-
61 Wedgwood, Ralph
SUBJECT AREA: Paper and printing[br]fl. late eighteenth/early nineteenth century London, England[br]English inventor of carbon paper.[br]Wedgwood was descended from Thomas Wedgwood, the father of Josiah Wedgwood, the founder of the famous pottery firm. In 1806, he patented an apparatus for making copies of handwritten documents, Wedgwood's Stylographic Writer. It was originally developed with the intention of helping the blind to write and had a metal stylus instead of a quill pen: a piece of paper that had been soaked in printer's ink and then dried was placed between two sheets of paper, and wires placed across the page guided the stylus in the hand of the blind writer.A few years later Wedgwood developed this apparatus into a way of making a copy of a letter at the time of writing. He used impregnated paper, which he called carbonic or carbonated paper, the first known reference to carbon paper. It was placed between a sheet of good quality writing paper and one of thin, transparent paper. By writing with the stylus on the thin paper, a good copy appeared on the lower sheet, while a reverse copy appeared on the underside of the other, which could be read right way round through the transparent paper. In its final form, the Manifold Stylographic Writer was put on sale, elegantly presented between marbled covers. Eventually a company was established to make and sell the writer, and by 1818 it was in the name of Wedgwood's son, R.Wedgwood Jun. of Rathbone Place, Oxford Street, London. Many of the writers were sold, although they never came into general use in offices, which preferred battalions of Dickensian Bob Cratchits armed with quill pens. Wedgwood himself did not share in the family prosperity, for his pathetic letters to his daughter show that he had to hawk his apparatus to raise the price of his next meal.[br]Further ReadingW.B.Proudfoot, 1972, The Origin of Stencil Duplicating, London: Hutchinson.LRD
См. также в других словарях:
letter quality — high quality printing … English contemporary dictionary
Letter-quality printer — A letter quality printer was a form of computer impact printer that was able to print with the quality typically expected from a business typewriter such as an IBM Selectric.A letter quality printer operates in much the same fashion as a… … Wikipedia
letter quality — noun Etymology: letter (I) (missive) : printing produced by a computer printer in solid letters similar to or clearer than those produced by a conventional typewriter * * * letter quality noun Output from a printer where the printing is… … Useful english dictionary
near letter quality — NLQ, high quality printing … English contemporary dictionary
Printing press — For the history and technology of movable type, see Movable type. Printing press from 1811, exhibited in Munich, Germany … Wikipedia
letter — n. & v. n. 1 a a character representing one or more of the simple or compound sounds used in speech, any of the alphabetic symbols. b (in pl.) colloq. the initials of a degree etc. after the holder s name. c US a school or college initial as a… … Useful english dictionary
printing — /prin ting/, n. 1. the art, process, or business of producing books, newspapers, etc., by impression from movable types, plates, etc. 2. the act of a person or thing that prints. 3. words, symbols, etc., in printed form. 4. printed material. 5.… … Universalium
Offset printing — Web fed offset lithographic press at speed … Wikipedia
letterpress printing — or relief printing or typographic printing In commercial printing, process by which many copies are produced by repeated direct impression of an inked, raised surface against sheets or a continuous roll of paper. Letterpress is the oldest… … Universalium
Letterpress printing — is a term for printing text with movable type, in which the raised surface of the type is inked and then pressed against a smooth substance to obtain an image in reverse. In addition to the direct impression of inked movable type onto paper or… … Wikipedia
Variable data printing — (VDP) (also known as variable information printing (VIP) or VI) is a form of on demand printing in which elements such as text, graphics and images may be changed from one printed piece to the next, without stopping or slowing down the printing… … Wikipedia
