Print Pound Notes!

Celebrating 100 years of Adana


With Bob Richardson

31 January 2023

St Bride Foundation and Online via Zoom

In-person time (GMT):
Doors/bar: 18:15
Talk starts: 19:00
Talk ends: 20:30
In-person tickets: £8, £10, £12.

Please note: for in-person tickets please ensure you arrive promptly as you will need to be seated before 6:50pm to ensure the live streaming of the online event is not disrupted. Late comers may potentially not be admitted.

Online time (GMT):
19:00-20:30
Online tickets: £3, £5

Please note: you will be emailed the Zoom link for the talk at 6pm GMT on the day of the talk.

Book Tickets HERE

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.