How did the printing press flourished in Bengal
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Explanation:
The question which begins Graham Shaw’s seminal work on this period Printing in Calcutta to 1800 is whether the small self-contained European community in Calcutta strongly felt the need for a printing press. Shaw emphasizes how the early phase of printing in Calcutta marked a transition between print culture and a culture that depended on a race of scribes. A letter to the editor of the India Gazette (7 April 1781) implies how the easy availability of scribes made printing seem a less urgent step to be introduced by the government
"Not many months ago, before the fear of printing in Bengal was somewhat abated, the discerning humourists of the colony were infrequently entertained with manuscript advertisements, hand bills, and other manuals of advice, with divers and sundry further literary; either hawked about, like state minutes in circulation…."[1]:1
Miles Ogborn partly answers the question that Shaw raises in Indian Ink: script and print in the making of the English East India Company when he explains how the East India Company introduced printing not simply to facilitate trade, but more importantly, to consolidate the empire. Therefore, the "fear of printing" as cited in the letter above disappears in the 1770s when the Company needs to cement the empire. Till this time, scribes made handwritten announcements and promulgations as seen in the letter cited above.[2]:199
Early days
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Shaw traces the name of forty printers in and around Calcutta in the period 1770-1800. It would be interesting to note that most of the printers he documents meticulously were associated with the printing of newspapers. S. Natarajan [3] studies these early Calcutta newspapers and the antagonistic relationship they often shared with the official authorities which led to certain restrictions laid by the Wellesley Regulations. The most widely circulated papers were the weeklies The India Gazette (Monday), Hickey's Bengal Gazette (Saturday), The Calcutta Chronicle (Tuesday), The Calcutta Gazette (Thursday), The Asiatic Mirror (Wednesday) and The Recorder (Sunday). Other than newspapers, the printers also took up certain commissions like both legal and mercantile advertisements as well as printing stationery to supplement their incomes. However, the most substantial revenue was generated by the printing of almanacs. Calendars and almanacs were prepared according to the Christian, Hindu and Muslim eras. These were often also combined with exhaustive lists of the East India Company's servants and the list of European residents in Calcutta outside the employ of the Company, thus making the almanacs of considerable historical interest.[1]:17 Most notable of these were the 1784 almanac compiled by Reuben Burrow, an early enthusiast of Hindu astrology, the regular India Calendar by the Honorable Company's Press, The Bengal Kalendar and Register by the Chronicle Press and The Civil and Military Register by The India Gazette Office. Other than official publications, the imprints of early Calcutta were designed to meet the immediate and more practical requirements of the small European community – maps, grammars and lexicons of the local vernaculars, treatises on medicine, law and land revenue, and so on. A small amount of creative literature and scholarly interest in Persian and Sanskrit traditions was also generated.
The local presses suffered immense difficulties due to their limited capacity and resources. Sir William Jones had famously remarked that "printing is dear at Calcutta" and "the compositors in this country are shamefully inaccurate."[4] The usual mode of publication, i.e. by raising subscriptions was problematic and more reminiscent of patronage culture than mercantile capitalism. It was also obvious that without the East India Company's sanction for a printer,the printing press would obviously not go very far. High costs of printing were basically due to the fact that the equipment had to be imported from Europe.
Significant printers
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James Augustus Hicky was initially a trader in ships’ cargoes. In 1775-6 he met with heavy losses and was imprisoned for debt. It is difficult to reconstruct how exactly he came by the two thousand rupees that was required to construct the wooden press with which he began operations. In 1777, he assembled the earliest known Calcutta press and in the same year he was engaged by the East India Company to print their military bills and batta forms. He was often given commissions which he did not complete or was never paid in full for. Hicky was notorious for his clashes with authority. January 1780 marked the publication of the first Indian newspaper in any language, the weekly Hicky's Bengal Gazette.
Explanation:
high costs of printing wew basically due to the fact that the enqurpment had to be able important from europe