Cropper & Co

Treadle operated Printing press from H.S. Cropper & Co, Nottingham.

Minerva platen machine.

Source; pictures mine, located in Motat museum in Auckland New Zealand.

Cropper

His company, H.S. Cropper and Co. Ltd. made two well known presses,“Cropper” became a generic term for all jobbing platen presses in the UK. The man who gave his name to these presses was Henry Smith Cropper, born in Radford, Notting hamshire in 1839. He was a successful businessman and also a pillar of the local community. He was elected to a School Board, which built local schools, was Sheriff of Nottingham from 1880 – 1881, and he was also a magistrate.

The Minerva

Minerva Press

This was based on the Gordon Franklin press and H.S. Cropper and Co. began its manufacture in 1867. Adverts said it was better known as “The Cropper”. In 1879 an advert isement claimed that 9,000 were in use, and by 1891, 14,000. The same adverts include a testi monial that one owner employed a boy who could produce 2,000 impressions per hour. However, James Moran thinks that even the more modest claim of 1,000 – 1,250iph was an exaggeration.

It was available in the following sizes; 7″ x 11″, 9″ x 14″, 10″ x 15″, 11″ x 17″, 13″ x 19″.

The Minerva was famously used by Virginia and Leonard Woolf, to produce Hogarth Press books. There is a drawing of Leonard at the press with Virginia in the background composing here. The Woolfs gave the press to Vita Sackville-West and it is still at Sissinghurst.

They also produced the  The Cropperette.

The name changed to,

Cropper, Charlton and Co.

Henry Cropper died in 1893, and the company then became The Cropper Machines Co. trading from Parkinson Street Mills, Nottingham. Shortly afterwards, Henry’s son Sydney went into partnership with Charles Charlton and the name of the company changed to Cropper, Charlton and Co. trading from Franklin Works, New Basford, Nottingham. Sadly Sydney Cropper died aged only 36 in 1901, just two years after his marriage. Charlton continued to run the company with his two sons, Reginald and Charles Cedric, not surprisingly they kept the Cropper name in their company title. The last patent that they applied for was in 1939.

Cropper, Charlton and Co. manufactured and imported a number of presses, these included –

The Peerless

Clamshell Platen in 8″ x 5″, 7″ x 11″, 10″ x 15″. The Peerless No.2 (7″ x 11″) weighs approx 550lb. The 8″ x 5″ model was sold through H.W. Caslon and an early advert claimed its unique selling points were that it ” runs as easy as a sewing machine” and that the Peerless was operated by “.. a novel method, the dwell on the press is long.”

Although bearing the same name as an American press, the design seemed closer to the Cropperette than the Peerless Platen manufactured in the States by the Globe Manufac turing Co., which was another Gordon copy.

The Acme

Acme Press

As the Peerless appears to be a devel opment of the Cropperette, so the Acme seems to have evolved from the Minerva.

Source;http://britishletterpress.co.uk/presses/platen-presses/cropper/