A HISTORY OF HERTFORDSHIRE 



tenant was George Washington Gibbs, the 

 printer's brother. Subsequently Richard Gibbs 

 took the shop, No. 21 High Street, an old gabled 

 house now pulled down. Here he carried on 

 the business as a printer and bookseller. Soon 

 after the new Town Hall was built Richard 

 Gibbs removed his business into that part of 

 the old Moot Hall situated at the corner of 

 Market Place and Dagnall Street. This historic 

 building is still a part of the firm's premises, 

 and was purchased from Samuel Crowley, 

 grocer, on 16 December 1837. In 1855 Richard 

 Gibbs the younger succeeded his father in the 

 proprietorship of the business, and on 7 July 

 of that year he printed with his own hand the 

 first copy of the St. Albans Times, subsequently 

 called The Herts Advertiser and St. Albans Times, 

 which has had a prosperous existence ever since. 

 By a happy coincidence he assisted in printing, 

 on very different machinery, the Jubilee number 

 of the paper on I July 1905. Richard Gibbs 

 the younger died in January 1910 at the age 

 of seventy-six, and was succeeded by his son 

 Mr. A. E. Gibbs, who has kindly supplied the 

 information given above. The firm is now 

 Gibbs & Bamforth, Ltd. 



Printing is now the chief industry of St. 

 Albans, in that more hands are employed in it 

 than in any other business. The Salvation 

 Army have large works there, and among other 

 firms are Smith's Agency, Dangerfield & Co., 

 Taylor & Co. and several smaller concerns. 

 During the Hfe of the Herts Advertiser several 

 other papers have been started : The St. Albans 

 Dial, The St. Albans Illustrated Telegraph, The 



St. Albans Herald, not printed in St. Albana, 

 but sold in Market Place, The County Chronicle, 

 The St. Albans ReporUr, The Herts Standard and 

 The Hertfordshire Post. 



Two large firms, Messrs. J. M. Dent & Sons 

 and Messrs. W. H. Smith & Son, have during 

 the present century started printing works at 

 Letchworth. Messrs. W. H. Smith & Son's 

 bookbinding workshops were originally estab- 

 hshed near Drury Lane in 1904, and Mr. 

 Douglas Cockerell, the distinguished pupil of 

 Mr. Cobden Sanderson, was appointee con- 

 troller. As the premises in London proved too 

 small new workshops were built at Letchworth, 

 and opened in October 1907. Every kind of 

 bookbinding is done, from simple wrappering in 

 paper covers to costly leather bindings for 

 valuable manuscripts and printed books, about 

 150 men, women and girls being employed in 

 the workshops. The Arden Press had its origin 

 in the private press estabhshed by a Benedictine 

 monk at Stratford-on-Avon about the year 

 1880. It was then called St. Gregory's Press. 

 A few years later the Press was acquired by 

 Mr. Alfred Newdigate, who moved it to Leam- 

 ington. In 1904 its name was changed to the 

 Arden Press, and the business was formed into 

 a hmited habihty company, which Mr. Alfred 

 Newdigate and his son controlled. In 1907 the 

 Press was moved to Letchworth to occupy the 

 new premises built for it by Messrs. W. H. 

 Smith & Son, who purchased the business from 

 the company the follo\ving year. About 120 

 persons are employed, chiefly on fine book and 

 commercial printing. 



POTTERY, TILES AND BRICKS 



The presence in Hertfordshire of extensive 

 deposits of a suitable clay has resulted in the 

 establishment of the manufacture of pottery 

 and the allied products, riles and bricks, as one 

 of the most important county industries, and 

 almost the only one with a continuous history, 

 or at least a continuous existence, from Roman 

 times to the present day. That pottery of a 

 crude type, but probably of local manufacture, 

 was produced in pre-Roman times appears to 

 be indicated by the finding of numerous frag- 

 ments, generally classified as ' Early British ' in 

 various parts of the county. Roman pottery 

 kilns have been found at Radlett and also at 

 Aldenham. Details of these discoveries are 

 given in the section on Roman remains, and it 

 is here sufficient to note that the kilns were of 

 the usual type, consisting of a more or less 

 circular pit containing a mushroom-shaped 

 pedestal on which the clay vessels were piled in 

 layers to bake. The heat from the furnace in 

 the base of the pit reached the vessels through 



and round the edges of the pedestal, and the 

 smoke escaped through a central vent in the 

 clay dome, built up anew at every firing, over 

 the kiln. The Victoria Playing Fields, St. 

 Albans, is said to be the site of the Roman 

 brickfields which supplied Verulamium with its 

 bricks and tiles. These clay-pits were possibly 

 in use before the existing pre-Conquest earth- 

 works at Kingsbury were thrown up, and 

 washed clay and gravel such as might be 

 expected on brickfields have been found here. 



Although no actual evidence exists of the 

 manufacture of pottery in this district for 

 a hundred years after the Conquest, there is no 

 reason to doubt that it continued here as else- 

 where. 



The prevalence of the industry is shown by 

 such place-names as Potters Bar, Potters 

 Crouch, Potters Green in Little Munden, 

 Potters Heath between Welwyn and Datch- 

 worth, Potten End in Berkhampstead, ' Pot- 

 terereshegge ' in St. Albans, mentioned in a 



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