- Odhams Press
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Odhams Press Hall, Watford, built 1954
Odhams Press was a British publishing firm. Originally a newspaper group, founded in 1890, it took the name Odham's Press Ltd in 1920 when it merged with John Bull magazine. By 1937 it had founded the first colour weekly, Woman, for which it set up and operated a dedicated high-speed print works. The company also owned Ideal Home (founded 1920) and the well-known equestrian magazine Horse and Hound (acquired). Later Odhams expanded into book publishing (for example, publishing Winston Churchill's Painting as a Pastime, The Gunnis Dictionary of British Sculpture 1660-1851, and an edition of the complete works of William Shakespeare).
Contents
History
Odhams' proprietorship
According to Susan M Penn's history of Long Street at Sherborne in Dorset, as verified by Harrop's historical house survey and by local census information, the house known from 1920 as Ramadia House, but with no name until that date, was occupied in 1834 by one John Odhams. He had married his wife, Fanny, on 16th May 1813, and they had three sons and a daughter. The eldest son, William, grew up to be a compositor, possibly serving his apprenticeship with Langdon and Harker at the Sherborne Mercury Printing Office in Long Street, according to his great grand-daughter; but there is no evidence to support this. However, at the rear of Ramadia House, known as Mistletoe Cottage since 1968, is a substantial brick built shed. The flat flooring of this shed is also very solid, completed with thick oak planking, well able to support and withstand heavy items of machinery such as a printing press. Earthworks next to the shed in or around 2002 revealed evidence of many coloured printing inks still visible in the soil.
In 1834 William Odhams left for London, where initially he worked for the Morning Post. In 1847 he went into partnership with William Biggar in Beaufort Buildings, Savoy, London; and in the 1870s he started the business known as 'William Odhams.' This he sold to his two sons, John Lynch Odhams and William James Baird Odhams, in 1892. Odhams Limited, created in 1898, in turn became Odhams Press in 1920. In 1954, Odhams Press Hall was built, designed by Yates, Cook and Derbyshire, and this was later listed on account of the innovative clock tower which houses a water tank for use in printing.
Takeovers
In 1960 Cecil Harmsworth King, chairman of the Daily Mirror newspaper, made an approach to Odhams on behalf of Fleetway Publications Ltd (formerly the Amalgamated Press), which Odhams' Board found too attractive to refuse, and in 1961 Odhams was taken over by Fleetway. In 1963 its holdings were amalgamated with those of the George Newnes Company and Fleetway, among others, to form the International Publishing Corporation (known as IPC).
Between 1964-68 it operated as a subsidiary of IPC, diversifying into boys' comics. During this period it was publishing a range of titles known as the Power Comics, which included Wham!, Pow! and Smash!.
Close of business
In 1968 Odhams encountered financial problems, partly due to unfavourable economic conditions in Britain. As a result of this, and in consequence of IPC's existing intention to rationalise its titles in order to eliminate duplication, during 1968 all the comics titles published by the Odhams Press imprint were closed or publication was transferred to IPC Magazines Ltd, another IPC subsidiary. This contained the losses on the Power Comics range within Odhams, which was a limited company with separate liability, but in consequence Odhams became financially unviable. On 1 January 1969 it effectively ceased to exist as a publishing business, when publication of its last surviving comics title, Smash!, was transferred to IPC Magazines Ltd.
Sources
- Howard Cox and Simon Mowatt. "Technology and Industrial Change: The Shift from Production to Knowledge-Based Business in the Magazine Print Publishing Industry" (Research Papers in International Business no. 27). Paper presented to the 2001 Association of Business Historians Conference, 2001. Available online.
- The IPC Media website
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