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Note: The companies appear below in alphabetical order and are not listed in the order in which they came into being.
André & Sleigh Ltd.
This firm was one of the earliest process firms in Britain, producing work of very high quality. Owned by Cassells, it was originally formed by Richard André and his nephews. David Greenhill became manager after leaving Bemrose Dalziel in 1909, and, together with Charles F. Cook in 1910 (also of Bemrose) and A.G. Symmons in 1913, developed the firm’s gravure printing facilities. When André & Sleigh’s work was exhibited at the Agricultural Hall, London, in 1914, Edward Hunter of Anglo Engraving was sufficiently impressed by its quality to negotiate with Cassells for the purchase of the firm, and the sale took place later that year.
André Sleigh & Anglo Ltd.
The company was created in August 1914 upon the acquisition of André & Sleigh and Bushey Colour Press by Edward Hunter’s Anglo Engraving Co. of London. Sir Arthur Spurgeon, of Cassell’s, was appointed chairman, and David Greenhill became a director and the company’s general manager. At the end of the war the firm acquired the sizeable premises of Menpes Press in Watford, and in 1919 moved to Watford under the banner of the Sun Engraving Co.
Anglo Engraving Co.
The company was founded by Edward Hunter and J.A. (Archie) Hughes in 1898 just after both had completed their apprenticeships. The partners were later joined by Noel and Hugh Hunter, brothers of Edward. The firm, launched with only three or four employees, grew rapidly, moving in 1901 from its original Farringdon Avenue premises to larger offices in Raynes Park, where a trade letterpress printing department was soon set up. In 1906 Anglo purchased the Croydon firm of J.J. Waddington, acquiring its gravure facilities and expertise. In 1910 Anglo set up a small, separate firm, the Mezzogravure Co., which concentrated on developing the new process of rotary photogravure printing. In 1914 Anglo acquired André & Sleigh and Bushey Colour Press (both of Bushey, nr Watford) from Cassells, Edward Hunter’s having been impressed by the quality of the work they displayed at a printing exhibition in London. In the wake of these additions and acquisitions, Anglo was renamed André Sleigh & Anglo Ltd. In 1916 André Sleigh & Anglo acquired Ashworth Meredith & Downer Ltd., a small blockmaking company in London. And in 1919 André Sleigh & Anglo acquired Menpes Printing and Engraving Co., consolidated its operations in the Menpes factory on Whippendell Road in Watford, and adopted the name Sun Engraving Company.
Ashworth, Meredith & Downer
Ashworth, Meredith, & Downer started as a process engraving partnership in 1901 in Bushey, and in 1902 Ashworth made the first colour process engraving, for the cover of Motor. The firm moved to Watford in 1906, and eventually moved to London. It was acquired by André, Sleigh & Anglo in 1916.
Bushey Colour Press
Formed by Cassells in 1910, this firm was managed by David Greenhill and was acquired in 1914 (along with André & Sleigh) by Anglo Engraving. The resulting company was called André Sleigh & Anglo Ltd.
Geo.W. Jones Ltd.
This printing firm (which became a subsidiary of the department store Debenham & Freebody in 1904) was established in London around 1890 by George Jones. He was involved in various aspects of production (including publishing) for a number of trade magazines to do with graphic arts, and his activities culminated in 1906 in the construction of a sizeable factory on Whippendell Road, Watford. At about that time, Jones was joined by artist Mortimer Menpes, who became art director. In 1908 Jones left the company, which then changed its name to Menpes Printing and Engraving.
Menpes Printing and Engraving Co.
Mortimer Menpes was an artist who became art director of Geo.W. Jones Ltd. (Printers), probably shortly before that firm moved from London to new premises on Whippendell Road in Watford. When, in 1908, George Jones resigned from the firm he had founded, Menpes seems to have acquired the business, which became known as Menpes Press. Menpes undertook photoengraving and letterpress printing on quite a large scale. In 1918 the company’s assets were acquired by André Sleigh & Anglo Ltd, which a year later consolidated all its production operations in the Whippendell Road plant after modifying and expanding it. The consolidated companies were renamed the Sun Engraving Company Ltd.
Mezzogravure Co. Ltd.
In 1910, Edward Hunter and J.A. (Archie) Hughes set up the Mezzogravure Co. in Barnes, Middlesex, and there they ran experiments on, and refined, the revolutionary process of rotary photogravure printing. It was the beginning of the photogravure work for which the Sun Engraving Co., and ultimately Sun Printers, would become famous. The work was done behind locked doors with a small staff vowed to secrecy. There was no unauthorized access. Possessed of a good knowledge of the process for hand-plate gravure, a small master screen, and a 15 in. calico printing machine made by John Wood of Ramsbottom, Hunter, Hughes, and works director John Threlfall (originally of Waddingtons, the Croydon photo engravers) were soon producing fine prints – chiefly calendar subjects and frontispieces for high-quality books – that won raves for their ‘rich velvet quality, the amazing depth of tone, and the inimitable shadow detail.’ The extraordinary work coming out of Barnes had a revolutionary effect on the rest of the trade, and the wider world began to take notice. During WWI the company was hired by the government to print a photogravure background on the nation’s food tickets, to make them hard to copy. The Mezzogravure Co. was absorbed into the Sun Engraving Co. around 1918.
Rembrandt Intaglio Printing Co.
The company was formed in 1895 by Storey Brothers of Lancaster (calico printers and sail and cloth makers) on the advice of Karl Klic. Technical development was under the direction of Klic and Samuel Fawcett, a former Storey Bros employee, and by 1900 Rembrandt was producing gravure prints commercially and in large quantities. The firm enjoyed a de facto monopoly for several years. Examples of work produced at Rembrandt at the turn of the century include the exquisite Burlington Art Miniatures, made for The Fine Arts Publishing Co. Ltd. of London. After WWI the monopoly crumbled as other gravure printers began to compete, using newer methods and offering a wider range of products. In an attempt to reinvent itself, the company moved to London in 1926, but was relatively unsuccessful in developing new techniques. It was sold to Sun Engraving Co. in 1932.
Rembrandt Photogravure Ltd.
In 1932 Sun Engraving Co. of Watford acquired the Storey Brothers’ interest in Rembrandt Intaglio Printing when the Storeys made the decision to revert to producing strictly textiles. Sun Engraving moved the company from London to Watford, turned it into a sheet-fed gravure operation with modern equipment, and gave the firm its new name. Rembrandt Photogravure continued to operate as a separate entity in its new premises, producing high-quality art reproductions in colour, until it was folded into Sun Printers Ltd., also of Watford, in 1961.
Studio Sun
Studio Sun was incorporated by Sun Engraving in 1931 as a photographic studio, and was located at 49a Blandford Street, London. As ‘photographers to the printed page’, the studio specialised in fashion and art photography, and also produced some of the pictures in Sun Engraving’s promotional magazine Illustration. One of its later employees, W.J. Pilkington (a colour photography specialist and member of the Royal Photographic Society), became manager of Studio Sun and purchased the firm from Sun Engraving in 1951. To see examples of Studio Sun work, go to the Links page on this site.
Sun Engraving Co. Ltd.
In 1911 the name ‘Sun Engraving Co.’ became available, and Edward Hunter and his partners used the name for a new firm they established at Milford House, just off the Strand in London.
In 1919, while retaining Milford House as its London head office, Sun Engraving absorbed André Sleigh & Anglo, consolidated all production operations under one roof at Whippendell Road, Watford, in the premises that had formerly been known as Menpes Printing and Engraving Co., and began using the Sun Engraving name exclusively. The newly updated works were ‘christened’ in July 1919 with a sit-down luncheon for all staff, who by that time numbered close to a thousand.
In 1932, Sun Engraving acquired the Storey Brothers’ interest in Rembrandt Intaglio Printing Co., moved the operations from London to Watford in 1934, renamed the company Rembrandt Photogravure, and equipped it as a modern sheet-fed gravure printing operation.
Over the next few years, Sun Engraving developed a huge and ever-expanding rotary photogravure facility to produce magazines and catalogues. It has been estimated that by about 1935, the firm was producing 70% of Britain’s mass-market magazines, and it did pioneering work on such titles as Picture Post for Hulton Press. At its peak it was the largest printing company in the world.
During World War II much of the Allies’ propaganda material as well as all the manuals of aerial reconnaissance photographs used for the invasion of Europe were produced by Sun Engraving. The firm also got involved in the production of munitions, and in activities connected with the production of the atomic bomb.
The owners sold their burgeoning printing operations in 1945, at the end of the war, for just over £1 million. The engraving company that remained continued in business until 1968, when it was sold to C. & E. Layton Ltd. and ceased operations at the Whippendell Road site.
Sun Printers Ltd.
In 1945 Sun Engraving Co., having grown very large, decided to sell its printing operations. The directors finally settled on the family firm of Hazell Watson & Viney of Aylesbury, which then formed the Hazell Sun Group as a holding company for its various production facilities. Between 1945 and 1965 Sun Printers continued to earn a reputation for its innovations, pioneering the application of electronics to rotary gravure printing (including colour scanning to produce separations, and electronic register control on the press), and researching and developing new kinds of inks. In 1962 the firm obtained the contract to produce the first-ever weekly colour magazine for a newspaper, The Sunday Times Colour Magazine. Employment at Sun Printers peaked at that point with more than 3,600 people on the payroll.
In 1966 Hazell Sun Group merged with the Purnell Group, and this formidable new printing conglomerate was named the British Printing Corporation (BPC). Sun Printers failed to flourish within the new configuration. The next fifteen years saw a high turn-over of senior management, and constant conflict between management and the unions during a period of rapid change within the printing industry. The letterpress department was closed in 1979 for lack of work, and gravure business began to move out to the less-expensive web offset printers. The introduction of phototypesetting in 1980 spelled the end of Sun’s large composition department.
Robert Maxwell bought a controlling interest in BPC in 1981 and changed its name to the British Printing and Communications Corporation (BPCC). He also acquired Odhams, Watford’s other large gravure printing house, and in 1982/3 merged it with Sun at the Whippendell Road site to create Odhams/Sun Printers Ltd. He then began to pare down the company. First to go were the phototypesetting and research departments. The ink factory was closed in 1984. Staff numbers were reduced in other departments or the departments were eliminated altogether. In 1987 he renamed BPCC the Maxwell Communications Corporation (MCC) and within the year had closed down gravure operations entirely. Two web offset presses were left, and by then, employees at the once-mighty Sun numbered only 200.
Most of Sun’s Whippendell Road site was now abandoned and operations were moved into the Sun’s former paper warehouse. In 1989 Maxwell’s deputy and several other directors bought the BPCC Group from MCC. Odhams/Sun was renamed BPCC Watford, then BPCC Consumer Magazines (Watford) Ltd., then BPCC Sun Ltd. But the Sun never recovered. What remained of the original company was merged in 1998 into a new printing conglomerate called Polestar Group. Polestar removed the last printing presses from the site in 2004.