'Read All About It' Exhibition: Display 1 of 20
Gloucester Red Book Bull Watermark
Before you can print a newspaper, you need paper. Prior to the 1500s paper was expensive and hard to obtain. When Gloucester Borough needed high-quality paper for its Official memoranda 'Red Book‘ which was begun in 1486, it used paper that was made in Italy, probably from the municipality of Caselle in Piedmont, Northern Italy. We know this because one particular Caselle paper manufacturer used a ‘bull’ water mark, which also appears in Gloucester’s Red Book. Similar paper was used by the pioneering printer, Gutenberg, who invented the mechanical printing press, allowing printers to rapidly reproduce multiple copies of the same work – which was essential for newspaper production.
GA Ref.No: GBR/B2/1