own foundries and workshops.
From the Ulverstonian Machine to the Wharfedale Machine
William Dawson was born in 1806 and would become the founder of the printing industry in Otley. He started work as a joiner and cabinet maker, producing anything required: beds, furniture, coffins and wooden parts for William Walker’s printing presses. Walker was in business in the centre of the town, printing everything from labels to books, newspapers and posters. He asked Dawson to make him a machine that would print more sheets at a faster pace to be more profitable. By the late 1840’s the new age of cast iron work was coming and Dawson set about his task. He employed David Payne, a young paper cutting machine maker and together they started an industry that lasted in Otley for 120 years.
By the 1850’s Dawson was based in a small workshop employing a few men including David Payne. They travelled to Ulverston to meet Stephen Soulby who had produced his unsatisfactory Ulverstonian printing machine. In 1855 the first ‘Ulverstonian’ was built in Otley. By 1859 Dawson’s Ashfield Works had produced 50 of these machines but the sales were not going well. The principle of a travelling cylinder across a flat-bed seemed to David Payne to be a flaw in the design. Payne and his son Fred designed an improved machine, the plans of which were drawn on a bed headboard kept under wraps. This new machine adopted the Otley Principle. In the Wharfedale Instruction Book, the principle was explained:
The Wharfedale is known as a stop-cylinder because the cylinder rotates in unison with the type-bed on the printing stroke and remains stationary when the bed returns on the non-printing stroke. The impression or printing stroke takes place when the type bed is travelling from the feed board end to the ink duct end.
Machines in the making at Ashfield Works Otley (© Otley Museum and Archive Trust).
The new machine earned the name of ‘Our Own Kind’ which indeed it was, being new technology from 2 men who were not engineers by trade. This machine later changed names and became ‘the Wharfedale’, set to change the world of printing machines. Sales were, however, slow, and it was a year before one was sold to McLaren in Glasgow. With no means of long-distance transport in Otley the moving of these machines was a real problem. Walker had taken some to his printing works in the town, as had Webb Millington’s, also in Otley. All raw materials and castings had to be pushed in horse or hand carts from place to place. A loan of a £1000 from a friend to Dawson combined with the coming of the railway to Otley in 1865 meant that transport of these mammoth machines could broaden Dawson and Payne’s horizons.
The Wharfedale was never patented so in time more printers’ engineers started their own businesses making machines associated with the printing industry. Dawson only made Payne a partner in 1864, a union that ended in 1866, thought to be acrimonious. David Payne did patent his new Wharfedale in 1867. Otley Museum holds a copy of the patent and the inventor’s name is heavily redacted. Legal action was possibly averted by the workers’ strikes and the introduction of the nine-hour working day.
The patent letter of David Payne's improved single-feeder printing machine (© Otley Museum and Archive Trust).
Expansion of the industry
Following the success of Dawson and Payne, Otley saw the rapid emergence of more printer engineers and iron foundries. Between 1880 and 1900 there were 7 sites in Otley producing printing machines, and all machines connected with printing. These sites were:
Dawson’s Ashfield Works
Payne’s Atlas Works
Elliott & Co.
Fieldhouse, Crossfield & Co.
Bremner Machine Co.
John Kelley & Co.
Waite & Saville
Robert Elliott had set up his foundry to produce castings for Dawson‘s Ashfield site. His son, John, went on to join a company with John Fieldhouse, John Crossfield and John Kelley, who had left Dawson’s business after just over 20 years. Fieldhouse, like Kelley, had worked for Dawson for some years. John Elliott went back to his own foundry to produce his own type of printing machine ‘the Defiance’, ‘the Caradoc’, and ‘the Elliott’. In the late 1880’s Kelley set up his own business, being replaced at Dawson’s by James Stott, a skilled engineer.
The Defiance 1893 from John Elliott's Steel Croft Works Otley (© Otley Museum and Archive Trust).
Richard Watkinson had set up the Wharfedale Iron Works. He and Samuel Bremner became lifelong friends and the site became the Bremner Machine Company, producing the Bremner machines which found a ready market in London with Harrilds, thanks to Samuel Bremner. John Kay had a small engineering business on the road between the Ashfield site and the Atlas Works producing his own smaller design machine. David Payne’s son had set up his own business just along the road from John Kelley, which only lasted a few years.
Fred Waite and Jason Saville’s company was the relative newcomer, starting in 1892. The one thing they did not produce was Wharfedale machines. Fred Waite designed and perfected smaller machines for use in the industry such as labelling, wrapping, tying and binding machines. Jason Saville had his own business in Bradford but having met Fred Waite decided to join him in his business as well.
The Otley machines, once ordered and paid for were assembled and dispatched in large crates to all parts of the world as well as the UK. Australia, New Zealand, India and Africa along with European countries which are all documented in the order books. Most are now long gone but there are still a few in museums across the world.
The Bremner machine, 1896 (© Otley Museum and Archive Trust).
Most of the men in Otley worked at one of these sites, sons following fathers into their particular trade in the industry. Sites and foundries were enlarged to cope with the ever increasing trade and export to all parts of the globe. However, the machines, whilst popular, were being superseded by imports from America. The Otley printers’ engineers had to adapt. Some of the sites began producing more general cast iron goods such as ranges, dog grates, and street furniture. The formation of the Independent Labour Party gave the workers reason to strike for better pay and shorter working hours which led to antagonism, walkouts and lockouts.
With all the problems now starting to accumulate, the Ashfield site and the Atlas works pressed on with improving their designs. David Payne had died in 1888 and his sons and then grandsons carried the business forwards. Dawson had died in 1876 leaving his sons to do the same. Thomas Cossar came from Glasgow and worked with Payne and Sons to produce ‘The Cossar’, the first of which left Otley for New Zealand in 1903. This huge machine could produce an eight-page newspaper in two operations. The machine was later remodelled and the first new version went to Scotland in 1905. ‘The Diamond’ guillotine was another popular machine along with the Atlas printing machine using new arrangements for delivering printed sheets uppermost, being turned out at a rate of one per month as well as ‘the Perfector’ and ‘the Perfection’ produced in 1911.
James Stott was now designing and constructing machines at Dawson’s Ashfield Works. ‘The Perceler’ was a very successful machine first produced by Stott in 1899 and sent out through the early 1900’s. ‘The Summit’ followed on with the new technique of three and four colour printing and ‘the Wharfedale’ and ‘the Reversus Wharfedale’ which came in three different sizes. James Stott died in 1910 and his sons, Elkanah and Alfred, took up the mantle.
The First World War stopped production almost overnight. The working men and boys went off to fight for their country, many never to return. An agreement was reached by all sites to turn their hands to fitting lathe machines and produce bullet and shell casings. The women of Otley worked at the lathes with some of the men remaining to supervise. An agreement was put in place for any man coming home from the War to have his job back if he was able to perform his duties. Those who returned and could not manage the physical work found alternative employment if possible.
Amalgamation to survive
As the 1920’s approached, it became clear to all company owners that the pre-war arrangement of all sites producing machines was not going to work any longer. John Kelley had closed his business in 1902 and moved to Blackpool where he died a few years later. The directors of the other sites came to an agreement in order for them all to survive. Crossfield and Fieldhouse were producing printing machines, mainly for the American market, along with other cast iron goods. John Elliott had died in 1895 and his son Robert was running the business. In 1921 Robert sold the company to Payne and Dawson Directors in the form of shares. The new Company of Dawson, Payne and Elliott (DPE) emerged as a sign of respect to the Elliott family. This new Company became an amalgamation to produce components for machines to assemble and sell as a united company. The market was slow, not many countries could afford new machines after the War, including the United Kingdom. Waite and Saville were continuing to produce all machines connected with the printing industry and improving their designs. John Kay was still making printing machines but not Wharfedales. The workforce, although depleted from the War, was about 1200 in the mid 1920’s. Strikes for better pay and working conditions hampered progress but machines such as ‘Combine’ and ‘New Standard’ were produced in 1923 and 1927 using the best features the individual machines once made at different sites.
Germany had been banned from trading after the War but once they were allowed back in to the market, it became clear their designs had been much improved and now bettered the Wharfedales. The problem for the Otley manufacturers was they were producing machines based on pre-war designs, and whilst efficient, the sales were falling. Improvements quickly followed with new types of feeders and delivery systems to enhance the old designs.
By the 1930’s, the remaining sites in Otley were effectively producing machines with a constant flow of orders. Crossfield and Fieldhouse had gone into liquidation in the early years of the decade with their loss of the American market due to the 1929 Crash. John Kay had also closed his business down. When the air raid sirens sounded across the country in 1939, production again ceased in order to help with the War effort.
In 1945, production resumed but although the order books were full there was a marked depletion in the work force. In 1946, Dawson, Payne and Elliott merged with the Winterbottom Book Cloth Co, based in Manchester. Elkanah Stott, James Stott’s son was confident that DPE would survive the hardships of the Post-war years, but in fact the Wharfedale machines were now nearly 100 years old and being overlooked in favour of high-speed machines. In the 1960’s DPE ceased to be an independent company. A fire at the Ashfield Works in 1969 closed the site permanently and all work went up to the Atlas works which in turn became part of Waite and Saville. Waite and Saville merged with Crabtree-Mann which itself was taken over by Vickers. The last machine ‘Crabtree 928’ left Otley in the early 1980’s and all production of printing machines ceased. The Atlas Works and its neighbour the Falcon Works were demolished in 1983 and the sites now house a supermarket and large carpark. The Bremner Works had closed in 1957 after going into liquidation. Their long running partnership with Harrilds had come to an end.
Whilst there is very little physical evidence that the trade ever existed in Otley, the Otley Museum holds a vast quantity of documents, account books, order books and wages books. Photographs, specifications and patents. Machine parts, wooden patterns, tools and an 1870’s Wharfedale machine are held in our collection, along with machines from John Kay’s and Waite and Saville’s stables.
I have gleaned this information from Paul Wood’s excellent book Otley and the Wharfedale Printing Machine (£2 plus postage from Otley Museum) and the 1949 Winter edition of Paper and Print, a copy of which was donated by Tim Stott.
If anyone would like to know more about our collection please get in touch via our website, otleymuseum.org.