The C.M.S. Press (Church Mission Society Press) at Kottayam is widely regarded as the first printing press established in Kerala. Founded in the early nineteenth century by Anglican missionaries of the Church Missionary Society, it played a pioneering role in the development of Malayalam printing, the production of religious and educational literature, and the wider intellectual modernisation of Travancore.
| Name | C.M.S. Press |
|---|---|
| Type | Printing press |
| Location | Kottayam, Kerala, India |
| Founder | Rev. Benjamin Bailey, Church Missionary Society |
| Significance | First printing press in Kerala |
| Affiliation | Church Missionary Society (Anglican) |
The Church Missionary Society, an Anglican missionary organisation founded in London in 1799, began its work in Travancore in the early 1800s in cooperation with the Malankara Syrian Christian community. Kottayam, a centre of Syrian Christianity, became the focal point of the mission's educational and literary activities. The need to produce scriptures, school texts, and dictionaries in Malayalam led the missionaries to establish a press locally rather than rely on facilities in Bombay or Madras.
The press was established by Rev. Benjamin Bailey, who arrived in Kottayam in 1816. Bailey is credited with designing and casting the first set of modern Malayalam types suitable for printing, replacing the earlier blockier forms used in experimental printing elsewhere. His refined typefaces gave the printed Malayalam script much of its present visual character.
From the press emerged a series of foundational works in Malayalam, including translations of the Bible, the first Malayalam–English and English–Malayalam dictionaries compiled by Bailey, school primers, and grammars. These publications were widely used in the schools run by the C.M.S. mission and in the Syrian Christian seminary at Kottayam.
The C.M.S. Press is significant for several reasons:
The press remains associated with the C.M.S. institutions in Kottayam, including CMS College Kottayam, the oldest college in Kerala, which grew out of the same missionary educational effort. Bailey's typographic and lexicographic work is regarded as foundational to modern Malayalam print culture, and Kottayam's later emergence as a major publishing centre in Kerala is often traced back to the activities of the C.M.S. Press.