David Gestetner

David Gestetner was born in Csorna, Hungary, and lived for several years in Vienna before moving to London in the 1870s.

His first known home here was at 67 Ferntower Road, Highbury – quite spacious though not grand accommodation – but as his business prospered he was able to move to 124 Highbury New Park (pictured here), one of the grandest streets in Islington. He was a devout member of the congregation at Poets Road, a short distance away.

Gestetner’s work in Vienna had been at the Stock Exchange, where each day he had to write out laboriously, by hand, all the transactions that had taken place. Reasoning that there must be a better way, he embarked on a series of experiments which led him to invent the basic stencil. He moved for a time to Chicago, where he got a job making kites out of Chinese paper. The story goes that his eureka moment came when he spilt a pot of ink over a pile of kites. Noticing how the same ink pattern was reproduced right through the pile, he went on to invent the stencil duplicator, and moved to London to capitalise on the idea.

The technology was soon being introduced to offices around the world. It was ground-breaking not just in commercial environments, but for any individual or enterprise wishing to put out uncensored ideas without involving a printing firm. In this way, it prefigured the digital revolution, to which, inevitably, it had eventually to give way.

Gestetner’s inventive mind did not stop at the stencil duplicator. As soon as typewriters were invented, he was developing a stencil that could be used in typing. He also invented a type of ballpoint pen, and nail clippers, and doubtless more besides.