Faith Press

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The Revd C E Douglas had the idea of encouraging attendance at Sunday School by a system of stamp collecting.  The stamps were originally printed in London.  Douglas moved the enterprise to Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire where a local printer, Henry Rutherford, began producing the stamps.  This was so successful that in July 1907 the Faith Press was founded, at first in a converted cow-shed behind a pub, but from 1910 in a converted brewery in Leighton Buzzard.

In 1909 the Manchester based “Church Printing Company” was taken over by the Society and run as the Manchester Faith Press.  It closed in 1921 as a consequence of the post-first World War depression.

The main company flourished, and became a limited liability company in 1913. As well as the “stamps” it published religious books, various periodicals and from 1917 church music.  From 1915 a parish insert called The Symbol was printed, to provide Anglo-Catholic priests with good material for sermons and other instructions.

Rising costs and reduced demand led to Faith Press being closed down in 1973.  The Society now cooperates with Canterbury Press to publish books.

We now have a database of known Faith Press publications, assembled from publicly available information on items held in various libraries. This can be found here.  If anyone wants to download the database the information can be found here.

An external website created by Mr Steven Tandy has many examples of Faith Craft attendance stamps and stamp books.

Reproductions of Faith Press greetings cards can be purchased from the Society.

A list of Faith Press books at FH July 17 can be found by clicking on the link.

The books listed on our website are our own archive copies and not for sale.  The titles may available through reputable antiquarian and on-line booksellers. We do not give valuations for Faith Press books.

Information about copyright of Faith Press publications is here.