Serampore Mission Press

The Serampore Mission Press was established in Serampore on January 10, 1800 by William Carey, William Ward, and other British Baptist missionaries as an auxiliary of the Serampore Mission. In August that year, a Bengali translation of the Gospel according to St Matthew was published by the press. The press produced 212,000 books between 1800 and 1832. The British government, highly suspicious of missionaries, discouraged any missionary work in their territory.Serampore, in Bengal, being a Danish colony, provided refuge to Carey and company.

The press published religious Christian tracts, Indian literary works, translations of the Bible in twenty five Indian vernaculars and other South Asian languages, but the major contribution of the press was printing vernacular textbooks. The press printed books on grammar, dictionaries, history, legends and moral tales for the Fort William College and the Calcutta School Book Society.

The press also started to publish the first Bengali newspaper and magazine from 1818. It published books in almost forty five languages. It was formally closed down in 1837 when the Mission ran into heavy debts, according to Nikhil Sarkar in "Printing and the Spirit of Calcutta", the press merged with the Baptist Mission Press.

Gangakishore Bhattacharya, considered as the first-ever Bengali printer, publisher, bookseller and newspaper editor began his career as a compositor at the Mission Press. After beginning his life as a compositor, he set up his own Bangal Gezeti Press in 1818, which was also responsible for printing the first illustrated book in Bengal, the Annadamangal in 1816.

Printing in Bengal had started in Hoogly where the press of the bookseller Andrews used Bengali types. N. B. Halhed’s A Grammar Of the Bengal Language was published from this press in 1778. Sir Charles Wilkins had mastered the art of cutting types and he also taught Panchanan Karmakar. The printing press was in the immediate charge of Ward, who left detailed accounts of its day-to-day running. Between 1800 and 1834, the press printed Bible translations in almost 50 languages, 38 of which were translated at Serampore by Carey and his associates. There were altogether 117 printings, of which 25 were in Bengali. The press supplied Bibles to almost all significant Baptist missions in the region, from Indonesia in the east to Afghanistan in the west. From a memoir of 1813, it may be seen that a Malay Bible in roman characters was in preparation, while a five-volume reprint of the entire Bible in Arabic was being undertaken for the lieutenant-governor of Java.The memoir of 1816 claims that a Chinese Pentateuch was in the press and that ‘the new moveable metal type, after many experiments, are a complete success’. The 1820 memoir records the printing of the New Testament in Pushtoo, and also the setting up of a paper factory.

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