Call Number:

Ms. Coll. 1248

Repository:

University of Pennsylvania: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts

Extent:

0.2 linear feet (1 box and two oversized folders)

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Percy David Hedderwick papers relating to printing press inventions, 1864-1905, Ms. Coll. 1248, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania

Date:

1864-1905 (inclusive)

Creator:

Hedderwick, Percy David

Form:

Blueprints (reprographic copies), Correspondence, and Cabinet photographs

Abstract:

Percy David Hedderwick (1849-1920) was a Scottish engineer and inventor who patented an advanced rotary printing press in 1870 in addition to holding patents No. 1581 and 1958 for improvements to printing machinery such as automatic stopping and an apparatus for counting paper in the machines. This collection documents his efforts to patent his inventions and introduce them into the market.

Percy David Hedderwick was a Scottish inventor who was born on September 30, 1849 and died on February 13, 1920. The son of James Hedderwick (1814-1897), the proprietor of the Glasgow Citizen and theEvening Citizen, he was an engineer by profession. He invented an advanced rotary press in 1870 which resulted in two patents: patent No. 1581 of May 31, 1870 for "improvements in printing and in the machinery or apparatus employed thereof…Automatic stopping of the machinery…Using blasts of air in laying printed sheets," and patent No. 1958 of July 11, 1870 for "A new or improved apparatus for counting paper in sheets, and in the application thereof to printing machines."

According to a document in which Hedderwick describes his "double web machine" and the need for advances in newspaper printing, he states that he was "connected with the Press all [his] life, and had every opportunity for studying the principle and the practice of Printing, [his] father being the proprietor of the Glasgow Evening Citizen, the circulation of which has hitherto only been limited by the speed of the machinery employed," (box 1, folder 4). He studied the problem for four years before determining that "two webs of paper could be printed by a single set of type on stereotype cylinders." Hedderwick describes the resistance to his invention, citing the concerns of the newspapers and refuting them point by point. At the end of his document, he states that "the daily working expenses, time, and labour [would] be much less in every respect than with single web machines to perform the same duty."

Hedderwick married Ida Nelson, and together they had five children.

This collection documents Hedderwick's efforts to patent his inventions and introduce them into the market. The collection includes correspondence as well as patent publications, descriptions, and plans. The correspondence in this collection primarily concerns the purchase of the patents for Hedderwick's designs. In 1875, Mr. W.E. Newton purchased Hedderwick's patent No. 1581. In 1876, Newton wrote that he received a report claiming Hedderwick's patent was invalid because it was based off of a machine patented a year earlier. Hedderwick responded refuting this claim. In another letter, Michael Hunter of M. Hunter & Son was granted the right to exclusively manufacture and sell the press for fourteen years. Correspondence in this collection also contains questions from potential buyers of Hedderwick's Double-Web Machine, written plans for which are included in this collection.

Researchers will find handwritten plans for the Double-Web Machine along with Hedderwick's description of the need for the product and responses to the industry's concerns about the product. There are also published patent documents relating to Hedderwick's designs, a cabinet card photograph of Hedderwick's press, printing samples, a blueprint for "Fudge Box for Order No. 8343 'Nottingham Guardian,'" and an oversized advertising brochure about the "Patent Web Printing and Folding Machinery, manufactured by Northern Press & Engineering Co., Limited."