An historic printing company founded in 1925 by Lord Nuffield has gone into administration with the loss of 53 jobs.

Administrators from accountancy firm BDO arrived at the headquarters of Nuffield Press in Abingdon on Monday and told early shift workers to go home. Others, due to arrive later, received telephone calls at home and learned that they had been made redundant.

Only a skeleton staff of 14 has been kept on while administrators continue negotiations with a possible buyer.

Martha Thompson, BDO’s business restructuring partner, said: “Unfortunately the economic climate and difficult trading conditions have significantly affected the business.

“However, we are investigating the possibility of a sale as a going concern.”

One worker who declined to be named said staff had been expecting the news for some time as business had been so quiet.

He added that staff from the Job Centre were being brought in to help workers come to terms with their redundancies and to help them start the search for new employment.

William Morris, later Lord Nuffield, founded the Press as The Morris Oxford Press, at the former military college in Cowley to produce the periodical Morris Owner.

It was later bought by Robert Maxwell and workers were at the centre of the row over stolen pension funds when the disgraced tycoon disappeared in November 1991.