Industries 159 



Apart from the history of the University Press, there is very Httle 

 authentic record of printing in Cambridge" until near the middle of the 

 eighteenth century when a weekly newspaper, The Cambridge Journal & 

 Weekly Flying Post, was published in September 1744. Eighteen years 

 later, in 1762, The Cambridge Chronicle was first issued, and about four 

 years afterwards The Journal was incorporated. This paper had no rival 

 until 1839, when The Cambridge Advertiser (wliich subsequently became 

 The Independent Press) first saw the hght. These local newspapers were 

 mainly responsible for general commercial printing, although in the early 

 years of the reign of Queen Victoria, one or two small printers established 

 themselves in the town, but their activities never assumed large proportions. 

 The Cambridge Express also came into being; but with the advent of The 

 Cambridge Weekly News in 1887, the three other local newspapers were 

 absorbed, The Chronicle being the last to be incorporated a few years ago. 

 The printing department of the latter now survives as "St Tibb's Press". 

 A few of the old private firms remain without having shown much expan- 

 sion, with the exception of Messrs W. Heffer & Sons Ltd., who started 

 by taking over the small jobbing section of The Independent Press, and who 

 now have one of the most up-to-date works in the Eastern Counties. 



Instrument-Making. When Sir Michael Foster was appointed to the 

 University Chair of Physiology in 1883 , he found a starthng lack of medical 

 equipment of British and modem design; most instruments needed to keep 

 pace with medical discovery had to be imported from German firms. 

 Consequently he started to design and manufacture instruments on a small 

 scale with the aid of two former pupils, Dr Dew Smith and Mr Francis 

 Balfour. Soon, the co-operation of Sir Horace Darwin was obtained, and 

 this was the beginning of the Cambridge Instrument Company Ltd. It 

 was not tmtil 1895, however, after the retirement of the senior parmer, 

 that the business registered itself as a company under the chairmanship 

 of Darwin. Among the important inventions of those early days were 

 the bifilar pendulum form of seismograph, and the rocking microtome for 

 the rapid preparation of specimens for the microscope; then again there 

 was the thread-recorder for marking the path of a moving pointer. 



After the changes in reorganisation, the business was removed from 

 St Tibb's Row to Chesterton Road, where it has remained, adding block 

 to block, until the present day. Darwin took a leading part in the 

 study of aviation. In 1912, he was appointed a member of the Advisory 



' There are of course printers at work outside the town of Cambridge itself Thus 

 "the earhest newspaper bearing a Wisbech title — the Lynn and Wisbech Packet — came 

 into existence on January yth, 1800". For the subsequent newspaper history of the 

 town, see F. J. Gardiner, History of Wisbecli and Neighbourhood (1898), pp. 65-74. 



