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| Gestetner's in Broad lane, Tottenham were once one of the largest employers in the Tottenham area and was world famous for the manufacture of the stencil duplicator. The company opened in Tottenham in 1906 having first been established at premises in Cross Street, Islington, London. At their height as a business in the 1950's and 60's the company employed in excess of six thousand people from the local area and were widely recognised as being one of the finest companies to work for. At the time most people knew of either family, friends or neighbours who worked for Gestetner's such was their reputation as an excellent employer. | |
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company was founded by David Gestetner who was born in Hungary in 1854. As a very young
man he worked at the stock-market in Vienna where he was employed to make copies of the
day's activities by repeatedly handwriting the results. He decided there had to be an
easier way and, as a result of his efforts to try and find a better method, his
experiments led him to invent the use of a stencil to reproduce multiple copies of
documents. His innovation in office copying machinery changed the landscape of the business and finance industries effectively heralding the beginning of the modern office and the demise of the City clerk, whose main function was to copy documents by hand. |
THE PLAQUE AT 124 HIGHBURY NEW PARK, ISLINGTON THE HOME OF DAVID GESTETNER FOR 42 YEARS |
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Gestetner moved to London and in 1881 established the Gestetner Cyclograph Company to
produce stencils, stylos and ink rollers. To protect his invention he took out many
patents and he was also to invent other notable devices such as the nail-clipper and the
ball-point pen although the latter is generally credited to his fellow Hungarian Laszlo
Biro. David Gestetner had been born into a Jewish family and remained devout throughout his life. He had married his wife Sophie, nee Lazarus, and they were to have seven children of whom his only son Sigmund Gestetner succeeded him on his death in March 1939. David Gestetner died whilst on holiday at the Hotel Ruhl in Nice on the 8th March 1939 and he is also buried in Nice. |
DAVID GESTETNER - OUTSIDE HIS HOME IN ISLINGTON C1906 |
PORTRAIT OF DAVID GESTETNER (1854 - 1939) |
The invention of the stencil duplicator became an overnight international success, and he soon established an international chain of branches that sold and serviced his products. During the ensuing years he further developed his invention, with the stencil eventually being placed on a screen wrapped around a pair of revolving drums, onto which ink was placed. The drums were revolved and ink, spread evenly across the surface of the screen by a pair of cloth-covered rollers, was forced through the cuts made in the stencil and transferred onto a sheet of paper which was fed through the duplicator and pressed by pressure rollers against the lower drum. Each complete rotation of the screen fed and printed one sheet. |
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growth of the use of typewriter a stencil was created which could be typed on. It was then
possible to reproduce copies of similar quality to printed newspapers and books and
removed the drudgery of handwritten material. Of course this had a profound effect upon the Printing Industry who had traditionally been used to print large runs of documents when multiple copies were required. The Gestetner duplicator could be easily installed in Offices, Factories Churches, and Theatres to meet their printing needs |
EXAMPLES OF ANTIQUE GESTETNER DUPLICATING MACJHINES. |
 GESTETNER BROCHURE Circa 1922 |
 GESTETNER BROCHURE Circa 1949 |
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EARLY FRENCH ADVERTISEMENT FOR GESTETNER |
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 MODEL OF GESTETNER TRUCK |
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 THE ABOVE PHOTOGRAPH HAS BEEN SENT TO US BY RICHARD HADINGHAM IT PICTURES HIS GREAT AUNT -DOROTHY HADINGHAM - OPERATING A GESTETNER MACHINE IN 1922 SADLY DOROTHY HADINGHAM DIED IN JUNE 1929 AGED 29 YEARS
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Above : Copy of Gestetner Gazette Right: Collage of Gestetner Staff photographs
Top Gestetner Logo from 1947
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| Duplicating
machines were the predecessors of modern document-reproduction technology. They have now
been replaced by digital duplicators, scanners, laser printers and photocopiers, but for
many years they were the primary means of reproducing documents for limited-run
distribution. The Gestetner company continued to operate in Broad Lane Tottenham until
it's closure in the 1970s. The company then moved to Northampton where it continued to
operate for a number of years before being taken over by 'Ricoh' one of the large
photo-copier and office equipment manufacturers. However the trademark of 'Gestetner' is
still used today for some of their operations. Please refer to the following link to Ricoh's 'Gestetner' operations; http://www.ricoh.co.uk/general/gestetner-ricoh-integration.aspx |
| ADDENDUM: We have recently had the pleasure of meeting Jim Briggs a former long serving employee of Gestetner's. Jim joined the company as a Messenger boy in 1949 and progressed through the ranks of assembly, arranging overseas exhibitions of Gestetner products and general management before retiring from the company in 1989 following 40 years of service. Jim kindly allowed us to photograph his long service watch that he still wears with pride.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We are indebted for the help provided by Mustafa Suleman in providing information that had formerly been used on his 'FERRY LANE TOTTENHAM' Website. We also acknowledge that some photographs have been acquired from the 'Flickr' pages created by a group of Gestetner enthusiasts in the Netherlands. For more information on the history of 'Gestetner' and their operations in Tottenham then please contact the 'Bruce Castle Museum' in Tottenham who have a fine collection of documents and artefacts pertaining to the company. There is also a feature on 'YouTube' that contains information on the Gestetner company operations produced by 'Pathe News' back in the 1920's: |
Article prepared by Alan Swain - April 2013
Article Updated with Gestner Logo - Gazette and photographic Collage - September 2013
Article Updated with Photograph of Dorothy Hadingham and early French Advertisemnt - May 2015
