The print community mourns the passing of Bill Appleton (86), a distinguished expert with over 50 years in the industry. From a master printer to a senior lecturer and a longtime friend of FESPA and Macdermid Autotype, Bill’s encyclopaedic knowledge and kindness left an indelible mark on printers across Europe.
It is with great sadness we recently discovered that Bill Appleton, an expert printer and friend of FESPA, especially FESPA UK and FESPA Slovensko and the Hungarian FESPA Association, died in February this year aged 86.
Bill spent over 50 years in the printing industry specialising in machine printing processes. At the age of 15, Bill started a 5 year apprenticeship in letterpress, photogravure and lithographic machine printing and plate making. After completing his apprenticeship, Bill worked for 10 years in offset lithographic book, magazine and commercial process colour printing following which he attended a technical teacher training course run by the University of London. Then Bill was appointed as a senior lecturer in machine printing processes at Gloucester College of Art and Technology in the School of Printing and Publishing where he taught for 26 years being responsible for development of courses and installation of offset-litho and screen-printing equipment. Bill also spent 3 years on an EPSRC research project together with the Welsh Centre for Printing and Coating in Swansea University on “The Fundamentals of Screen Process Printing”.
In 2000, Bill was employed as a consultant Screen Printer in screen process printing technology by Autotype (later Macdermid Autotype) where he specialised in research work into new screen stencil systems and related products. From 2005, Bill attended the FESPA Slovensko International seminar as the main speaker on at least 6 occasions, always choosing interesting and fascinating topics to share with the attentive audience. Bill loved Slovakia and the Slovak people – and they loved him, so much so that the annual international seminar for screen and digital printers held in Slovakia has been named “Bill” in honour of him. This year they will hold Bill 21.
Bill was a kind, caring family man, a good friend with an encyclopaedic knowledge of printing which he was delighted to share with printers everywhere.
Bill will be missed by many but especially his sons and grandchildren.