By means of his own savings and the help of his friends, he was enabled to take a little printing-office in Villiers Street, Strand, about the end of 1803; and there he began with one printing press, and one assistant. His stock of type was so small, that he was under the necessity of working it from day to day like a banker's gold. When his first job came in, he continued to work for the greater part of three nights, setting the type during the day, and working it off at night, in order that the type might be distributed for resetting on the following morning. He succeeded, however, in executing his first job to the entire satisfaction of his first customer.
His business gradually increased, and then, with his constantly saved means, he was enabled to increase his stock of type, and to undertake larger jobs. Industry always tells, and in the long-run leads to prosperity. He married early, but he married well. He was only twenty-four when he found his best fortune in a good, affectionate wife. Through this lady's cousin, Mr.
Winchester, the young printer was shortly introduced to important official business. His punctual execution of orders, the accuracy of his work, and the despatch with which he turned it out soon brought him friends, and his obliging and kindly disposition firmly secured them. Thus, in a few years, the humble beginner with one press became a printer on a large scale.
The small concern expanded into a considerable printing-office in Northumberland Court, which was furnished with many presses and a large stock of type. The office was, unfortunately, burnt down;but a larger office rose in its place.
What Mr. Clowes principally aimed at, in carrying on his business, was accuracy, speed, and quantity. He did not seek to produce editions de luxe in limited numbers, but large impressions of works in popular demand--travels, biographies, histories, blue-books, and official reports, in any quantity.
For this purpose, he found the process of hand-printing too tedious, as well as too costly; and hence he early turned his attention to book printing by machine presses, driven by steam power,--in this matter following the example of Mr. Walter of the Times, who had for some years employed the same method for newspaper printing.
Applegath & Cowper's machines had greatly advanced the art of printing. They secured perfect inking and register; and the sheets were printed off more neatly, regularly, and expeditiously; and larger sheets could be printed on both sides, than by any other method. In 1823, accordingly, Mr. Clowes erected his first steam presses, and he soon found abundance of work for them. But to produce steam requires boilers and engines, the working of which occasions smoke and noise. Now, as the printing-office, with its steam presses, was situated in Northumberland Court, close to the palace of the Duke of Northumberland, at Charing Cross, Mr. Clowes was required to abate the nuisance, and to stop the noise and dirt occasioned by the use of his engines. This he failed to do, and the Duke commenced an action against him.
The case was tried in June, 1824, in the Court of Common Pleas.
It was ludicrous to hear the extravagant terms in which the counsel for the plaintiff and his witnesses described the nuisance--the noise made by the engine in the underground cellar, some times like thunder, at other times like a thrashing-machine, and then again like the rumbling of carts and waggons. The printer had retained the Attorney-general, Mr. Copley, afterwards Lord Lyndhurst, who conducted his case with surpassing ability.
The cross-examination of a foreign artist, employed by the Duke to repaint some portraits of the Cornaro family by Titian, is said to have been one of the finest things on record. The sly and pungent humour, and the banter with which the counsel derided and laughed down this witness, were inimitable. The printer won his case; but he eventually consented to remove his steam presses from the neighbourhood, on the Duke paying him a certain sum to be determined by the award of arbitrators.
It happened, about this period, that a sort of murrain fell upon the London publishers. After the failure of Constable at Edinburgh, they came down one after another, like a pack of cards. Authors are not the only people who lose labour and money by publishers; there are also cases where publishers are ruined by authors. Printers also now lost heavily. In one week, Mr.
Clowes sustained losses through the failure of London publishers to the extent of about 25,000L. Happily, the large sum which the arbitrators awarded him for the removal of his printing presses enabled him to tide over the difficulty; he stood his ground unshaken, and his character in the trade stood higher than ever.
In the following year Mr. Clowes removed to Duke Street, Blackfriars, to premises until then occupied by Mr. Applegath, as a printer; and much more extensive buildings and offices were now erected. There his business transactions assumed a form of unprecedented magnitude, and kept pace with the great demand for popular information which set in with such force about fifty years ago. In the course of ten years--as we find from the 'Encyclopaedia Metropolitana'--there were twenty of Applegath &Cowper's machines, worked by two five-horse engines. From these presses were issued the numerous admirable volumes and publications of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge; the treatises on 'Physiology,' by Roget, and 'Animal Mechanics,' by Charles Bell; the 'Elements of Physics,' by Neill Arnott; 'The Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties,' by G. L.
Craik, a most fascinating book; the Library of Useful Knowledge;the 'Penny Magazine,' the first illustrated publication; and the 'Penny Cyclopaedia,' that admirable compendium of knowledge and science.
