A lot of late 19th century and early 20th century British cast iron nipping presses have one thing in common - a mysterious symbol of a lion couchant guardant (yes, that is the correct heraldic term for the position). This appears normally on the bottom of the press, although occasionally on a brass plate on the front of the press, and is often accompanied by a shield with a letter D in it.

For a long time I've wondered about this, but I recently saw another auction listing that described it as a "Lion D" nipping press and decided this mystery can't go on any longer - the proper source of these "Lion D" nipping presses needs to be established.

My first search was for Victorian bookbinding companies with the name Lion, or foundries with names linked to Lion as well.

The only likely result that this turned up was the Lion Foundry Co Ltd., originally based in Northampton, but in the late 19th century they moved to Scotland.

Searching for their logos, however, showed quite a different looking lion (although sometimes they just used the lion's head), and no catalogues that showed evidence of them having made nipping presses:

The D in a shield I thought could be a hint at the name of the foundry - something beginning with D - that just used the lion as their logo. Asking AI (always a mistake) suggested the D was the logo of the shop that sold the presses, and that it would be different depending on which shop sold the press. This is obviously rubbish as the shield with the D is part of the casting and could not have been changed for individual shops that were selling the press.

The D in a shield didn't lead anywhere useful, perhaps it was an internal mark used by the foundry to denote the style or size of the press?

After giving up for a while, I remembered that many of these cast iron presses were not originally made for the bookbinding trade - these were copying presses made for offices or stationary shops where a they would be used for press copies of letters into copy books for keeping records.

This actually cracked it - rather than searching for bookbinding companies with the logo of a lion, I searched for lion copying presses.

This brought up an advert from 1900 for "Lion Brand" copying presses, produced at the time by S. A. Daniell Ltd. at the Lion Works, Edward Street Parade, in Birmingham. A little bit more searching revealed their catalogue, and a very familiar logo:

The logo suddenly made more sense - the lion stood for The Lion Works, where their foundry was and where these presses were made, while the D in a shield was their company name "Daniell".

The company were originally started at 52 St Paul's Square in Birmingham in 1862, and by 1873 had moved to the Lion Works in Edward Street Parade. They were founded by Samuel Allen Daniell, who was heavily involved in coming up with new ideas that his company could sell - there are plenty of patents registered in his name, including improvements of how to put stoppers into bottles or new types of glues.

This seems to have been their earlier form of press, which was produced at least as early as the 1870s:

In the 1880s they started producing a different design press, although adverts show that they also still stocked (and probably still manufactured) the older design:

By the 1920s they seem to have stopped making copying presses, which makes sense as they were no longer commonly used. They stayed on Edward Street until the 1930s, when they moved slightly west to new premises on Great Tindal Street, specialising in engineering equipment. It's unclear when the company ceased trading, but there are references to them in trade magazines up until the 1960s.

The original Lion Works on Edward Street still show on maps after the second world war, although it isn't clear who the building belonged to at that point. It was replaced in the 1990s by the University of Wales' Birmingham Campus, called Quay Place.