William Bullock (inventor)

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William Bullock

William Bullock (* 1813 in Greenville , New York ; † April 12, 1867 ) was an American inventor. His improved web-fed rotary printing press revolutionized the printing industry with its high speed and efficiency.

Life

William Bullock was born in Greenville, New York in 1813. Together with his brother, who raised him after the death of his parents, he worked, among other things, as a mechanic and iron founder. As an avid reader, Bullock acquired extensive knowledge of mechanics and technology by himself. After various inventions (including a cotton and hay press and a seed drill), he constructed a hand-operated printing press with automatic paper feed from 1853.

From 1860, William Bullock perfected the rotary printing press developed by Richard March Hoe by connecting a roll paper feed. The prerequisite was the invention of endless paper - i.e. a paper web from a roll - in 1858 by Alois Ritter Auer von Welsbach , director of the court and state printing company in Vienna since 1841 . On April 14, 1863, Bullock received a patent for this design.

In 1865, Bullock's first rotary press started up at the Philadelphia Public Ledger . American newspapers hailed it as "the simplest and most solid machine that has ever printed paper". The paper running from the roll was first printed on the front, then by a second cylinder on the back, cut off and fed to the delivery. The hourly output was 12,000 double-sided sheets of an eight-page newspaper.

William Bullock died of his own invention in a tragic accident: On April 3, 1867, when setting up one of his new printing presses at the Philadelphia Public Ledger , he tried to kick a drive belt onto a drive wheel. His leg got into the machine and was broken. Gangrene developed after a few days . On April 12, 1867, Bullock died during an operation to amputate his leg.

Web links

Commons : William Bullock  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

literature

Individual evidence

  1. Pittsburgh World Firsts: By Event ( January 13, 2016 memento in the Internet Archive ) at clpgh.org (accessed April 13, 2013).