Below are a series of public domain images that may be of interest.
Photographs are by Bernard Ellis, Ronald Ellis, and Rev. Peter Shepherd. The photographs indicated by an asterisk are those taken by Rev. Peter Shepherd. If used they will need to be credited.
1. The Clarendon Building and the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford.
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1. Lower Circular Road Baptist Church, Calcutta.
2*. The memorial to William Carey in Lower Circular Road Baptist Church.
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1. Map of Calcutta showing Baptist Mission Press in relation to other places of interest.
2. A 3D Drawing of the Calcutta Baptist Mission Compound.
3. A 3D Drawing of Baptist Mission Press. Medium (68kb).
4. A 3D Drawing of Baptist Mission Press. Large (116kb).
5. A 3D Drawing of the Press only showing relevant Departments. Medium (72kb).6. A 3D Drawing of the Press only showing relevant Departments. Large (136kb).
7. Exterior of the Press from Lower Circular Road showing the Book Room and Elliott Road.
8. Exterior of the Press from Lower Circular Road.
9. Exterior of the Press from ground level.
10. The main gate.
11. Norman Ellis, Superintendent 1932-1960, in his office.
12. Bernard Ellis, when Assistant Superintendent (1947-1960). Superintendent (1960-1966) with senior members of the office staff.
13. Group photograph of all Baptist Mission Press staff on Bernard and Freda Ellis's retirement in 1966.
14. The Composing Room where text was skillfully composed by hand in the time honoured fashion. The forms were broken down after printing, the individual pieces of type were cleaned and replaced in the cases. (Image taken from a pre-World War 2 BMP booklet)
15. The delivery of paper from Titaghur Paper Mills. Titaghur is on the opposite bank of the Hooghly to Serampore, and is just south of Barrackpore.
16. Linotype Department. Copy was keyed in by hand. Moulds (called matrixes) fell down from the top of the machine and lined up in the correct order. Wedge shaped word spaces were then inserted to fill out the line of type. The whole line was then cast as a slug (hence Linotype) and the matrixes returned to the top of the machine to be re-used. After printing the slugs were melted down and the metal re-used. Before computers this is how all newspapers were set.
17. Monotype setters key copy into the machine, which punches coded holes onto a paper tape.
18. The paper tape was fed into a Monotype Setter and each character was cast individually from molten metal (hence Monotype). Usually used for book production as it provided the best quality print. After printing the type was melted down and the metal re-used.
19. Exterior of the Machine Room.
20. Interior of the Machine Room where the printing was done. The picture shows cylinder presses, but there were also platen machines for small print runs which were fed by hand.
21. A new automatic Heidelberg letterpress platen machine.22. The Binding Department where pages were collated, stitched and bound into books.
23. Senior Baptist Mission Press staff get together on a day off.
24. Moving machinery.
25. The Confidential Department where examination papers for universities all over India were produced. Suresh, the manager, is on the right.
26. A new cylinder letterpress machine is installed in the Confidential Department.
27. The Book Shop with the manager seated right.
28. Some satisfied European customers.
29. Some satisfied customers from Bhutan.
30. Loading up for delivery to the customer.
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1 & 2. The corner of Elliot Road and and Lower Circular Road showing the former book shop.
3. Looking north up Lower Circular Road, showing the Press gates and the Baptist Church.
4. The Press gates.
5. Looking through the gates.
6. The view to the left inside the gates.
7. Standing at the spot where our home used to be and looking back at the gates.
Lower Circular Road Baptist Church in 1999, showing the offices built on the site of BMP.