“Crop­per” became a gener­ic term for all job­bing plat­en press­es in the UK. The man who gave his name to these press­es was Hen­ry Smith Crop­per, born in Rad­ford, Not­ting­hamshire in 1839. He was a suc­cess­ful busi­ness­man and also a pil­lar of the local com­mu­ni­ty. He was elect­ed to a School Board, which built local schools, was Sher­iff of Not­ting­ham from 1880–1881, and he was also a mag­is­trate.

His com­pa­ny, H.S. Crop­per and Co. Ltd. made two well known press­es,

The Minerva

This was based on the Gor­don Franklin press and H.S. Crop­per and Co. began its man­u­fac­ture in 1867. Adverts said it was bet­ter known as ​“The Crop­per”. In 1879 an adver­tise­ment claimed that 9,000 were in use, and by 1891, 14,000. The same adverts include a tes­ti­mo­ni­al that one own­er employed a boy who could pro­duce 2,000 impres­sions per hour. How­ev­er, James Moran thinks that even the more mod­est claim of 1,000 — 1,250iph was an exag­ger­a­tion.

It was avail­able in the fol­low­ing sizes; 7″ x 11″, 9″ x 14″, 10″ x 15″, 11″ x 17″, 13″ x 19″.

The Min­er­va was famous­ly used by Vir­ginia and Leonard Woolf, to pro­duce Hog­a­rth Press books. There is a draw­ing of Leonard at the press with Vir­ginia in the back­ground com­pos­ing here. The Woolfs gave the press to Vita Sackville-West and it is still at Siss­inghurst.

The Cropperette

This was based on the Pearl plat­en.

Cropper, Charlton and Co.

Hen­ry Crop­per died in 1893, and the com­pa­ny then became The Crop­per Machines Co. trad­ing from Parkin­son Street Mills, Not­ting­ham. Short­ly after­wards, Hen­ry’s son Syd­ney went into part­ner­ship with Charles Charl­ton and the name of the com­pa­ny changed to Crop­per, Charl­ton and Co. trad­ing from Franklin Works, New Bas­ford, Not­ting­ham. Sad­ly Syd­ney Crop­per died aged only 36 in 1901, just two years after his mar­riage. Charl­ton con­tin­ued to run the com­pa­ny with his two sons, Regi­nald and Charles Cedric, not sur­pris­ing­ly they kept the Crop­per name in their com­pa­ny title. The last patent that they applied for was in 1939.

Crop­per, Charl­ton and Co. man­u­fac­tured and import­ed a num­ber of press­es, these includ­ed –

The Peerless

Clamshell Plat­en in 8″ x 5″, 7″ x 11″, 10″ x 15″. The Peer­less No.2 (7″ x 11″) weighs approx 550lb. The 8″ x 5″ mod­el was sold through H.W. Caslon and an ear­ly advert claimed its unique sell­ing points were that it ” runs as easy as a sewing machine” and that the Peer­less was oper­at­ed by “.. a nov­el method, the dwell on the press is long.”

Although bear­ing the same name as an Amer­i­can press, the design seemed clos­er to the Crop­perette than the Peer­less Plat­en man­u­fac­tured in the States by the Globe Man­u­fac­tur­ing Co., which was anoth­er Gor­don copy.

More infor­ma­tion on Bill Elliget­t’s site.

The Acme

As the Peer­less appears to be a devel­op­ment of the Crop­perette, so the Acme seems to have evolved from the Min­er­va.

The Kovo (aka Adast) Grafopress

This was a 10″ x 15″. auto­mat­ic plat­en import­ed from Czecho­slo­va­kia capa­ble of 5,000 iph. It was pre­sum­ably meant to com­pete with the Hei­del­berg and Thomp­son platens.

In addi­tion to this they cast type, as shown in this list­ing from a book sale –

Print­ing Types. Crop­per, Charl­ton & Co., Not­ting­ham, [c1938] Pp.78;
Includes: Chat­ton, Gret­na, Ilford, Tynedale, Main­land, Carter, &c.;
var­i­ous bor­ders & orna­ments and Logo­types for Jock­eys & Foot­ball Clubs.

They also made large nip­ping press­es, includ­ing one 14″ x 22″. with an open­ing of 13″.

Sources

• Jaco­bi, C. T. (1904) Print­ing. George Bell and Sons.
• Moran, J. (1973) Print­ing Press­es. Faber and Faber
• Place, J.A. and Clunes, E. (1932) — The Art & Prac­tice of Print­ing, Vol. 2, Atkins, W. (Ed.) Pit­man
• Cen­sus Records 1871,1881,1891, 1901. (see For­dred, D.(2006), Crop­per, Charl­ton and Co. Small Print­er Vol 42, No.2)
• Online Patent Records. (see Richard­son, R (2006)., Patent Blether Small Print­er Vol 42, No.10)
• Snein­ton School Board
• List of Sher­iffs
• The Grafo­press — Print­’s Past, The Grafo­press, Print Week. Sep­tem­ber 2002.

This arti­cle writ­ten by Jonathan Coop­er of the Riv­er Sev­en Press