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Introduction
The best kind of automation creates jobs and raises wages by increasing productivity. Unfortunately, when the Times introduced steam presses in 1814 many workers and activists still did not understand this, and it took daring and a little deception to help Progress on her way.
UNTIL the year 1814, all the printing in the world was done by hand, and “The Times” could only be struck off at the rate of four hundred and fifty copies an hour. Hence the circulation of the paper, when it had reached three or four thousand copies a day, had attained the utmost development then supposed to be possible;* and when such news came as that of the battle of Austerlitz, Trafalgar, or Waterloo,* the edition was exhausted long before the demand was supplied.
There was a compositor in the office of “The Times,” named Thomas Martyn,* who, as early as 1804, conceived the idea of applying Watt’s improved steam-engine to a printing press.* He showed his model to John Walter,* who furnished him with money and room in which to continue his experiments, and perfect his machine. But the pressmen pursued the inventor with such blind, infuriate hate, that the man was in terror of his life from day to day, and the scheme was given up.*
Circulation rose from 5,000 per day to 50,000 per day in 1850. See ‘How the Earlier Media Achieved Critical Mass’ (New York Times). Printing technology, which had barely altered since the fifteenth-century Gutenberg press, took a leap forward in 1798 when Earl Stanhope invented an iron press, and donated it to the nation.
The Battle of Austerlitz on December 2nd, 1805, was a crushing victory for Napoleon Bonaparte over Russia and Austria, and it dampened the recent British triumph at Trafalgar on October 21st that year. Napoleon was defeated once and for all at Waterloo in Belgium on June 18th, 1815.
A compositor arranges type (the letters) in a printing press. Sherlock Holmes boasted that he could ‘tell a compositor by his left thumb’.
Scotsman James Watt (1736-1819) developed the steam engine that drove the industrial revolution, by making significant improvements to an earlier design devised by Thomas Newcomen (1664-1729).
John Walter (1776-1847) was the younger son of the paper’s founder, also called John Walter (1738-1812). John Walter Sr had started a small newspaper called ‘The Daily Universal Register’ on January 1st, 1785, and renamed it ‘The Times’ three years later. He turned the management of the paper over to John Jr in 1803. The younger John sat as an MP for Berkshire and later for Nottingham.
Thanks to the pressmen, the fruitless project cost their employer some £1,482.
Précis
Despite recent advances in technology, in 1804 all printing was done by hand, and supply was falling far behind the public’s rising demand. That year, John Walter, editor of the Times, hired inventor Thomas Martyn to help develop a stream-powered iron press, but pressmen fearful of job losses pressured Martyn into giving up. (53 / 60 words)
Despite recent advances in technology, in 1804 all printing was done by hand, and supply was falling far behind the public’s rising demand. That year, John Walter, editor of the Times, hired inventor Thomas Martyn to help develop a stream-powered iron press, but pressmen fearful of job losses pressured Martyn into giving up.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 60 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 50 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: about, because, besides, not, ought, unless, whereas, whether.
Word Games
Sevens Based on this passage
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Variations: 1.expand your answer to exactly fourteen words. 2.expand your answer further, to exactly twenty-one words. 3.include one of the following words in your answer: if, but, despite, because, (al)though, unless.
Jigsaws Based on this passage
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
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