"The Whitefriars Press was Tonbridge’s largest employer in its day. The firm had been founded in the 1820s in the Whitefriars district of London, and went on to print and publish the famous Punch magazine. The Tonbridge operation started in 1896 in a three-storey former warehouse in Medway Wharf Road. Book production began, using paper brought up by barge from the Medway towns, and new buildings were soon added adjacent to the original one as work expanded. The premises eventually occupied more than an acre. A catastrophic fire made national headlines in 1926 and destroyed half the factory, but allowed the firm to rebuild and re-equip the works as an up-to-date printing establishment. By the late 1940s Whitefriars, with 300-350 employees, was specialising in high-class multi-colour work, catalogues, and book production of every description. "
http://www.tonbridgehistory.org.uk/made-in-tonbridge/printing.htm
