INDUSTRIES 



For upwards of fifty years — until his retire- 

 ment in 1884 from active business pursuits — 

 Mr. Austin continued to carry on this journal, 

 advocating through good and ill report the 

 estabUshed principles of Liberalism, and render- 

 ing loyal support to the Governments of Lord 

 Melbourne, Lord Aberdeen, Lord Russell, Lord 

 Palmerston and Mr. Gladstone, to the last 

 named of whom he was an unwavering adherent 

 up to the last hours of his life. 



In 1854 ^^^ present premises were commenced 

 and were added to in 1909. This was the third 

 and last move of the business. 



In January 1871 Stephen Austin took his 

 two sons, Stephen and Vernon, into partnership. 

 Stephen Austin, sen., continued to take a very 

 active part in the affairs of the business until 

 he retired. Even then he would not let a copy 

 of the newspaper he founded go to press without 

 seeing the final proofs. His energies in this 

 respect made The Hertfordshire Mercury the 

 respected paper it is. The two sons worked in 

 partnership until 4 September 1903, when the 

 elder of the brothers died. 



On 10 June of the following year the business 

 was turned into a hmited company, and Vernon 

 Austin was made governing director. During 

 the long period the business has been in exis- 

 tence it has always kept abreast with the times. 

 Old machinery has been replaced again and 

 again to keep pace with the other improve- 

 ments, so as to be able to produce and keep up 

 the splendid record of good printing. 



Until 1906 the firm had in its possession one 

 of the old original steam flat-bed platen printing 

 presses. These machines until about twenty 

 years ago were considered to produce the finest 

 work. Since that time the cylinder machines 

 in their many forms have been so perfected that 

 they supersede them both in speed (such a 

 necessary quality to-day) and good printing. 

 One veteran machine is still on the premises 

 and also in use, and good use ; this is the 

 hand-press on which The Hertfordshire Mercury 

 was originally printed. 



In 1905, feeling the need of assistance and 

 wishing to enjoy more leisure, Mr. Vernon 

 Austin turned to his old friend, Mr. Edgar 

 Harrison, of the well-known firm of Harrison & 

 Sons, of St. Martin's Lane, London, with the 

 result that the only son of this gentleman came 

 down in 1906 with the twofold object of 

 increasing his knowledge of the art of printing 

 — which he had acquired in the first instance in 

 the country where printing was invented — and 

 giving his personal assistance to Mr. Austin. 



In November 1906 Mr. Victor Harrison 

 became a recognized member of the firm. 

 Owing to Mr. Harrison's extensive knowledge 

 of machinery, Mr. Austin placed in his hands 

 entirely the installation of the present new 

 and up-to-date plant, which is now keeping 



up the firm's untarnished reputation of always 

 being abreast with the times. In 1909 Mr. 

 Vernon Austin decided to place the active 

 management of the business in the hands of his 

 old friend's son, and appointed him managing 

 director. This is how the old-established busi- 

 ness stands to-day, still pursuing its increasingly 

 prosperous career. 



In addition to the press of Stephen Austin 

 at Hertford there were a few other printers at 

 work in different parts of the county during the 

 latter part of the i8th century. In 1778 a 

 printer at Cheshunt, named T. Baldwin, printed 

 an auction hand-bill by John Parnell for 

 I January 1779,^* a copy of which is in the 

 Bodleian. In 1793 the Rev. Nathaniel May's 

 Sermons on the History of Joseph, preached by 

 him in the parish churches of Hemel Hempstead 

 and Great Gaddesden, were printed for him by 

 William McDowall, a printer at Berkhampstead, 

 in a small octavo form. Copies of these 

 Sermons are in the British Museum and Bod- 

 leian.^' In 1800 a printer at Hitchin, named 

 J. Bedford, printed Regulations for a Review at 

 Hatfield, presumably a broadside.^* 



Coming to the 19th century, the first press 

 that calls for notice is that o* Richard Gibbs, 

 sen., of St. Albans, who in 1826 obtained a licence 

 under the old Act to prevent sedition to set up 

 a press in the town. This licence runs as 

 follows : — 



St. Albans. Story C.P. I John Samuel Story, 

 Clerk of the Peace for the Borough of Saint Alban, 

 in the County of Hertford, do hereby certify that 

 Richard Gibbs of the said Borough of St. Albans hath 

 delivered unto me a notice in writing appearing to 

 be signed by him and attested by George Lawson as 

 witness to his signing the same, that he the said 

 Richard Gibbs hath a Printing Press and types, which 

 he proposes to use for printing within the Borough of 

 St. Albans, and which he has required to be entered 

 pursuant to an Act passed in the thirty-ninth year of 

 his late majesty's reign intituled, an Act for the more 

 effective suppression of societies established for seditious 

 and treasonable purposes, and for better preventing 

 treasonable and seditious practices. Witness my hand 

 this twentieth day of April 1826. Story C.P. 



There was another small printer in the place, 

 named William Langley, of whom, however, 

 nothing is known. Both he and Richard Gibbs 

 the elder carried on business in the High Street. 

 Richard Gibbs's first printing rooms were in a 

 passage, now disappeared, off the High Street, 

 and he used as an office the httle shop attached 

 to the Clock Tower, which was removed when 

 the tower was restored about 1858. In old 

 prints of the period the name ' Gibbs ' appears 

 on the building, but it is beheved that the real 



" W. H. Allnutt, Library, July 1 901, p. 250. 

 16 Ibid. 256. 

 1^ Ibid. 259. 



263 



