1851 Great Exhibition: Official Catalogue: Class VI.: Cowslade and Lovejoy
91. COWSLADE and LOVEJOY, Reading, Berks — Inventors.
Self-inking platen hand-printing press, consisting of an adaptation of an inking apparatus to the ordinary press. By one turn of a handle attached to a spindle, the carriage and tympan are rolled simultaneously in opposite directions, the type receiving ink at one end of the platen, and the tympan the blank sheet at the other. A reversed action of the spindle brings them together, beneath the platen, there to receive the impression. The printed sheet is freed from the form by springs attached to the tympan, which rises with the platen.