The three committees were told of ideas concerning 
all aspects of the Bank’s activity and the production of 
its notes, but they were principally looking for a new 
technique by which currency could be produced in 
very large quantities, with each piece virtually 
identical and inimitable. In particular they con- 
sidered printing, papermaking and_ ink-making 
techniques. 
From these inquiries several facts emerged to explain 
why Bank of England notes were forged more often 
than those of private bankers. Private banks 
promised to redeem forgeries of their own notes which 
were accordingly handed in promptly and were thus 
easier to trace to their source. The Bank of England, 
on the other hand, refused to redeem forged notes, so 
people who suspected that they held forgeries would 
try to pass them on rather than hand them in to the 
Bank. The Bank of England was handicapped, too, 
by the size of its circulation for there were technical 
difficulties in the production of such a large number 
of notes, and consequently there was some variation 
even between genuine notes. 
The Bank’s notes were printed from copper plates. 
Engraved copper will provide only a limited number 
of prints before it becomes worn and the quality of 
the prints deteriorates. The number may range from 
a few hundred to several thousand, depending on 
the kind of engraving, the kind of copper, and the 
way the plate is handled in printing. There was no 
known way of duplicating plates mechanically. A 
team of engravers was employed continuously at the 
Bank to engrave new plates which were put into 
service as soon as they were ready, but the plates 
deviated more and more from the prototypes. The 
Bank had various devices, but none satisfactory, for 
increasing the number of impressions from each plate. 
It was customary for engravers to touch up worn 
plates by deepening and sharpening the lines, though 
this was not considered among engravers to be a 
reputable practice as prints from retouched plates 
were never as fine as the originals. Bank of England 
plates were retouched several times over, to increase 
the life-span of a plate two- or three-fold. Another 
trick was that of taking two prints from a plate with 
only a single inking. The inked plate was printed the 
first time with light pressure so only half the ink was 
taken from the lines. This print was removed, a 
second paper put in its place and the plate printed 
again, this time with extra pressure to take the re- 
maining ink from the lines. Thus two imperfect 
prints were taken for the price of a single good one, 
PAPER 71: SIR WILLIAM CONGREVE AND HIS COMPOUND-PLATE PRINTING 
and the plate was saved from the wear of the extra 
inking operation.” 
The quality of Bank of England notes was so low 
that there was said to be more variety among its 
genuine notes than among forgeries. The genuine- 
ness of any note, however bad, could be discerned 
from secret marks on the print, such as apparently 
accidental scratches or faults in the engraving. These 
marks, however, known only to Bank officials, gave 
no protection to the public. The effect was that the 
Bank of England offered both the greatest temptation 
and the harshest penalty to the forger. 
Sir William Congreve submitted three suggestions 
to the Bank committee. They were a metal coin, a 
paper, and the compound-printing process. All three 
had in common the idea of compound construction. 
He patented only the coin and the printing process. 
The coin * was to be composed of two elaborate 
separable metal parts. The inner piece or “token” 
was made ofa hard metal like steel, and the outer piece 
or “‘gauge”’ was made of a more fusible metal which 
was cast around the first. This “gauge’’ was of no 
value except in testing the genuineness of any “‘token”’ 
by the exactness of the fit. Congreve maintained 
that the token was inimitable without the original die 
with which it was stamped, since no forged copy could 
be made to fit perfectly into the gauge. He suggested, 
too, that a compound gold ingot could be made in 
the same way from interlocking pieces of gold and 
another metal. The words “Bank of England” and 
‘‘Ingot’’ were to be stamped on the sides, crossing the 
different metals. The ingot would be tested by the 
precision of the fit and the coincidence of the stamped 
letters on the different parts. 
The compound coin and ingot were rejected by the 
Bank Committee and Congreve made his second sug- 
gestion, a method of making bank-note paper. The 
paper, which he called ‘“‘triple-paper,”’ was to be made 
of three thin layers couched together so that 
they fused. The outer two were white and plain 
and the center layer colored and strongly water- 
marked so the watermark showed very clear and 
bright. This, too, was turned down by the Com- 
mittee. 
Congreve next adapted the idea of the compound 
2 Report of the Society of Arts relating to forgery (London 1818). 
This report contains a full and interesting account of the 
state of engraving in England at the time, particularly at the 
Bank of England. 
3 British patent 4404 (November 1819). 
NI 
Wo 
