This is a video recording of a talk given online and in-person at the St Bride Foundation on 31 January 2023.
Print Pound Notes! – Celebrating 100 years of Adana
With Bob Richardson
Adana was founded in 1922 by a young ex-soldier who had served on the Western Front during WW1. Penniless, and in need of an income, he designed a small printing press. Overwhelmed by the number of orders he received, Donald Aspinall went to the local police station to seek advice. “Make the presses” was the solution offered by the desk sergeant at Twickenham Police Station – and Adana was born. Relive the roller-coaster history of this great British success, forced to the brink of bankruptcy in the Great Depression and re-born in the post-war period. Adana still trades today as part of the Caslon group of companies. Letterpress, once thought to be an obsolete technology, is thriving again and Adana is at the heart of it.
Bob Richardson was born in 1955 and trained as an art teacher at St Mary’s College of Education, part of Newcastle University. In the spring of 1977 he joined the BBC, working in the Presentation Department, and later for BBC Exhibitions. He spent over thirty years as an assistant in the Graphic Design Department and took early retirement in 2012, joining the team at St Bride Library, where he remains a part-time member of staff a decade later.
We would like to thank Google and The Wynkyn de Worde Society Charitable Trust for their generosity in sponsoring this lecture.
