Wigan Album

The first of a new range of Crabtree web fed offset newspaper presses went into service on 28 January 1966 when the machine took over production of the Wigan Observer. Here the machine almost ready for test runs in Autumn 1965 is seen with a young apprentice Crabtree engineer on the press gantry. The printers spend their weekends practicing on the new web offset machine that proved to be a real handful, while in the working week, still printing the Observers at Rowbottom Square on the old 1869 Victory-Kidder Letter press until it's last broadsheet copy on 21 January 1966.