FREDERICK KOENIG: INVENTOR OF THE STEAM-PRINTING MACHINE.
"The honest projector is he who, having by fair and plain principles of sense, honesty, and ingenuity, brought any contrivance to a suitable perfection, makes out what he pretends to, picks nobody's pocket, puts his project in execution, and contents himself with the real produce as the profit of his invention."--De Foe.
I published an article in 'Macmillan's Magazine' for December, 1869, under the above title. The materials were principally obtained from William and Frederick Koenig, sons of the inventor.
Since then an elaborate life has been published at Stuttgart, under the title of "Friederich Koenig und die Erfindung Der Schnellpresse, Ein Biographisches Denkmal. Von Theodor Goebel."The author, in sending me a copy of the volume, refers to the article published in 'Macmillan,' and says, "I hope you will please to accept it as a small acknowledgment of the thanks, which every German, and especially the sons of Koenig, in whose name I send the book as well as in mine, owe to you for having bravely taken up the cause of the much wronged inventor, their father-- an action all the more praiseworthy, as you had to write against the prejudices and the interests of your own countrymen."I believe it is now generally admitted that Koenig was entitled to the merit of being the first person practically to apply the power of steam to indefinitely multiplying the productions of the printing-press; and that no one now attempts to deny him this honour. It is true others, who followed him, greatly improved upon his first idea; but this was the case with Watt, Symington, Crompton, Maudslay, and many more. The true inventor is not merely the man who registers an idea and takes a patent for it, or who compiles an invention by borrowing the idea of another, improving upon or adding to his arrangements, but the man who constructs a machine such as has never before been made, which executes satisfactorily all the functions it was intended to perform. And this is what Koenig's invention did, as will be observed from the following brief summary of his life and labours.
Frederick Koenig was born on the 17th of April, 1774, at Eisleben, in Saxony, the birthplace also of a still more famous person, Martin Luther. His father was a respectable peasant proprietor, described by Herr Goebel as Anspanner. But this word has now gone out of use. In feudal times it described the farmer who was obliged to keep draught cattle to perform service due to the landlord. The boy received a solid education at the Gymnasium, or public school of the town. At a proper age he was bound apprentice for five years to Breitkopf and Hartel, of Leipzig, as compositor and printer; but after serving for four and a quarter years, he was released from his engagement because of his exceptional skill, which was an unusual occurrence.
During the later years of his apprenticeship, Koenig was permitted to attend the classes in the University, more especially those of Ernst Platner, a physician, philosopher, and anthropologist. After that he proceeded to the printing-office of his uncle, Anton F. Rose, at Greifswald, an old seaport town on the Baltic, where he remained a few years. He next went to Halle as a journeyman printer,-- German workmen going about from place to place, during their wanderschaft, for the purpose of learning their business. After that, he returned to Breitkopf and Hartel, at Leipzig, where he had first learnt his trade.
During this time, having saved a little money, he enrolled himself for a year as a regular student at the University of Leipzig.
According to Koenig's own account, he first began to devise ways and means for improving the art of printing in the year 1802, when he was twenty-eight years old. Printing large sheets of paper by hand was a very slow as well as a very laborious process. One of the things that most occupied the young printer's mind was how to get rid of this "horse-work," for such it was, in the business of printing. He was not, however, over-burdened with means, though he devised a machine with this object. But to make a little money, he made translations for the publishers. In 1803 Koenig returned to his native town of Eisleben, where he entered into an arrangement with Frederick Riedel, who furnished the necessary capital for carrying on the business of a printer and bookseller. Koenig alleges that his reason for adopting this step was to raise sufficient money to enable him to carry out his plans for the improvement of printing.
The business, however, did not succeed, as we find him in the following year carrying on a printing trade at Mayence. Having sold this business, he removed to Suhl in Thuringia. Here he was occupied with a stereotyping process, suggested by what he had read about the art as perfected in England by Earl Stanhope. He also contrived an improved press, provided with a moveable carriage, on which the types were placed, with inking rollers, and a new mechanical method of taking off the impression by flat pressure.
Koenig brought his new machine under the notice of the leading printers in Germany, but they would not undertake to use it. The plan seemed to them too complicated and costly. He tried to enlist men of capital in his scheme, but they all turned a deaf ear to him. He went from town to town, but could obtain no encouragement whatever. Besides, industrial enterprise in Germany was then in a measure paralysed by the impending war with France, and men of capital were naturally averse to risk their money on what seemed a merely speculative undertaking.
Finding no sympathisers or helpers at home, Koenig next turned his attention abroad. England was then, as now, the refuge of inventors who could not find the means of bringing out their schemes elsewhere; and to England he wistfully turned his eyes.
