The Strines Journal was a publication produced by two young employees at Strines Calico Printing Company called Joel Wainwright and John M. Gregory between 1852 and 1860. This printing plate was hand engraved at the works and used to illustrate a book by Joel Wainwright.

This beautiful one-off hand engraved printing plate was produced by the talented amateur artist and journalist Joel Wainwright.

Joel Wainwright and John M. Gregory, senior managers at Strines Printing Company, created the Strines Journal, a monthly journal for employees.

The journal reported on a wide variety of subjects, including activities in the Strines Printing Company and events in Strines and Marple, accounts of trips and travel (in Britain and further afield), the editors' monthly observations and original poetry. Featured essays covered historical, biographical, literary, scientific and geographical subjects, including accounts of lectures delivered at Strines Institution. The journal is illustrated with line drawings, watercolours and early photographs.

There were several notable contributors. Joseph Sidebotham (a Manchester businessman and natural history collector) contributed drawings, photographs, and articles. James Nasmyth (Scottish engineer and inventor) contributed an article on the Moon.

Only one handwritten, hand-illustrated copy was produced for each issue. It was read and passed between the workers at the company. The journal remained in manuscript form for the 8 years that it was in circulation. In total there are five bound volumes of the journal, plus an extraordinary issue on the occasion of Joel Wainwright's marriage in May 1856.

The Strines Printing Company was a calico printing business based in Strines Printworks, Strines, near Stockport. The company grew out of the Strines Hall Printing Company, established in 1792 by William Wright. In 1899 it was one of 46 textile printing companies and 13 textile merchants that amalgamated to form the Calico Printers' Association Ltd. The company survived until the 1980s.

The print also features in Wainwright’s book Memories of Marple: Pictorial and Descriptive Reminiscences of a lifetime in Marple, Leisure Hours on the Banks of the Goyt, published by M.T.D. Rigg, 1989, and Gladys Amy Swindell’s ‘The Strines Journal, 1852-1860: an appreciation’ published in 1973.