This German made England's news faster

In times when the circulation of large newspapers is falling dramatically, the public opinion market is clearly shifting towards the Internet. Nevertheless, the effects of Friedrich Koenig's press from 1814 can still be felt: The inventor and entrepreneur gave the London Times a decisive advantage over the competition with his high-speed cylinder press - at 800 sheets per hour, his machine exceeded the output hand-operated printers more than doubled.

The dissemination of information (albeit disinformation) entered a whole new phase, because The Times was able to get its reports to more people much faster than its competitors. Surprisingly, the innovation did not go back to a Brit: Koenig was born in Eisleben in 1774. As a child of humble farmers, the above-average talent of the young Friedrich became apparent so quickly that, in addition to attending elementary school, he was soon allowed to attend private lessons from a pastor in Eisleben.

He was also allowed to attend grammar school, and when he left he was certified as having particularly good knowledge of mechanics and mathematics. Since he could not afford to study, he began an apprenticeship as a printer at a well-known company, completing his apprenticeship after just four and a half years instead of the planned five. Together with a childhood friend, he dreamed of opening a bookshop with an attached printing shop in Eisleben.

So Koenig set about constructing his first press, but the attempt was not convincing. Crucial parts were made of wood, because quality metal was extremely difficult to obtain in the structurally weak German Reich. That is why the so-called Suhl press of 1803 did not catch on. But not only Koenig knew that Great Britain was a kind of promised land when it came to real technical innovations. So he plucked up courage and moved to London in 1806.

There, the following year, he signed a contract with the print shop owner Thomas Bensley for the use of his inventions. Koenig met the technician Andreas Friedrich Bauer (1783–1860) in London – a brother in spirit, he came from Stuttgart and had been in the city since 1805. Bensley's capital and Bauer's knowledge proved to be a great boon: Koenig was finally able to build his Suhl press from the materials its concept deserved.

In 1811 Koenig received the patent for the high-speed cylinder press, which revolutionized book printing. The designer replaced the previous crucible as a counter-pressure element with a pressure cylinder divided into three fields covered with thin felt, on which the paper was held during the printing process, initially with the help of frames and, in later versions, with straps. This significantly increased the possible printing speed.

In London, of course, the news about the miraculous device didn't just get around in the bookshops. Newspaper publishers in particular had to be able to have as much paper as possible filled with letters as quickly as possible so that more people had access to their stories.

Koenig had reached his goal: on the night of November 28th, 1814, the London newspaper "The Times" was the first daily newspaper in the world to be produced with a steam-powered version of this high-speed cylinder printing press. Your publisher John Walter the Younger was the quickest to recognize the potential of the development and immediately bought this innovation from the German; he even personally wrote an editorial about it. Today, it still draws on the lead that the “Times” built up thanks to this progress – albeit less in terms of journalism than in economic terms.

In the years that followed, the German designer acquired various other patents. However, he fell out with his local financiers: They wanted to use the patented high-speed presses exclusively in their own print shops, while Koenig was interested in the industrial production of his devices in large numbers. Because the technical innovation itself was more important to him than the lead of individual newspaper publishers. So he was drawn back home: in 1817 he returned to the continent, to Bavaria, and founded the Koenig machine works with Friedrich Andreas Bauer in a former monastery west of Würzburg

His inventive talent was not limited to printing machines: in 1828, Koenig set up the first paper mill in the Kingdom of Bavaria in the Münsterschwarzbach monastery mill, about 25 kilometers east of Würzburg. But heart trouble soon struck the man who had given England such a great head start in the news business; In 1833 he died in Oberzell. His widow Fanny (1808-1882) continued the business together with Friedrich Andreas Bauer. Koenig's sons joined the family business, which continued to flourish thanks to their inventions. A whole entrepreneurial dynasty emerged from a great pioneering achievement.

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