Booklet - Harrop & Ogden Collection Paper Designs

The Strines Printing Company was a calico printing business based in Strines Printworks, near Stockport. The company grew out of the Strines Hall Printing Company, est. 1792 by William Wright, where block printing was carried out by hand using engraved wooden blocks. Initially the works consisted of a block printing mill and a madder-grinding mill powered by a waterwheel, but the site quickly expanded to include workers' housing. The top floor of the blockshop was used as a school, chapel and library.

Roller printing was introduced at the site, leading to a block printers' strike, c1830. At this time two millponds and a dovecot were added to the complex.

Company managers took an interest in employee welfare, and under employers such as Joseph Sidebotham (d1885) the works provided a school, library, brass band and sporting activities. Senior manager Joel Wainwright, together with J M Gregory, also created an illustrated journal for employees, covering activities in the works as well as educational articles. These were accompanied by drawings, watercolours and early photographs, and are now held by the John Rylands Library.

In 1899 it was one of 46 textile printing companies and 13 textile merchants that amalgamated to form the Calico Printers' Association Ltd. In 1925 a new works was built in Strines to concentrate manufacturing on fewer sites.