The new Walter Press is not, like Applegath and Cowper's,
and Hoe's, the improvement of an existing arrangement, but an
almost entirely original invention.
In the Reports of the Jurors on the "Plate, Letterpress, and
other modes of Printing," at the International Exhibition of
1862, the following passage occurs:-- "It is incumbent on the
reporters to point out that, excellent and surprising as are the
results achieved by the Hoe and Applegath Machines, they cannot
be considered satisfactory while those machines themselves are so
liable to stoppages in working. No true mechanic can contrast
the immense American ten-cylinder presses of The Times with the
simple calico-printing machine, without feeling that the latter
furnishes the true type to which the mechanism for newspaper
printing should as much as possible approximate."
On this principle, so clearly put forward, the Inventors of the
Walter Press proceeded in the contrivance of the new machine. It
is true that William Nicholson, in his patent of 1790, prefigured
the possibility of printing on "paper, linen, cotton, woollen,
and other articles," by means of type fixed on the outer surface
of a revolving cylinder; but no steps were taken to carry his
views into effect. Sir Rowland Hill also, before he became
connected with Post Office reform, revived the contrivance of
Nicholson, and referred to it in his patent of 1835 (No.
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