The name is inspired by George Baxter, a printer based in Lewes who was credited with developing the colour printing process in the 1800’s.
Most coloured illustrations of the day were done by hand, a process which was either poor quality or expensive if professional artists were employed. Colour printing itself was not new, it had been practiced by others around the world for many years. However all their attempts were with limited colours, was very slow and also expensive so only ever attempted for small print runs but now Baxter had produced a thousand exact copies in colour for Mudie’s new book. He really had ‘invented’ commercial colour printing.
He practised his art and by the time he received his patent in 1836 he had made major improvements. Simplistically the patented process meant an initial printing from a steel key plate, which gave the outline and all the intricate detail and shading that in itself made a fully finished print in monochrome. Then he would apply up to 20 different blocks made from either wood, copper or zinc – one for each colour. Each block had to align perfectly.