For the first time since its invention, the print medium is being challenged as the primary means of recording and communicating ideas. The advent of digital technology has rendered the craft of hand setting metal type obsolete - the days of the skilled compositor are at an end. This work sets out to examine the experiences of the skilled compositor in the period 1850 to 1914. Focusing primarily on the workplace and the workplace institutions, it aims to explore issues of control, co-operation and conflict in order to determine if the compositor did, as many labour historians claim, belong to an aristocracy of labour.