Now, I tried understanding the details of linotype and it has defeated me.
But I know it “became one of the mainstay methods to set type, especially small-size body text, for newspapers, magazines, and posters from the late 19th century to the 1970s and 1980s”. and that’s good enough for me.*
I don’t suppose it would ever have jumped up and drew me, if it hadn’t been for Andy’s two pictures of the Lynotype Works beside the Bridgwater Canal in Altrincham.
The works were built in 1897, when the Lynotype Company having outgrown their existing factory in Hulme Street off Oxford Road, “purchased land at Broadheath, Altrincham for a new factory, which was formally opened by Lady Kelvin in 1899”.**
All of which was fascinating enough, but the trawl of references led in turn led to an article by my old Facebook chum, Steve Marland about the company’s move into property development in the form of an estate for its workers.
Between 1897-1901, “Linotype Company built 185 houses for its employees and provided two football grounds, four tennis courts, two bowling greens, a cricket ground, a playground for children and allotments”.***
And there I shall resist from lifting more of Steve’s research and just direct you to the link to the article, leaving me just to add that the estate still exists although the properties are now in private ownership, and if you want to know where, just read the piece.
Location; Altrincham
Pictures; The Lynotype Works, 2020, from the collection of Andy Robertson
*Lynotype machine, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linotype_machine
**Lynotype Company, Grace’s Guide to British Industrial History, https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Linotype_Co
***The Lynotype Estate, https://www.visitmanchester.com/things-to-see-and-do/the-linotype-estate-p252931
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