» 
NUR eee 
Figure 20.—MANUFACTURER’S LABEL of the late 19th 
century, printed lithographically. (From the Con- 
stance Meade Collection, Oxford University Press.) 
his son Charles Whiting, continued in business with 
the process until well into the second half of the 
century. 
In addition to compound-plate printing, Whiting 
practiced another process patented by Sir William 
Congreve in 1824.%° His idea was a simple method 
for making a printed and embossed impression. A 
single embossing die, in which the image was sunk, 
served as a printing plate: the flat surface surround- 
ing the intaglio image was inked with a roller and 
then printed with great pressure to produce a white 
embossed (or raised) design against a colored ground 
(figures 9 and 10). The process was sometimes known 
by the French name gaufrage. It was not as original 
as compound printing, nor was the equipment as un- 
usual, and consequently it was practiced by other 
London printers, notably Charles Dobbs and Thomas 
De La Rue, as well as Whiting. Nevertheless, Whiting 
lettered his gaufrage prints, like his compound prints, 
“Whiting Patentee” until long after the patent rights 
had expired. 
In 1839 a competitive prize of £200 was offered by 
23 British patent 4898 (February 1824). 
rr 
Rilo CiierOy 
ye 
Ee Me ed hd ike Lid 
DI) 
2 
| 
3 
i 
S 
Ry 
Sy 
Pp 
2 
a 
~ 
4 
A 
= 
> 
By 
ES | 
~ 
~ 
& 
Se 
& 
. FM a 
a et Md Ls Le Md Ls 
LIPLEO_ FIO IIIS OG 

Figure 2].—PAPER-REAM LABEL of about 1825, printed 
from compound plates. (From the Constance Meade 
Collection, Oxford University Press.) 
the British Treasury for suggestions for new postage 
stamps. Whiting entered both his processes. His 
suggested adhesive stamps were printed from com- 
pound plates, and the embossing process was to be 
used for stamping paper sent in by the public.** None 
of the competitors’ entries was judged good enough 
to be adopted, but nevertheless the prize was in- 
creased to £400 and divided equally between four 
outstanding competitors. Charles Whiting was one 
of these four, and the specimens of another, Henry 
25 
Cole, were also said to have been made by Whiting.* 
The contract for producing the first penny postage 
stamps was eventually given to Perkins’ company— 
Perkins, Bacon and Petch—which had not taken 
part in the competition. The stamps were printed 
from Perkins’ siderographic plates. 
A famous example of color work from the in- 
cunabula of printing which provides a unique paral- 
lel to Congreve’s work is the Psalter printed by Fust 
and Schoeffer at Mainz in 1457. The initial letters 
in this Psalter are remarkable for the precision of the 
24 Some of Whiting’s blocks for this competition were printed 
in the Art Union (London, 1848), p. 194. 
25 Sir E. D. Bacon, op, cit. (footnote 19), p. 4. 
PAPER 71: SIR WILLIAM CONGREVE AND HIS COMPOUND-PLATE PRINTING 85 
