A ‘Minerva’ platen printing press, known as the ‘Hogarth Press’
H.S. Cropper and Co. Ltd.
Category
Machinery and industrial devices
Date
1915
Materials
Cast iron, Steel, Wood
Place of origin
Nottinghamshire
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Sissinghurst Castle Garden, Kent
NT 802833
Caption
This ‘Minerva’ platen printing press – known locally as the ‘Hogarth Press’ – is thought to have been given to Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson, as a housewarming gift, by Leonard and Virginia Woolf. It was one of the first pieces of furniture to arrive at Sissinghurst following the Nicolsons’ acquisition of the property in April 1930. It has long been held that the press, likely to have been acquired by the Woolfs in 1921, was used in the printing of some of the earliest Hogarth Press books, including The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot, which was printed and published in 1923.
Summary
A ‘Minerva’ platen printing press, known as the ‘Hogarth Press’. A hand set printing press, cast iron with steel and wood c. 1915. The press on which Virginia and Leonard Woolf printed some of the earliest books published by the Hogarth Press in the 1920s. The press was given to Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson in 1930 and is thought to be the first piece of furniture to arrive at Sissinghurst when the Nicolsons bought the house in April 1930.
Makers and roles
H.S. Cropper and Co. Ltd., manufacturer
