Afounder's Zlondon
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A ZFOUNDER'S LONDON Founder's A showing and synopsis of ITC Founder's Caslon A-Z London the friends of the st bride printing library, 1998 The European Friends of the St Bride Printing Library Bride Lane, Fleet Street, London ec4y 8ee 250 copies presented by the printer to The Wynkyn de Worde Society, London, 17 September 1998 500 copies presented by the typefounder at ATypI, Lyon, 23-25 October 1998 250 copies for the Friends of the St Bride Printing Library Research Justin Howes, Nigel Roche Design Justin Howes Production This publication has been made possible through the generosity of The Cloister Press, Cambridge. The binding has been given by Smith Settle, Otley, West Yorkshire. The text is set in a pre-release version of itc Founder's Caslon, seen here for the ìrst time, which has been made available by International Typeface Corporation of New York. Foreword by the Bishop of London The St Bride Printing Library, founded in 1895, stands at the heart of Typefounder's London in an area historically associated with the book and À newspaper trades. The City's modern role, at the forefront of a global ìnancial network, derives above all from the traditions of printing, typefounding and publishing which stem back to before 1500, when Wynkyn de Worde, who was buried in St Bride's Church, brought the printing press to Fleet Street. The habit of reading spread through England from the network of streets around St Paul's Cathedral; and it was at London House in aldersgate, once the property of an earlier Bishop of London, that Jacob Ilive had his foundry. Today, although the sounds of the printing oûce have long since vanished from the City, the Corporation of London maintains a public library service second to none, which continues to oúer members of the public and business The arms of the City of London from communities access to a huge range of subjects. The Corporation of London William Caslon's specimen of 1785. St Bride Printing Library has been responsible for the day-to-day administration of the St Bride Printing 20275. Library since 1966, and in 1992 was widely praised for leading the campaign permanently to secure the National Printing Library's future in its historic premises. The Corporation's continuing support for the Library, and its recognition of the vital role within the modern City of what is now the UK's sixth largest industry, was of course entirely appropriate. Since 1992, the Corporation's patronage has enabled St Bride's to build on an internationally-recognised position as the world's foremost printing and graphic arts library. The Library's catalogues have been fully computerised, and are accessible through terminals at any of the City's libraries. Public access to the collections has also been vastly extended by the Library's work, at the cutting edge of technology, with designers of contemporary digital typefaces: []5 providing the City's business community with a vital resource, and ensuring that future generations will continue to beneìt from the expertise accumulated in the streets and alleyways around Bride Lane. St Bride's has long been an integral and highly regarded part of the City's cultural landscape, both as a library resource and for exhibitions, lectures and other activities. In 1998 two new bodies of Friends of the St Bride Printing Library have been established, American and European, to encourage, aid and promote the Library's activities, to encourage donations, and to assist the pur- chase of rare books and archives separate from the Library's own funds. A celebration of St Bride's enduring links to the City of London, this small publication has been put together by the European Friends and provides a fascinating and accessible insight into an aspect of the City's history which, literally, shaped both Word and World. the rt revd and rt hon richard chartres []6 A typographical pilgrimage The most inÿuential of all the mechanical trades on the appearance of the printed word, typefounding has left its mark on London in an unobtrusive way. No-one who has seen the Caslon broadside type specimen sheets of the 18th century, or reproductions of the contemporary portrait of William Caslon I himself, clutching a copy of the rolled-up sheet, his address clearly visible, will pass chiswell street without emotion even though it is now mostly a canyon between high-rise developments, and the Whitbread Brewery that Caslon would have known is a centre for corporate hospitality. A blue plaque on Nos.22 and 23 marks the site of the Caslon foundry for two hundred years; behind the buildings are the grounds of the Honourable Artillery Company, a convenient refuge for one of the 19th-century Caslons as he did a quick bunk during a period of turbulent labour relations. A little further north the traûc in old street passes the ruined church of St Luke's, where William Caslon I's family tomb continues to be maintained by the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers under the terms of his daughter Mary Hanbey's bequest. The tomb's solitary splendour is a valuable reminder of the fact that many of the founders were, as proprietors of often substantial businesses, men and women of some standing within the City and generous in their support of its charities. William Caslon I became a J.P., around 1750. Vincent Figgins, `an amiable and worthy character, and generally respected', was Common Councillor for the Ward of Farringdon Without. James Figgins I was an Alderman, as was Robert Besley, a partner in the Fann Street foundry who took an active part in City aúairs and was Lord Mayor of London in 1869-70. Sir Charles Reed, another partner in the ìrm, was chairman of the London School Board, and an M.P. for Hackney. []7 chiswell street and St Luke's, old street, are the places of public pilgrimage, but how many people who visit the church of St Bartholomew- the-Great near bartholomew close go beyond the altar into the 14th- century Lady Chapel, thoroughly but sympathetically restored by Sir Aston Webb in 1897? For some centuries after the Dissolution, the Chapel was occupied by tradesmen including, in the early 18th century, Thomas James brother of the architect probably responsible for St Luke's, old street, and the last of `the old English letter founders'. It was here that the young Caslon was shown the rudiments of typefounding and encouraged to learn the trade. As long as the English printing trade was largely concentrated in the City of London, the makers of types kept within convenient distance of their clients. Although almost all of the streets, courts and alleys they occupied have been eliminated by development, the names of many remain on the modern map of London: barbican, once home to the Thorne foundry, is an example, and is built on the sites of the 17th-century Grismond, and 18th-century Grover and Mitchell foundries. Type Street has been less fortunate: given this name by Fry when he moved to an undeveloped lane opposite the Caslon foundry in chiswell street in 1788, it has vanished from the London A-Z and again forms part of moor lane. Next to the Guardian oûces, oú farringdon road (one of the great new North-South routes of the 1860s) in ray street, there remains a substantial monument to the nineteenth-century typefounders: the Works erected for V. & J. Figgins. The ìrm's name across the top of the façade has now disappeared who knows, perhaps it is still there, ìlled up with cement? but the building's cast-iron railings continue to bear the ìrm's VJF monogram and otherwise it looks exactly as it does, blocked in gold, on the scarlet cloth covers of 1890s Figgins specimens. Even the gates, shown open in the 1890s to let out a horse-drawn lorry laden with type, are still there. The last of the active London typefoundries, the ìrm became Stevens, Shanks & Sons Ltd at 89 southwark street, making type there until the 1970s. Still south of the River, further down blackfriars road, is `The Foundry', a refurbished []8 building which commemorates the Blackfriars Type Foundry. By 1900 there was probably a greater concentration of printers and those involved in the ancillary trades papermakers, inkmakers, wood-engravers, lithographers, process engravers and suppliers of all kinds of printers' sundries from composing sticks to page cord in the densely packed alleys and courts near fleet street than in any other place in the world. All of the major typefounders had a presence in London: Stephenson, Blake & Co. Ltd, the Sheûeld ìrm which had conquered the market for founders' type, maintained a trade counter and sorts service at 33 aldersgate street until the late 1960s, and survived longer than the main competitor, technologically theMonotype Corporation, which had returned after the war to 43 fetter lane. Monotype's unlovely postwar headquarters were built during the wholesale redevelopment of an area of crazily-built 18th-century tenements that had housed, amongst others, the foundry of Thomas Cottrell. Many had survived the Blitz but were it was said too shattered to be preserved. No typophile should omit to lay a wreath, or pause for thought, at Caslon's Talbot Baines Reed's ex libris. tomb at St Luke's, old street. It is easy to ìnd, and can now be visited by walking through the churchyard gate instead of squeezing into forbidden territory through a gap in the substantial cast iron railings the only means of access until a couple of years ago.