David Payne
Payne was taken on by another Otley man, William Dawson, in a little back-street joiner’s shop which later became William Dawson and Sons
Soon afterwards, they collaborated in building the new Ulverstonian printing machine for its inventor, Mr Stephen Soulby.
There seems little doubt that it was during this project that Payne's fertile brain conceived the stop-cylinder principle that, within the next few years was to have such a shattering impact on the printing industry.
Indeed, there is evidence to suggest that the machine may have been invented as early as 1851. The story being that, when the Payne family were moving house in that year, one of the Payne's sons was shown a drawing of what turned out to be the first Wharfedale printing machiner. The drawing was done on the headboard of a bed which his father kept covered for fear that someone might discover his secret.
For a time, Dawson and Payne simply called their revolutionary new machine 'Our Own Kind' and made no effort to take out patents. Inevitably, this led to it being widely copied by other firms both in England and overseas.
1866 Presumably Payne established his own business, Payne and Sons