Why young George took his press over the Port Hills

Press, 23 May 1986, Page 17

Why young George took his press over the Port Hills

Young George Watson had been a printer in Lyttelton for two years when the Rev. John Raven strode into his little shop in the autumn of 1861.

Raven had ridden over the Port Hills from the tiny town of Christchurch to put a proposition to the man who had the only independent printing press in the Canterbury colony. Would Mr Watson, former apprentice at the Tower Hill Printing Office, in London, care to make himself and his plant available to a group of gentlemen who proposed to produce a new newspaper?

Watson asked for time to consider.

On May 14, 1861, came a letter inviting him to meet the gentlemen the next day at a house in Papanui Road. Watson was urged to take the early cart over the hill from Lyttelton, and was told one of the gentlemen in the group was unable to move. In fact, James Edward Fitz Gerald, the prime mover of the newspaper scheme, had been kicked by a horse.

The meeting must have been satisfactory. Printer Watson and his plant were engaged and moved, with some difficulty, over the Port Hills to Christchurch. There was an irony here, for the new paper was being launched largely as a vehicle of opposition to a proposal that the Canterbury Colony should plunge into debt to build a railway tunnel through the Port Hills.

Watson and his little flatbed hand press turned out the first copies of “The Press” from the Rev. John Raven’s cottage in Montreal Street, on the west side, between Worcester Street and Gloucester Street.

The press, perhaps worth £2OO ($400) then, could print 200 copies an hour, six pages to a copy.

Since then, “The Press” has been printed on a succession of larger, faster, and more expensive machines until today it has equipment that can produce, in an hour, up to 60,000 copies of a 40-page newspaper. Sometimes in its first 50 years, the installation of a new printing press meant a move for the whole newspaper. By 1879 “The Press,” then in Cashel Street (near Whitcoulls present shop), was to boast its new, double-feed, Wharfedale flatbed. This was “the largest, swiftest, and most complete machine in the colony.” By then, papers were being produced at the rate of 1500 an hour. A Goss rotary press was used from November, 1900.

The move to Cathedral Square in 1909 was also accompanied by a new press — a Hoe from New York that had four decks, two deliveries, and a printing rate of 25,000 copies an hour for a 16-page newspaper. The cost was £3200.

By 1929, with rivalry between four daily newspapers in Christchurch becoming more intense, “The Press” had grandiose plans for a new seven-storey printing

house in Gloucester Street, and a new printing press to fill it. The beginning of the Depression upset this scheme. Optimism, and plans, were scaled down. The newspaper had to settle for a second-hand Hoe, though of improved and expanded design, bought from the Sydney "Telegraph” for £2675 in 1930.

The new building in Press Lane was only two storeys and the “new” press had been built in 1916.

Even so, when the press was first used in 1933 it was described as “the biggest and most modern in the South Island,” and, as it turned out, its abilities would be stretched to the limit. In 1935 two Christchurch newspapers stopped production. Overnight, “The Press” became the only morning newspaper and its

circulation jumped from 20,000 to 34,000. More printing capacity was needed, but still the Depression cast a pall over any plans for spending large amounts on plant. Then came World War 11.

The old 1916 press from Sydney remained at work, creaking more and more, until 1955. Relief finally came in 1955 when a new Goss machine was installed in Gloucester Street,, in the shell of what had been the old Theatre Royal, opposite the present theatre.

The price was £130,000 and this machine, if pushed, could run at 48,000 copies an hour for a 32-page newspaper. Soon this was not enough. In 1962 two more units were added to the original four, enabling larger newspapers and speedier production.

By 1980 “The Press” was again outgrowing its printing plant The largest passible paper was 64 pages — and on Saturdays, especially, more capacity was needed.

That year an order was placed for a Goss Metroliner web offset printing press, to be manufactured in Preston, England, and capable of producing an 80-page newspaper at a rate of 30,000 copies an hour. The new press began work in March, 1983. It had cost more than $6 million and it represented a complete change in the technology of producing “The Press.”

The offset system means a form of indirect printing in which the plate carrying the image to print each page prints first to a rotating rubber blanket that then prints to the

continuous flow 'of newsprint Offset printing, employed for fine printing for many years, has only recently been adapted to fast newspaper presses.

Now the newspaper can carry full-colour illustrations and print them at speed. New reels of paper can be fed into the machine automatically without stopping production or even slowing the press. But “The Press” refuses to stop growing. Circulation continues to increase, exceeding 100,000 on some days. The size of the paper is also growing and, especially on Saturdays, more than 80 pages are needed. A sixth unit, and more colour gear are being added to the Metroliner. With their help newspapers of up to 96 pages will be possible and the use of colour will be easier and more flexible.