Machine Room

The machine room was home to Bartholomew's printing department. By the time Bartholomew moved to Duncan Street, in 1911, the printing department was one of the firm's largest teams.

Although printing could be seen as a straightforward, automated process, there was in fact a great deal of skill involved, and many staff had professional qualifications. The department employed both men and women, making it one of the few departments not divided along gender lines.

More about printing at Bartholomew

  • Thumbnail: Photo of man and woman at printing machine
  • Thumbnail: Photo of man at a copperplate printing press
  • Thumbnail: Photo of men setting up blocks of type
  • Thumbnail: Photo of man at litho stone with map sheet on it
  • Thumbnail: Photo of two men at a printing machine
  • Thumbnail: Photo of a man at a Solna printing machine
  • Thumbnail: Photo of a machine printing an atlas
  • Thumbnail: Detail from pages from ledger with handwritten details
  • Thumbnail: Detail from pages from ledger with handwritten details
  • Thumbnail: Detail from letter about electricty and gas
  • Thumbnail: Detail from letterabout gas-powered equipment
  • Thumbnail: Advertising poster detail showing a man reading a map
  • Thumbnail: Detail from a coloured map
  • Thumbnail: Audio icon
Photo of man and woman at large flat-bed printing machine

Printers John Shiels and Peggy Lowe

Printer John Shiels and his machine feeder Peggy Lowe using a flat-bed printing press with a lithographic stone. They are printing maps for an atlas. Maps were printed on big sheets of paper before they were folded or cut to form the finished atlas.

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Photo of man working at a copperplate printing press

Printing direct from copperplate

This is an early style of printing press which printed direct from a copperplate. Bartholomew employee Alick Duff used it to produce copies of maps that were transferred to stone, glass or film, for the colourists and lithographic artists to work with.

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Photo of men setting up blocks of type

Typesetting at Bartholomew

A Bartholomew employee preparing typeset. The text for items such as map covers or atlas frontispieces would be produced using this technique.

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Photo of man standing at lithographic stone with map sheet on it

Transferring map to litho stone

Robert Trotter is transferring a sheet of proof maps to a lithographic stone, in preparation for printing.

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Photo of two men at a printing machine

Off-set printing

Frank Curle (left) and Jock McNaughton (right) operating a two-colour, off-set printing machine. This type of machine replaced those which used lithographic stones.

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Photo of machine roller with atlas pages on it

Solna printing

A member of Bartholomew's printing department using a Solna 125 off-set printing machine to print RAC road maps.

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Photo of machine roller with atlas pages on it

Printing an atlas

A close-up of one of Bartholomew's printing machines showing an atlas sheet being printed. The many maps that comprised an atlas were printed on very large sheets of paper. These were either folded or dissected and then bound to produce the finished item.

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Pages from ledger with handwritten details

Order and cost book

These are the most comprehensive of all Bartholomew's business records. These books bring together all the different stages of the map-making process in extraordinary detail.

More about this order and cost book

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Pages from ledger with handwritten details

Printing workbook

Bartholomew's printing workbooks give us a detailed picture of the time and costs of printing maps.

This example dates to 1909. It records the name of the printer, the map they were printing, the colour that was being printed and how long it took. 'Pulls' means the number of maps that were printed.

The part of the page shown here reveals that Bartholomew was working on the 'Survey atlas of Scotland' (1912) at the time, one of Bartholomew's most important atlases.

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Letter about installing electricty and gas

Installing electricity at Duncan Street

This letter from 1909 reveals information about the installation of electricity at Duncan Street. Before this, Bartholomew's equipment had been gas-powered, and the switch to electricity would have been a major undertaking.

Transcript and other images

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Letter about installing gas-powered equipment

Gas powered equipment

Bartholomew explored all of the options when it came to fitting out Duncan Street. They investigated gas at the same time as electricity, enabling them to choose the most economical solution for their needs. This quote concerns the installation of gas powered equipment.

National Gas Company letter images

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Advertising poster

Progression proofs

A sequence of images showing what are known as 'progression proofs'. They demonstrate how each individual colour contributes to the finished image.

These progression proofs are for one of Bartholomew's advertising posters from 1933.

See progression proofs sequence

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Detail of map showing area around English Combe

Printing a half-inch to the mile map

To fully appreciate the skill required to produce an item like a half-inch map, you need to look at one under a magnifying glass. This reveals that each tint is created by varying the amount of ink on the paper, rather than the tone of the colour.

If you look closely you'll notice that light greens are made up of parallel lines, darker greens by cross-hatched lines and the darkest greens by solid blocks of colour.

This significant innovation helped to speed up production — but it also needed great skill.

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Audio icon and photo of plates on printing machine rollers

Preparing aluminium printing plates

Phil Jenkinson, a printer at Bartholomew, describes how aluminium printing plates were prepared.

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