In a search for funding, the company set up a branch in London in 1897 under the name Lanston Monotype Corporation Ltd. In 1899 a new factory was built in Salfords near Redhill in Surrey where it has been located for over a century. The company was of sufficient size to justify the construction of its own railway station.
The original Monotype machine used "hot metal" to form individual letters. Thus spelling mistakes could be corrected by adding or removing individual letters. This was particularly useful for "quality" printing - such as books. In contrast the Linotype machine formed a complete line of type in one bar. Editing these required replacing an entire line. But Linotype slugs were easier to handle if moving a complete section of text around a page. This was more useful for "quick" printing - such as newspapers.
The typesetting machines were continually improved in the early years of the twentieth century, with a typewriter style keyboard for entering the type being introduced in 1906. This arrangement addressed the need to vary the space between words so that all lines were the same length.
The keyboard operator types the copy, each key punching holes in a roll of paper tape that will control the separate caster. A drum on the keyboard indicates to the operator the space required for each line. This information is also punched in the paper. Before fitting the tape to the caster it is turned over so that the first holes read on each line set the width of the variable space. The subsequent holes determine the position of a frame, or die case, that holds the set of matrices for the face being used. Each matrix is a rectangle of copper recessed with the shape of the letter. Once the matrix is positioned over the mould that forms the rest of the piece of type being cast, molten type metal is injected.
Many of the typefaces familiar today were introduced during the first half of the twentieth century, such as Times New Roman and Perpetua. The program of revivals of old typefaces and the commissioning of new ones was a major part of the typographic renaissance of the period. The licenses for the Lanston type library have been acquired by P22, a digital type foundry based in Buffalo, New York. For much of that century the company ran a compositor (typesetter operator) training school in London.
