While the Van­der­cook is cov­et­ed for pre­ci­sion print­ing in both the UK and the USA, a British firm made small­er, sol­id and ver­sa­tile press­es. Far­ley Engi­neer­ing (Croy­don) Ltd made a selec­tion of press­es of dif­fer­ent sizes and sophis­ti­ca­tion.

They are a remark­ably low-pro­file firm. I can find ref­er­ence to a March 1944 court case brought by HM Inspec­tor of Fac­to­ries where a work­er lost a fin­ger in a hori­zon­al milling machine. Accept­ed in par­tial mit­i­ga­tion was that the works had been ​‘almost entire­ly destroyed by ene­my action’ in Feb­ru­ary of the same year. So, we can take that Far­ley was in oper­a­tion at least dur­ing World War II.

The July and August 1950 British Print­er refers to Far­ley includ­ing one of oth­er their press­es in a motor-coach that had been equipped as a sales vehi­cle to tour the Nether­lands in order to sell to the Dutch despite their affin­i­ty for Ger­man equip­ment.

New Proofing Presses

The most detailed account of new press­es is found in the July 1963 British Print­er, where they launched two press­es — the No. 16 and No. 24, and I’ve sum­marised below their spec­i­fi­ca­tions.

	No. 16	No. 24
Bed Size	20½″ × 28″	20½″ × 26″
Print­ing Area	20″ × 28″ 20″ × 26¾″ when fit­ted with grip­pers	20″ × 16″ with auto­mat­ic grip­pers
Floor Space Required	2′ 1″ × 4′ 7″	2′ 9″ × 4′ 2″

Both press­es include the Far­ley Patent­ed Dri­ve. It appears that in 1957 Far­ley was award­ed a patent authored by Leonard Hard­ing, in which an eccen­tric with­in the main impres­sion roller could be used to adjust the height between the bed of the press and the impres­sion roller. While this sounds like a small indul­gence, it allowed print­ers to proof from type on gal­leys, direct­ly from the bed or use for­eign types of dif­fer­ent types through a sim­ple adjust­ment.

After the Mid 1960s

The British Print­er for April 1968 says that the firm will exhib­it their new self-ink­ing elec­tric gal­ley press.

Richard Small has shared a won­der­ful 1971 cat­a­logue show­ing the fir­m’s wares

Exploiting the Adjustable Cylinder

In the 1989 issue of Matrix, Mark Arman in the arti­cle A Col­lec­tion of Print­ers’ Flow­ers describes how the Far­ley’s adjustable cylin­der is exploit­ed for two colour runs at the Work­shop Press.

The chase is locked into the bed of the press and then the quoins hold­ing the forme are loos­ened. The types to be print­ed in a sec­ond colour are care­ful­ly removed and 3‑point leads, cut to size, are insert­ed in their places: the types are then replaced and the forme is locked up again with these types stand­ing 3 points proud of their fel­lows. Since the Far­ley 24 pro­vides for the height of the ink­ing rollers to be set auto­mat­i­cal­ly with the impres­sion cylin­der, and both are adjustable by cal­i­brat­ed drum, the height is then adjust­ed so that the sec­ond colour is print­ed. At the end of the run the types used are removed and replaced with quads and spaces, the height of the cylin­der and ink­ing rollers is returned to nor­mal and print­ing the main colour can pro­ceed. This method is par­tic­u­lar­ly suit­able for print­ing com­plex fleu­ron com­bi­na­tions in two colours, but it is only pos­si­ble using a proof­ing press with micro-adjust­ment and auto­mat­ic ink­ing.

Arman, Mark. (1989). A Col­lec­tion of Print­ers’ Flow­ers in Matrix 9.

Location

Glad­stone Road, East Croy­don, Sur­rey

---