William Davison

William Davison was born in Alnwick in 1781 to parents William and Mary. At the age of 14 he became apprenticed to a chemist in Newcastle, and in 1802 he returned to Alnwick to set up a business as a pharmacist. 

He hadn't planned a career in printing, but ended up in a partnership with printer John Catnach. The partnership with Catnach ended after two years but Davison continued the printing business. 

In his early printing, Davison started using sterotyping, a technique that used invididual replaceable letters in a block. Ink was then applied and the whole thing pressed against paper to create a printed page. This made it easy to print multiple pages and in 1814 he opened a small foundry a Bondgate Street in Alnwick, Northumberland.

Davison was very innovative and produced a broad range of printed products. When infant schools were established in the 1830s he became a national supplier for educational books.