In the course of a few years, the original humble establishment of the Sussex compositor, beginning with one press and one assistant, grew up to be one of the largest printing-offices in the world.

It had twenty-five steam presses, twenty-eight hand-presses, six hydraulic presses, and gave direct employment to over five hundred persons, and indirect employment to probably more than ten times that number.

Besides the works connected with his printing-office, Mr.Clowes found it necessary to cast his own types, to enable him to command on emergency any quantity; and to this he afterwards added stereotyping on an immense scale.

He possessed the power of supplying his compositors with a stream of new type at the rate of about 50,000 pieces a day.

In this way, the weight of type in ordinary use became very great; it amounted to not less than 500 tons, and the stereotyped plates to about 2500 tons the value of the latter being not less than half a million sterling.
Mr.Clowes would not hesitate, in the height of his career, to have tons of type locked up for months in some ponderous blue-book.