Printingprinting History history news 32 News 1 The Newsletter of the National Heritage Trust,

Printing Historical Society and Friends of St Bride Library Number 32 Autumn 2011

PHS Grants for 2012

The Printing Historical Society is pleased to continue its limited number of small grants in 2012, for work including: • Research on topics relating to the • Publishable reports on archives relating to the history of printing Grants are limited to historical research in printing technology, the printing and related industries, printed materials and artefacts, type and typefounding, print culture, and printing processes and design. Applications for research funding may be for up to £1,000; applications for publishable reports on archives, up to £500. In both cases grants may be used to cover material or other expenses, including travel, subsistence, photo- graphy, etc. Applications should specify the amount requested and offer a budget for the use of the funds envisaged; costs incurred before application are unlikely to be successful, as are projects that are deemed to be primarily bibliographical. Students, academics and independent Woodcut of an early printing office, made around 1510 researchers may apply. Some preference (one of the devices of the Deventer printer Thierry de Borne) will be given to independent researchers. The application should consist of: 1) a covering letter of up to 500 words, century. It is particularly suitable for containing a brief curriculum vitae and ST BRIDE EVENTS students of book history, conservators the name, address and e-mail address and those with an interest in letterpress of one referee (who has agreed to serve Print workshops or printing history. Course leader: Dr as referee), and 2) a description of the Claire Bolton. For further details of the project and budget, of up to 1,000 Gutenberg Weekend. Saturday 17 and programme and leader, and for online words. The project description should Sunday 18 September 2011 (sessions booking see printworkshop.stbride.org/ state its purpose clearly, and succinctly. run 11:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m. Saturday #gutenberg_weekend (for credit card Please also state whether your project is and 11:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m. Sunday, booking please call 0207 353 4660). part of a larger one, and whether you lunch 1:00–2:00 p.m.). Maximum class are applying elsewhere for funding. You size six. Fees: £245.00 (£195.00 for will be expected to submit a written those over sixty and full-time students) Letterpress short course report one year after the award of your How were the first books printed? grant. Submit your application to the We do not know exactly, but by using Designed for beginners or those with Chairman of the PHS Grants and practices – hand- some knowledge of , graphic Prizes Sub-Committee, Dr Peggy Smith, setting type, damping paper and print- design or relief printing. There will be [email protected]. Hard- ing on a hand-press – we can come to a six sessions running from 6:00 to 9:00 copy submissions are no longer encour- better understanding of the methods of p.m. every Tuesday from 4 October to aged, but consult Dr Smith if this is early printed book production. The 8 November 2011. Maximum class size necessary. Application deadline: 1 Jan- aim of this workshop is to introduce six. Fees: £355.00 (£305.00 for those uary 2012. Awards will be announced participants to letterpress printing and over sixty and full-time students). at the PHS AGM in Spring 2012, for relate the techniques involved today During this course students will disbursal the following month. to some of those used in the fifteenth examine the processes and materials 2 printing history news 32 needed to create their own letterpress the passmore edwards future of the book is arguably an work using Albion, Columbian and centennial Lecture important topic for consideration, an Adana presses. Each week will focus initiative such as Kahle’s also raises on a particular area of letterpress. The such question as how, if at all, past Monday 10 October 2011, from 7:00 course will begin with an induction to societies saw the future of the book (or to 10:00 p.m., the Passmore Edwards the workshop, health and safety, an of the predominant medium of their Room, St Bride Foundation. John Pass- overview of letterpress printing with time). Although the digital revolution is more Edwards was a widely-respected examples of practitioners’ work, an possibly the most radical change in the editor and philanthropist in the late explanation of hand setting and an history of writing, one wonders how nineteenth century who supported introduction to the presses. other transitions fared – from the public buildings and libraries through- Subsequent weeks will cover wood- scroll to the codex, from manuscript to out the United Kingdom. The St Bride letter printing, tabletop presses, printed book, from printing on the Foundation owes him a special debt as two-colour printing and the use of hand-press to machine printing, from it was with his help that the libraries of metal type and polymer blocks. The writing by hand to writing on the type- William Blades and Talbot Baines Reed final sessions will be dedicated to more writer and the word-processor. Do the were purchased when the printing experimental processes such as mono- concerns of fifteenth-century critics of school was being established there in printing and overprinting wherein print like Abbot Johannes Trithemius the 1890s. These books still represent participants will create their own pieces of Sponheim have anything in common a vital part of the St Bride Library col- under supervision. The course will with twenty-first-century anxieties lection on the history of printing. provide an excellent overview of the about the rise of digital technology? Is On 10 October Dean Evans, author letterpress process, materials and work- access to knowledge and preservation, of Funding the ladder, which describes shop management. Facilitator: Helen which champions of the digital ‘revo- the Passmore Edwards legacy, will give Ingham. For booking see below. lution’ invoke, really a new concern? a talk on the life and work of this re- How much of the (old) culture of the markable man. The talk will be preceded book is retained in the new digital Letterpress stage 2 by an introduction about the impact of media? this legacy on the Foundation and on the Set your own brief and develop your printing school and its building. Entry letterpress sensibility. Sessions are is by ticket, available in advance through Fine Press Book Fair arranged in groups of three, running the website (stbride.org) or by telephone from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. on consecutive (0207 353 4660) at £12.50. Mondays. The next three will be held The 2011 Fine Press Book Fair will be between 3 and 17 October 2011. Max- held at Oxford Brookes University, imum class size six. Fees: £175.00 Gipsy Lane, Oxford, on Saturday 5 (£135 for those over sixty and full- OTHER EVENTS (11:00–18:00) and Sunday 6 Novem- time students). ber (10:00–17:00). Some eighty fine This course is intended for those and private presses, as well as specialist who have completed one of St Bride’s Book History Research booksellers, trade-suppliers and a range six-week beginners’ courses. Experi- Network of societies will be exhibiting. As usual, enced printers with a solid grounding there will also be a programme of talks in letterpress techniques may also join on the Sunday. Stalls will be held by the The Book History Research Network Friends of St Bride and the National this group if they have sufficient skills. holds a series of twice yearly events. Please contact St Bride to find out if Printing Heritage Trust. Admission is Information about these and a register by catalogue (price £5.00), valid for you are eligible. of interests can be found on their web- With the knowledge of both days. For further details see site at www.bookhistory.org.uk. Please www.fpba.com. and printing already gained, students visit the website to register and to sign will work on their own projects, under up for the next free event, which is: supervision and using shared facilities. NEH Summer Seminar for Some paper will be provided, but after The future perfect of the book. A one- consultation with the facilitator, stu- day colloquium to be held at the Instit- College and University Teachers: dents may bring along their own paper ute of English Studies (University of Tudor books and readers 1485– and printing blocks. For booking see London) on 25 November 2011. 1603 below. At a time when the rise of e-readers is said, by some, to foretell the end of Between 18 June and 20 July 2012, Booking and further courses the printed book, the founder of the John N. King of Ohio State University, Internet Archive, Brewster Kahle, has and Mark Rankin of James Madison To book, please use the web-pages at launched an initiative for the preser- University will direct a National En- printworkshop.stbride.org. Alternat- vation of the codex. He is creating a dowment for the Humanities Summer ively you can book by credit card, by storehouse for physical books in Seminar for College and University telephone on 0207 353 4660. Further specially-adapted containers on the Teachers on the manufacture and dis- courses and classes are planned, inclu- West Coast of the United States in semination of printed books and the ding a series of two-day intensive letter- order to preserve them as ‘backup nature of reading during the Tudor press courses, one-day linocut and type copies’ for posterity. His idea was a period (1485–1603). In particular, they poster-printing workshops and open reaction against the notion that books intend to address the question of whether sessions. Concessions are available for can be put beyond use (or destroyed) the advent of printing was a necessary members of the Friends of St Bride. as soon as they are digitized. While the precondition for the emergence of printing history news 32 3

new reading practices associated with Bailey Newspaper Group. It was the the Renaissance and Reformation. latter, featuring a good photograph of Participants will consider ways in which a large Cossar machine, which caught readers responded to elements such as my eye while driving through the town book layout, typography, illustration earlier this year. I resolved to return at and paratext (such as prefaces, glosses the earliest opportunity to photograph and commentaries). the display (pictured below). This seminar will meet from 18 June until 20 July 2012. During the first week of the seminar, attenders will visit Antwerp, in order to draw on resources including the Plantin-Moretus Museum, and London, in order to attend a rare- book workshop and consider treasures at the British Library. During the four ensuing weeks at Oxford, participants will reside at St Edmund Hall as they draw on the rare book and manuscript holdings of the Bodleian Library and other institutions. Those eligible to attend include American citizens who teach at college The Cossar appears to be made up of or university level, graduate students three eight-page press units (for broad- bag shown above was printed (rather and independent scholars who have sheet working) plus an eight-page re- crudely) for the iron-monger Thomas received the terminal degree in their reeler. In terms of the Dawson Payne Wade. It is small, approximately 40 × field (usually the Ph.D.). In addition, and Elliott manufacturing classification, 30 mm (shown at roughly double size non-US citizens who have taught and that would make it a Model D 16, po- above) and was printed locally in Clare, lived in the USA for at least three years tentially capable of turning out twenty- Suffolk, at an unknown date, perhaps (by March 2012) are eligible to apply. four pages in one operation, or thirty- around 1840. It appears to have been NEH will provide participants with a two in two, but at half the aggregate designed to hold small quantities of stipend of $3,900. Full details and output rate. nails or other small items sold by application information are available The photograph on the left shows Wade. The text reads ‘Thomas WADE at the website www.jmu.edu/english / the Princess Royal, a local resident at | General & Furnishing | Ironmonger, Tudor_Books_and_Readers. For Gatcombe Park, being shown the Oil and | Colourman, Nail, Tool and | further information, please contact mechanism of the re-reeler by Mr Fred Bar Iron Warehouse, | CLARE’. The Mark Rankin ([email protected]). Bailey. She had been invited to inaugu- iron-monger survives and the current The application deadline is 1 March rate a new and faster rotary press by owner has several similar paper bags 2012. ceremonially pressing the button. For which show that the printer in question this, the Princess had been offered set this text many times. The bag repro- temporary union membership of the duced above is now in the Ancient National Graphical Association by the House Museum, 26 High Street, Clare, incumbent Father of Chapel, complete Suffolk co10 8ny. See www.clare- with endorsed union membership card. ancient-house-museum.co.uk/. Thanks This was an important milestone in the to Peggy Smith for drawing this item history of Bailey’s, a day to remember to the editor’s attention and supplying in October of 1978. the photograph and details. Having set the new machine running, the Princess unexpectedly asked to see the now-redundant Cossar put into operation as well. With it standing Graphic Design there, fully webbed up, it was the work Letter to the Editor of a moment to satisfy the Royal request and the now famous photograph, along The following e-mail was received from Supermarket display with the covering story, appeared in the Jacob Simon, Chief Curator at the Bernard J. Seward next edition of The Dursley gazette. National Portrait Gallery.

The ancient market town of Dursley in Your correspondent in Printing Gloucestershire is dominated by a TINY EPHEMERON History News 31 makes suggestions relatively new branch of Sainsbury’s. concerning the early use of the term The wall panels of the building, facing After reading of one of the largest ‘graphic design’ and asks who can the main street (pictured above), are surviving items of ephemera in PHN know for sure whether this is the first decorated with images reflecting the 31 (p. 3), readers may be interested to appearance of the term. Google Ad- traditional industries of the area – see something at the other end of the vanced Book Search is a powerful tool R. A. Lister and Petter diesel engines, size-range (albeit not, perhaps, the which allows one to examine the appear- the Dursley Pedersen bicycle and the smallest possible example). The paper ance in print of a particular term by 4 printing history news 32 specifying a period of years to search. shown nothing of the willingness of its BOOKS BOUGHT Such a search for ‘graphic design’ predecessor to make its printing hold- would suggest that the term was well- ings available for use and display, and John Trevitt is still seeking books established in the nineteenth century a search of the voluminous M Shed about books (typography, printing, but underwent a subtle transformation website reveals references to printing publishing history and illustration). of meaning in the early 20th century. It and presses only on the page describing Contact John Trevitt, Rose Cottage, is used, for example, by Walter Crane the former Industrial Museum. With Church Road, Weobley, Hereford hr4 in 1904 and by others much earlier. thanks to Bernard J. Seward for his 8sd. Tel: 01544 318388. E-mail: report on the opening. [email protected]. TAILS AND FEET John Trevitt PHS members’ survey

As a second-hand bookseller (which is Individual members of the Printing Stop Press quite ambiguous enough all by itself) I Historical Society will find a question- strive for accuracy and exact termin- naire included with this number of festival of britain ology in describing my books. As I do Printing History News. This is aimed study-day not possess a copy of Glaister’s Glossary at gaining a better understanding of of the book, when in doubt I have to the needs, expectations and desires of For details of this study-day, being held turn to other established authorities. current members, and the Society would by the Department of Typography & To describe the bottom area of the be most grateful if those who receive Graphic Communication at the Uni- page, I have learnt from John Carter the questionnaire would complete and versity of Reading on Tuesday 20 (ABC for book collectors), R. B. McKer- return it. If you are a member and have September, please see the website at row (An introduction to bibliography) not received a copy, please contact Cath- www.reading.ac.uk/typography/ and and Hugh Williamson (Methods of erine Armstrong (see below). If you are look under ‘short courses’. book design) to call that the ‘tail margin’. reading this as a representative of an That has been a hard lesson to learn, institutional member of the Society and on account of the footnotes which fall would like to complete a copy of the just above this blank area, and the questionnaire on behalf of your insti- USEFUL CONTACTS familiar phrase ‘the foot of the page’. tution, please contact the Membership Williamson’s marvellous glossarial Secretary, Dr Catherine Armstrong, at National Printing Heritage Trust index does not help: ‘tail – foot of page 69 Centaur Road, Earlsdon, Coventry www.npht.org.uk Hon. Correspondent: Jeremy Winkworth – 14’. Neither does Joseph Moxon cv5 6lx. Or you can e-mail Catherine [email protected] (Mechanick exercises, edited by Herbert at [email protected]. Treasurer: E. C. James, The Pinfold, Church Davis and Harry Carter): his ‘dictionary’ Road, Dodleston, Chester, Cheshire ch4 9ng defines ‘Foot of a Page’ as the ‘bottom [email protected] or end of a Page’: ‘tail’ doesn’t figure in his ‘dictionary’. SMALL ADS Printing Historical Society Bookbinders seem clear about the c/o St Bride Library, Bride Lane, Fleet tail (viz. Douglas Cockerell, Bookbind- Albion and Cropper offered Street, London ec4y 8ee ing and the care of books or P. J. M. www.printinghistoricalsociety.org.uk [email protected] Marks, The British Library guide to The Sinclair Trust would like these two ). So do my occasional presses to be used to train people in the Chair: John Hinks, [email protected] customers really understand ‘library practice of hand printing in a working Treasurer: Andrew Dolinski, 34 Martineau rg10 0sf catalogue number at foot of spine’? environment. It is considering donating Lane, Hurst, Berkshire [email protected] them and ancillary equipment on per- manent loan to a charitable or educa- Journal Editor: John Trevitt, Rose Cottage, hr4 8sd tional institution in the UK. The Trust Church Road, Weobley, Hereford M Shed opening [email protected] would consider partnering with a small M SHED, Bristol’s new museum of or private press to strengthen or estab- St Bride Library, Bride Lane, Fleet Street, local life, science and art opened to the lish a workshop to offer training and London ec4y 8ee public on 17 June. The museum has hands-on experience in collaboration www.stbride.org substantial holdings of printing-related with an educational institution. If you Librarian: Nigel Roche material and machinery and is the suc- would like to make a proposal, please [email protected] cessor to Bristol Industrial Museum. contact [email protected]. The The opening was marked by a ‘Proces- presses are located near Cambridge and Friends of St Bride Library sion of Professionals’ on 18 June, in the details are as follows: Albion press, [email protected] which the printing-trades were repre- double demy (platen size 11 × 16 inches), Printing History News sented by three stalwarts of the old dated 1855 (patent no. 531) by Ullmer Editor: Paul W. Nash, 19 Fosseway Drive, museum, Greg Corrigan, Victoria and Sons, London; Cropper ‘Minerva’ Moreton-in-Marsh, Glos. gl56 0du Arrowsmith Brown (a member of the treadle platen, 7 × 11 (internal [email protected] famous Bristol printing and publishing size 8¾ × 12½ inches), made between family) and Neil Spearey, all carrying 1867 and 1893. The Albion is in good Published by the NPHT, PHS and the objects signifying the world of books working condition, but the Cropper Friends of St Bride Library, September and printing. Regrettably, M Shed has needs some minor repairs. 2011. Printed by Synergie, Birmingham.

Please pass spare copies of Printing History News on to an interested friend