The 13-staff, Easingwold-based B2 printer mainly does short-run digital magazine work but its owners also edit, print and publish two local newspapers.
Co-owner Rupert Smith, who has been with the business for coming up to 30 years, said: “We’re very proud of this achievement but obviously you can’t live in the past so our aim is to carry on for the next 150 years.
“We’re not running a PLC, me and my brother Alex are in charge but my father David has taken a bit more of a backseat, although he comes in most days to help out."
Alex Smith has been with GH Smith for 20 years and David has been with the business since 1956.
“It’s quite a challenge, especially in this day and age. Everyone else seems to want to build up a business and then flog it; expand quickly, then sell it and go off and do something else. Alex has two children and I’ve got a 20-year-old so we hope that some of the members of the family carry it on.”
Smith edits the Easingwold Advertiser, which has been in the business since 1892, and the Thirsk Weekly News, which he launched in 2004.
A few months ago, former prime minister David Cameron was featured in the Easingwold Advertiser’s Q&A section on the subject of Brexit.
GH Smith also has an educational book division, which publishes and prints education books for children under the age of 13. It also offers historical reprographic services.
Smith said he fears for the state of the industry and is worried about the lack of young people prepared to graft at the bottom.
“I’ve seen such an upheaval in print,” he said.
“In my time there have been an awful lot of local businesses that have gone bust. Every time somebody closes we get its former employees contacting us for jobs. The biggest problem is that young people want to be MD, they don’t seem to want to start at the bottom, but print is an industry that requires experience.
“We did our training at Kitson College, Leeds, and the people I remember from when I was there all seem to have disappeared.”
GH Smith runs a Komori Lithrone S29 and SRA3 Xerox digital press in its approximate 470sqm premises. It also has a number of bits of finishing kit, including Stahlfolders, a Muller Martini stitcher/trimmer and a Polar guillotine.
To commemorate the anniversary, GH Smith provided drinks and a buffet at its local networking group and invited a select group of customers.
"Someone said to me at the event, 'Do you think we can make it to the 200?' Well we can but hope," added Smith.
