The partners had at first great difficulties to encounter in getting their establishment to work. Oberzell was a rural village, containing only common labourers, from whom they had to select their workmen. Every person taken into the concern had to be trained and educated to mechanical work by the partners themselves. With indescribable patience they taught these labourers the use of the hammer, the file, the turning-lathe, and other tools, which the greater number of them had never before seen, and of whose uses they were entirely ignorant. The machinery of the workshop was got together with equal difficulty piece by piece, some of the parts from a great distance,--the mechanical arts being then at a very low ebb in Germany, which was still suffering from the effects of the long continental war.
At length the workshop was fitted up, the old barn of the monastery being converted into an iron foundry.
Orders for printing machines were gradually obtained. The first came from Brockhaus, of Leipzig. By the end of the fourth year two other single-cylinder machines were completed and sent to Berlin, for use in the State printing office. By the end of the eighth year seven double-cylinder steam presses had been manufactured for the largest newspaper printers in Germany. The recognised excellence of Koenig and Bauer's book-printing machines--their perfect register, and the quality of the work they turned out--secured for them an increasing demand, and by the year 1829 the firm had manufactured fifty-one machines for the leading book printers throughout Germany. The Oberzell manufactory was now in full work, and gave regular employment to about 120 men.
A period of considerable depression followed. As was the case in England, the introduction of the printing machine in Germany excited considerable hostility among the pressmen. In some of the principal towns they entered into combinations to destroy them, and several printing machines were broken by violence and irretrievably injured. But progress could not be stopped; the printing machine had been fairly born, and must eventually do its work for mankind. These combinations, however, had an effect for a time. They deterred other printers from giving orders for the machines; and Koenig and Bauer were under the necessity of suspending their manufacture to a considerable extent. To keep their men employed, the partners proceeded to fit up a paper manufactory, Mr. Cotta, of Stuttgart, joining them in the adventure; and a mill was fitted up, embodying all the latest improvements in paper-making.
Koenig, however, did not live to enjoy the fruits or all his study, labour, toil, and anxiety; for, while this enterprise was still in progress, and before the machine trade had revived, he was taken ill, and confined to bed. He became sleepless; his nerves were unstrung; and no wonder. Brain disease carried him off on the 17th of January, 1833; and this good, ingenious, and admirable inventor was removed from all further care and trouble.
He died at the early age of fifty-eight, respected and beloved by all who knew him.
His partner Bauer survived to continue the business for twenty years longer. It was during this later period that the Oberzell manufactory enjoyed its greatest prosperity. The prejudices of the workmen gradually subsided when they found that machine printing, instead of abridging employment, as they feared it would do, enormously increased it; and orders accordingly flowed in from Berlin, Vienna, and all the leading towns and cities of Germany, Austria, Denmark, Russia, and Sweden. The six hundredth machine, turned out in 1847, was capable of printing 6000impressions in the hour. In March, 1865, the thousandth machine was completed at Oberzell, on the occasion of the celebration of the fifty years' jubilee of the invention of the steam press by Koenig.
The sons of Koenig carried on the business; and in the biography by Goebel, it is stated that the manufactory of Oberzell has now turned out no fewer than 3000 printing machines. The greater number have been supplied to Germany; but 660 were sent to Russia, 61 to Asia, 12 to England, and 11 to America. The rest were despatched to Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, Holland, and other countries.
It remains to be said that Koenig and Bauer, united in life, were not divided by death. Bauer died on February 27, 1860, and the remains of the partners now lie side by side in the little cemetery at Oberzell, close to the scene of their labours and the valuable establishment which they founded.
Footnotes for Chapter VI.
Koenig's letter in The Times, 8th December, 1814Koenig's letter in The Times, 8th December, 1814.
Date of Patent, 29th April, 1790, No. 1748,Koenig's letter in The Times, 8th December, 1814.
Mr. Richard Taylor, one of the partners in the patent, says, "Mr. Perry declined, alleging that he did not consider a newspaper worth so many years' purchase as would equal the cost of the machine."Mr. Richard Taylor, F.S.A., memoir in 'Philosophical Magazine' for October 1847, p. 300.
The price of a single cylinder non-registering machine was advertised at 900L.; of a double ditto, 1400L.; and of a cylinder registering machine, 2000L.; added to which was 250L., 350L., and 500L. per annum for each of these machines so long as the patent lasted, or an agreed sum to be paid down at once.
