Koenig left
England, suddenly, in disgust at the treacherous conduct of
Bensley, always shabby and overreaching, and whom he found to be
laying a scheme for defrauding his partners in the patents of all
the advantages to arise from them. Bensley, however, while he
destroyed the prospects of his partners, outwitted himself, and
grasping at all, lost all, becoming bankrupt in fortune as well
as in character."[6]
Koenig was badly used throughout. His merits as an inventor were
denied. On the 3rd of January, 1818, after he had left England,
Bensley published a letter in the Literary Gazette, in which he
speaks of the printing machine as his own, without mentioning a
word of Koenig. The 'British Encyclopaedia,' in describing the
inventors of the printing machine, omitted the name of Koenig
altogether. The 'Mechanics Magazine,' for September, 1847,
attributed the invention to the Proprietors of The Times, though
Mr. Walter himself had said that his share in the event had been
"only the application of the discovery;" and the late Mr. Bennet
Woodcroft, usually a fair man, in his introductory chapter to
'Patents for Inventions in Printing,' attributes the merit to
William Nicholson's patent (No. 1748), which, he said, "produced
an entire revolution in the mechanism of the art." In other
publications, the claims of Bacon and Donkin were put forward,
while those of the real inventor were ignored.
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