Benjamin Bailey's Printing Press at the CMS Press, Kottayam

Benjamin Bailey, an English missionary  with the Church Missionary Society (CMS), was sent to Kottayam in 1816 to establish a CMS mission station. In 1821, Bailey  brought the first printing press to Kerala to support missionary preaching and education. However, he was also interested in using the press to reproduce texts in Malayalam. Printing introduced a new way of circulating Malayalam writing, allowing texts to be produced more consistently and distributed to larger audiences. Malayalam has its own complex letter forms and combinations that needed to be accommodated in movable metal types. Bailey worked on developing and adapting the type so the script could be reproduced through this new technology. He reduced the number of individual types needed for printing and modified the representation of conjunct letters, making the system more practical for the printing process.

But, these adjustments also  raise questions about who had the authority to change an established writing system. Malayalam already had a history of handwritten manuscripts and conventions before Bailey introduced his printing methods. As an English missionary, Bailey approached the script from an outside perspective, potentially prioritizing the needs of the printing press over existing Malayalam writing practices. Malayalam readers and scholars overwhelmingly embraced the introduction of the printing press, but it is always important to consider whose interests its introduction served and whose ideas shaped the resulting typography. 

Missionary influence in printing and education raises concerns about how colonial institutions could establish authority over local languages and forms of communication. This history shows that technological innovation is not always culturally neutral. As designers, we should question the assumption that new writing systems need to be corrected or simplified to fit existing technologies. Its important to recognize the knowledge and traditions already present within a community's writing system.