The Women's Printing Society was a British

publishing house Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

founded in either 1874 or 1876 by Emma Paterson and Emily Faithfull with the company being officially incorporated as a

cooperative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, coöperative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomy, autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned a ...

in 1878.

Involvement in the suffragist movement

The company played an important role in British suffrage movement, both through its publication of feminist tracts and in providing employment opportunities for women in a field that had previously been restricted to men. The house was set up to allow women to learn the trade of printing, and provided an apprenticeship program. Women worked as compositors, and as of 1904, it was one of the few houses where they also did the imposing: ordering the

galley proof In printing and publishing, proofs are the preliminary versions of publications meant for review by authors, editors, and proofreaders, often with extra-wide margins. Galley proofs may be uncut and unbound, or in some cases electronically tra ...

s so that when folded, the front and back pages aligned properly. As of 1899, the company employed 22 women as compositors. The manager, proof-reader and bookkeeper were also women. Men held the tasks of "pressmen and feeders". The women apprentices earned a wage "considering the hours (9 to 6.30), etc., this is better pay than even highly-educated women can sometimes secure." Some of the initial employees came from Faithful's Victoria Press.

Notable employees

The Board of Directors included Sarah Prideaux, Mabel Winkworth and Stewart Duckworth Headlam. Elizabeth Yeats studied for a brief time at the Women's Printing Society, before returning to Ireland and starting the Dun Emer Press. Up to 1893 and between 1889 and 1900, the company published the reports of the Central Committee for the

National Society for Women's Suffrage The National Society for Women's Suffrage Manchester Branch The National Society for Women's Suffrage was the first national group in the United Kingdom to campaign for women's right to vote. Officially formed on 6 November 1867, by Lydia Becker ...

. It published the '' Women's Penny Paper'' through 1890, but it is not recorded why the relationship ended.

Selected works

Works published by the Women's Printing Society include: *"What is women's suffrage and why do women want it" by Veritas (1883) *'' A Woman's Plea to Women'' by Elizabeth Clarke Wolstenholme Elmy (reprint from ''Macclesfield Courier'') (1886) *"Home Politics: An Address" Millicent Garrett Fawcett (1894) *"Swimming and its relation to the Health of Women"

Frances Hoggan Frances Elizabeth Hoggan (''née'' Morgan; 20 December 1843 – 5 February 1927) was a Welsh doctor and in 1870 became the first woman from the UK to receive a doctorate in medicine from any university in Europe. She was a pioneering medical prac ...

(1879) *"Education of Girls in Wales" Frances Hoggan (1879) *"Women in India and the Duty of their English Sisters" Mrs. Martindale (1896) *''Thomas Wilde Powell''

Christiana Herringham Christiana Jane Herringham, Lady Herringham (née Powell; 1852–1929) was a British artist, copyist, and art patron. She is noted for her part in establishing the National Art Collections Fund in 1903 to help preserve Britain's artistic heritag ...

(1903) *''Papers of the Society of Painters in Tempera'' by Christina Herringham. *''Woman Suffrage and the Anti-militants'' by Ennis Richmond *"Choose, Ye: Darkness or Light!" Lady Melville (1922) *the exhibition catalog of the London International Surrealist Exhibition (1936)

References

{{Reflist Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom Publishing companies of the United Kingdom Co-operatives in the United Kingdom