LETTER COPIER

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The United Typewriter and Supplies Company

c. 1930

Overview

Portable flatbed mimeograph duplicator machine used to produce multiple copies of a document.
Rectangular wooden case with hinged lid, metal clasp, and metal and Bakelite swing handle. The wood, assumed to be a hardwood, is honey-coloured with a straight grain.
Components secured inside the case for travel are:
A hand printing roller: wooden handle affixed to a metal frame supporting an inked cylinder made of a rubber type of material. Remnants of black inky material is adhering to both ends of the cylinder
Inking plate.
Duplicating frame: two wooden frames locked together with a sprung metal hinge and metal clips.
A typewritten stencil, made of waxed paper, is secured in between the frames. The text on the stencil is dated 11 September 1931 and refers to a creditors meeting pertaining to the Estate of John Bateman held at the Offices of Stawell Hardwick & Forman in their role as Solicitors for the Bank of Adelaide, Packenham Street, Fremantle.
Additional sheets of silk (?) or blotting paper (?) are also secured under the stencil between the wooden frames. They are slightly poking out at the bottom and sides.
A metal cylindrical collar with a screw, flange and wingnut affixed to the centre sits on top of a small, square wooden base. This fitting is assumed to have held an ink cylinder.

Historical information

The firm named on the stencil is Stawell Hardwick & Forman and this is assumed to be the original owner of the letter copier. From documentation received at the time of donation to the museum the name of the original owner of the copier was recorded as Hardwick and Slattery. Sometime after the outbreak of WW2 Hardwick and Slattery became Hardwick, Slattery & Gibson. The partnership of Hardwick, Slattery & Gibson split in 1953.

Manufacturer
The United Typewriter and Supplies Company, which established agencies for Caligraph (New Century), Yost, Densmore, Smith Premier and Monarch typewriters throughout Australia from 1895, was a subsidiary of the Union Writing Machine Company, a United States cartel formed by Remington in the early 1890s.
In 1897 Mr Harding was listed in Witton’s Directory as manager of the Perth branch of this company. The company was still active in Western Australia in the late 1940s as indicated by newspaper advertisements.
It would seem this company operated a branch in George Street Sydney (the address on the duplicator lid) from 1905.

Details

Registration number

cwa-org-46-1978.1

Item type

Material

Width

510 mm

Height or length

155 mm

Depth

382 mm

Inscriptions and markings

Next to the metal collar, on the inside wall of the case, is a label, “Caution – Do Not keep on turning the winged screws after the pressure has been put on the ink cylinder as this pressure is very considerable and is likely to break the fittings.”
The case lid has an inscription in faded gold letters, “Conqueror Duplicator / United Typewriter & Supplies Co Ltd / George Street / Sydney / Melbourne Brisbane Adelaide Perth". Above the text is the company logo comprised of the intertwining letters U, T and S.

Contextual information

Origin of Mimeograph and spirit duplicators
It’s accepted that Albert Blake Dick invented the mimeograph stencil in 1884 and merged his system with Thomas Edison’s 1876 (and later) duplicating press patents, selling the device under the name of the Edison Mimeograph Duplicating Machine.
The spirit duplicator was invented in 1923 and used a slightly different process involving a solvent. Spirit duplicators and mimeograph machines were competing and complementary technologies during the first half of the 20th century. Mimeography was in general a more forgiving technology and still survives in various forms into the 21st century.
Spirit duplicators required much finer operating tolerances and careful adjustments to operate correctly. Overall print quality of spirit duplicators was frequently poor, though a capable operator could overcome this with careful adjustment of feed rate, pressure, and solvent volume.
During their heyday, tabletop duplicators of both sorts were the inexpensive and convenient alternatives to conventional typesetting and offset or letterpress printing.

Place made

Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Year

c. 1930

Primary significance criteria

Historic significance

Links to additional resources

https://oztypewriter.blogspot.com/2014/08/how-union-typewriter-trusts-tentacles…

oz.Typewriter website, article by Robert Messenger, Canberra:

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/211932709?searchTerm=United%20Typewr…

Northam Advertiser 12 March 1948

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