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The Great Typewriter Graveyard: Britain, 1890-1900. Part I – The English and...
On the evening of Friday, January 19, 1900, Michael Hearn, a 53-year-old Indian-born typewriter inventor, dressed for the theatre at his apartment at 19 Harleyford Road, Vauxhall, London. He was...
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North’s Typewriter Went South in a West Australian Golden Hole. Part II – the...
On Wednesday, November 7, 1894, two boxes of quartz containing 10 hundredweight of gold valued at £25,000 - $US4.1 million in today’s money - were exhibited at the depot of North’s Typewriter...
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Novel, Peculiar, Bizarre, Strange and Odd. Part III - British Typewriter Hits...
English typewriter inventor John Gardner tries out his machine.See the entry for the Gardner below.Overreaching schemes and designs, a widespread reticence to invest in newfangled contraptions called...
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Magic, Maligners and Malfunctions. Part III – the Waverley, Maskelyne, Rapid,...
Magic was provided by the Maskelynes, maligners brought down Wier’s Pneumatic before it could even reach production, and malfunctions proved the undoing of other British-made typewriter concerns. In at...
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Black Lives Matter: Solomon Plaatje, his Smith Premier Typewriter and the...
This is one statue that won’t be knocked down. It’s on the lawn of the Oliewenhuis Art Museum in Bloemfontein, South Africa, and shows Solomon Plaatje pushing his bike, with a typewriter strapped on...
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Typing Up a Constitutional Storm
The lady with her back to the camera, beside the Imperial standard typewriter, is Elizabeth II, Her Majesty the Queen of England - AND Australia! The photo was taken in Alice Springs in the Northern...
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Typewriters and the 'Spanish' Flu Pandemic
Tucked away at the end of the earth, New Zealand and Australia have, happily, been relatively unscathed by the Covid-19 pandemic. There have been 22 deaths in New Zealand and 119 in Australia. Eight...
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War Correspondents Endorse Typewriters (and Some Other Things)
LIONEL JAMES (Blickensderfer)Lionel James CBE DSO (1871-1955), described by Punch magazine as “One of the Princes of the Golden Age of War Correspondence”, is seen in Julius Edmond Robert Nitsche's...
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Yucky Hermes Baby Typewriter Makeover
David Lawrence of Eden Typewriters in Auckland, New Zealand, is probably the only full-time, fully-qualified typewriter technician left in the Southern Hemisphere. David not only services and fixes...
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Golfball Typewriter Jewellery
As a fashion artist, my London daughter-in-law is as creative, imaginative and resourceful as anyone I know - apart, that is, from her mother, my wife. Emily uses her skills as a shoe and boot maker...
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr: Life Struggles on a Typewriter
Kurt Vonnegut Jr (1922- 2007) at his Olympia typewriter at hisin New York City on home on April 12, 1972.Kurt Vonnegut Jr’s 2006 “Make Your Soul Grow” letter to Xavier High School, New York, English...
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Life of a Typewriter Technician (Installment 6)
By Guest Poster Michael KleinContinuing my story of a young wet-behind-the-ears school leaver, starting my career with a local office equipment supplier, which in many ways was like working for Arthur...
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Early 19th Century British 'Writing Machines’ (I): The Blind Traveller, the...
James Holman at his NoctographThe first mention of a “writing machine” in British newspapers came in November-December 1823. It was in a report from Irkutsk in Siberia - just north of the Mongolian...
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Early 19th Century British ‘Writing Machines’ (II): The Typograph and the...
William Hughes's Typograph, as illustrated in the official catalogue of the 1851 Great Exhibition in London. How could anyone confuse it with G.A. Hughes' unillustrated entry?In the 1840s and 1850s...
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One Typewriter I Didn't Want
This Imperial 66 standard typewriter was part of an auction today for the personal effects of former Queensland State Premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, comfortably the most criminally corrupt politician...
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David Lawrence and Eden Typewriters, Auckland, New Zealand: What a Wonderful...
A nice welcome from David Lawrence in Auckland, New Zealand.It's on one of his favourite typewriters to use, the Imperial Model D.It was with great sadness that I learned from David Lawrence this...
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UFOs and Typewriters
Campbell Scott at an Olympic SM9 portable typewriter in The 11th Green.By an eerie coincidence, the week I read about Christopher Münch’s new science-fiction film The 11th GreenI had lunch with a man...
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Alfred Eisenstaedt and his Photographs of Typewriters
One of my favourite Eisenstaedt photos: Sports writers at the Saratoga racecoursePress Box, Saratoga Springs, New York, 1939.On Saturday, the 75th anniversary of VJ Day, it would have been a surefire...
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