The Chapel

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The Chapel

When William Caxton set up the country’s first printing press at Westminster in 1476, the process separated into two operations that remained little changed for some 400 years. First, compositors arranged from their case of type individual letters and spaces to form lines of text, which were assembled in galleys before being locked into place. Then machine men inked the surface of the assembled type and pressed it against sheets of paper. In addition to these two groups of workers, there were proofreaders, flyboys and apprentices usually indentured for between seven and ten years.

Long before the arrival of printing trade unions, printers exercised self-government through the chapel, a term whose origins remain unclear. Some say it is connected to the location of early printing offices in or near churches or a reference to the large number of religious books and bibles that were the bread and butter work of earlier printers. Given medieval guilds had their own chapel; the term is possibly connected to the historical organisation of the trade. The Stationers’ Company was the guild for both master printers and other workers.

The chapel legislated both on how production was organised and how its members behaved in the workplace. Membership was compulsory for compositors and pressmen hired on a permanent basis. Apprentices only joined on finishing their apprenticeship. Masters, foremen and proofreaders were all excluded. Chapel income came from entry fees and fines from enforcing its rules. The five misdemeanours incurring fines were fighting, swearing, bad language, being drunk at work and failing to snuff out a candle when leaving the workshop. Chapel organisation, however, was democratic and its members decided each issue. This democratic ideal was compromised by the turn of the 18th century as by that time the chapel was under employer control. New life, however, was given by the arrival of trade societies and trade unions.

Support Us: There are a number of ways you can help to support us. You can donate online. You can join the Library as an individual member and get your union branch to affiliate. If you are a retired or working print worker and would like to volunteer to take groups around the Collection, you can apply here to join our panel of volunteers.
Order your brochure: The Printers’ Collection was launched in February 2009 by Derek Simpson, joint general secretary of UNITE. To mark the opening a full-colour and richly illustrated 64-page brochure has been published. It is available here priced £5.
Share Memories: We are preparing an online book of memories of print workers. You may want to share with us your experience of being an apprentice, of your working life or activity as a trade unionist. If so, please write here and we will include all or parts of it in the forthcoming section.
Donate Items: Unite the union - graphical, paper and media section has kindly donated a substantial part of its collection of print ephemera, memorabilia and records in the Printers’ Collection. But some of our best and most surprising items have been donated by individuals or local union chapels and branches. If you have a print related item, which, you believe, would be of interest to others and you wish to donate it or simply loan it, to the Collection include a short description of it here.

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