a temporary excursion from his main fields of interest. 
An appeal for inventions to defeat forgery—a chronic 
problem in England at the time—kindled his imagina- 
tion. In 1818 a public competition was opened, with 
the winning entry to be put into operation by the 
Bank of England. Although Congreve was appointed 
one of the judges, this did not deter him from sub- 
One of these was the process 
he called ‘‘compound plate printing.” 
The following five years were eventful for Congreve. 
He developed the idea of compound-plate printing 
and took out a series of three patents connected with 
mitting his own entries. 
it. He saw the process established with a private firm 
of printers, Branston and Whiting, and Somerset 
House, a government office. He wrote pamphlets 
and letters in defense of the method, published speci- 
mens, and was involved in several quarrels with other 
Then in about 1824, when the new trade 
was flourishing, Congreve turned over the patent 
inventors. 
rights to Branston and Whiting and returned to his 
other interests. He had nothing more to do with the 
process. Compound printing survived until late in 
the century at Whiting’s firm and until 1920 or later 
But its history after 1824 formed 
a second chapter of steady application, quite different 
at Somerset House. 
in character from the first colorful years of its inven- 
tion and establishment under Congreve’s manage- 
ment. 
Compound-plate printing was a method of making 
relief prints in several colors, the colors all being 
printed at once with a single pull of the press. By the 
ordinary method of color-relief printing, different 
blocks were used for the different colors and they were 
printed in succession. It was always difficult to 
print the colors so that they coincided exactly. 
Congreve’s compound plates, on the other hand, 
were composed of several interlocking parts like the 
pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. To print a plate the parts 
were separated, inked in their different colors, fitted 
together again and printed as a single plate. In the 
resulting print the colors registered with a precision 
that could not be achieved by any other method. 
At the same time it was impossible, from the nature 
of the plates, to print one color over another to 
product a third color. This precise registration 
between adjacent simple colors gave the print a 
peculiar character and made it quite easy to tell a 
true compound print from a copy, however carefully 
made, by some other method. This, and the fact 
that the equipment needed to set up a compound- 
printing shop was cumbersome and expensive, made 
yy 
the process a potentially useful protection against 
forgery. 
The endemic problem of forgery was intensified 
with the coming of the Industrial Revolution. The 
volume of bank notes increased to meet the demands 
of an expanding commercial activity for which the 
specie circulation was inadequate. Moreover, the 
growing labor force needed notes in smaller de- 
nominations. The notes were issued by many 
independent banks of which the Bank of England 
was the most important. The Bank soon became the 
chief target of forgers, whose efforts would easily pass 
among a new group in society unused to the currency 
and incapable of recognizing forgeries. 
In 1797 the Bank of England invited suggestions 
from the public for improvements that would safe- 
guard its notes. In 1802 a ‘‘Committee to examine 
plans for the improvement of bank notes” was set up 
by the Bank to consider these suggestions, but it found 
none worth recommending. Over the next fifteen 
years more suggestions were made, but many were 
worthless and others repeated ideas that the Bank 
had already rejected. Meanwhile the recognized 
forged notes increased from about 3,000 in the year 
1803 to 31,000 in 1817.! During the Napoleonic 
Wars the problem had been shelved. With Europe 
at peace again it was no longer to be ignored. 
At this time forgery or the passing of forged notes 
was a crime which brought the death penalty or 
life transportation, but the forgers themselves were 
rarely caught. Most of the executed criminals were 
the passers, often ignorant and illiterate men and 
Public 
sympathy was more with the convicted criminals 
women who did not understand their crime. 
than with the law. Juries were unwilling to convict 
and private banks would not prosecute if they could 
avoid it. Public feeling was strong. Pamphleteers 
and journalists demanded some action to improve the 
situation. As a result three separate committees 
were established in 1817 and 1818 to investigate the 
matter: the Bank’s *“‘Committee to examine plans for 
the improvement of bank notes’ was revived; a 
Royal Commission was set up by the government; 
and the Society of Arts held its own inquiry. Sir 
William Congreve, who was a governor of the Bank, 
was one of the seven Royal Commissioners. 
1A. D. Mackenzie, The Bank of England note (Cambridge: 
Cambridge University Press, 1953), pp. 55, 58. 
Z BULLETIN 252: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 
