Printingprinting History history news 39 News 1 The Newsletter of the National Printing Heritage Trust,

Printing Historical Society and Friends of St Bride Library Number 39  Summer 2013

by prior appointment (to book please recovery of the material book, electronic Printing Historical Society e-mail [email protected]). Access is and digitized books, and of collections Annual General Meeting open to all, on acquisition of a Reader and libraries.’ For further details see Card (costing £5.00 for one year, but www.resurrectingthebook.org. The Society’s 2013 Annual General free to Friends of St Bride). The on-line Meeting took place at the St Bride Ins- catalogue of the library is accessible at titute on 8 May. A slightly larger gath- prism.talis.com/cityoflondon/. Further Reading and writing in ering of members than in recent years details are at www.stbride.org. Warwickshire’s past meant that this was a lively meeting, with members keen to receive reports Printing workshops Booking is now open for this weekend from the Society’s officers on the state conference, organised by the Dugdale of the Society and plans to celebrate A further series of printing courses, one- Society in association with the Printing its fiftieth anniversary in 2014. In his off classes and workshops will soon be Historical Society and the Shakespeare Chairman’s report Dr John Hinks paid announced. Details and dates can be Birthplace Trust. It will be held on Sat- special tribute to those retiring from found at printworkshop.stbride.org. urday and Sunday, 14 and 15 September the Committee, especially Peggy Smith, 2013, at the Shakespeare Centre, Henley who over many years has served the Street, Stratford-upon-Avon. Society as Journal Editor, Chairman OTHER EVENTS The conference celebrates the history and latterly Grants and Prizes Sub- of reading books, writing and printing Committee Chair. He also thanked Travel, topography and in Warwickshire over five centuries. The Catherine Armstrong and Victoria speakers will deal with the production, Gardner, retiring Membership Secret- the booktrade sale, distribution and consumption of ary and Journal Reviews Editor respec- books, pamphlets, newspapers and tively. Elections resulted in a number Travel, topography and the booktrade. other forms of writing. of changes to the Committee, with The thirty-first Print Networks Con- Conference fees: £52.00 (£49.00 for several retirements and new members. ference on the History of the British those over sixty-five and students, or John Hinks, Andrew Dolinski and Book Trade will be held at the Univer- £47.00 for members of the Dugdale Francis Cave were re-elected for a of Chichester on 23–25 July 2013. Society). For further details please con- further three-year term as Chairman, Guest speakers will include Professor tact [email protected]. Treasurer and Secretary respectively. Bill Bell (of Cardiff University) and Dr Caroline Archer was elected as the Anthony Payne. In addition to a full new Membership Secretary. programme of papers, there will be a Baskerville Society After the formal business, Society conference dinner and a visit to the members were treated to a guided tour special collections of the University of The Baskerville Society holds regular of the Blades Library at St Bride by Chichester library. For details see the events, usually in and around Birming- Glyn Farrow, Chief Executive of the website at www.bookhistory.org.uk/ ham, on aspects of the life, work and Foundation. Members had the oppor- print-networks/events. influence of John Baskerville. See tunity to view a number of treasures, www.typographichub.org (and click including Chaucer’s English translation on the Society’s tab) for further details. of Boethius’s De consolatione philo- Resurrecting the book sophiae, printed by William Caxton Booking is now open for ‘Resurrecting around 1478. What better way to end Glastonbury free press the book’, a conference to be held at a meeting of the Society than browsing the Library of Birmingham on 15–17 This year’s Glastonbury music festival through a library of early and fine November 2013. The organisers write (held at Worthy Farm, 26–30 June) printed books? that ‘with e-book downloads outstrip- will include a daily letterpress news- ping the purchase of hard copies, with paper, The Glastonbury free press, ST BRIDE NEWS libraries closing and discarding books printed on site using a Heidelberg and the value of the book as physical cylinder and type cast on an Intertype. AND EVENTS object being increasingly questioned, The organisers are seeking volunteers, this interdisciplinary conference brings and an imposing stone, furniture racks The St Bride Library remains open to together academics, librarians, artists, and benches for the printing office. If the public on Wednesdays between creators, designers and users of books you can help please contact Richard 11:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. Access to to explore ... the construction, creation, Lawrence at [email protected]. See the Library at other times is possible design, use, reuse, preservation, loss and als0 www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk. 2 printing history news 39 news from hibernia, are invited you to join in. Suitable for (Librarian, St Bride); Robin Myers summer 2013 all ages. There will also be an exhib- (Archivist of the Stationers’ Company); ition of artworks linked to The Gathering Dr Derek Nuttall (Hon. Correspon- Anne Brady 2013, displaying work by students of dent); Michael B. Passmore (Chairman); the National College of Art and Design. and Prof. Michael Twyman (Depart- ‘Books of Dublin’ free ipad app. This Saturday 13 July, 12:00–4:00 p.m. Ad- ment of Typography & Graphic Com- month sees the launch of a new applica- mission free. munication, Reading University). tion, ‘Books of Dublin’, showcasing a An Advisory Committee was also selection of key rare manuscripts and ‘Book arts and creative letterpress formed and the first members were printed books in two of Dublin’s oldest workshops’. The National College of D. Arnold, S. Carter, Rev. E. Chambers, libraries, Marsh’s Library and the Ed- Art and Design, Dublin, will offer two R. Coxhead, D. Field, A. Morris, R. ward Worth Library, in collaboration week-long workshops in the book arts Russell and L. Wallis. Bamber Gas- with University College Dublin. Works and letterpress printing in August 2013. coigne became the Trust’s Patron. include Handel’s Messiah manuscript, For further details see www.ncad.ie Desmond Field had begun to com- the Works of Johnathan Swift and the and www.distillerspress.com/blog. puterise records of printing artefacts in Irish language An tiomna nuadh/ New museums and private collections. This testament. Each work is accompanied New publication – The Old Library, was later published as a Directory. by a commentary from an expert at Trinity College Dublin, 1712–2012. Lawrence Wallis reported he had UCD, as well as contributors from Edited by W. E. Vaughan, this lavishly found the only surviving Westover Roto- both libraries. The app is available for illustrated volume is published to cele- foto photo-typesetting machine in the free download from the itunes store. brate the tercentenary of the laying South African Museum at Cape Town. of the foundation stone of the world- An ‘Atlas’ press had been restored Women in graphic design 1890–2012. famous Old Library in May 1712. The and put into working order for the The foregoing ‘Books in Dublin’ app building houses collections of inter- Englesey Brook Chapel and Museum was designed and created by Ireland’s national importance that are still being of Primitive Methodism, Cheshire, by leading design consultancy, Vermillion added to by gift and purchase. Almost a team of Young Managing Printers. A Design. Creative Director Anne Brady fifty contributors explore the features photograph of the press is available at was recently selected as one of the of this remarkable building and its www.engleseabrook-museum.org.uk women featured in a new publication, contents. There are essays dealing with and a video of the press at work can Women in graphic design 1890–2012 specific books and manuscripts in the be seen by visitors to the Museum. (Jovis, 2012), listing the world’s top library (‘Book of Kells’, Kelmscott The fine collection of line-composing 400 female graphic designers. Anne ‘Chaucer’, ‘Annals of Ulster’, ‘Brut machines assembled by the late Peter studied Typography and Graphic Com- chronicle’, ‘Fagel missal’), collections Whittaker, was donated to the Museum munication under Michael Twyman and archives (Beckett, Davitt, Pollard, of Science and Industry, Manchester. and James Mosley and their colleagues 1641 Depositions, Cuala Press, Harry The Scottish Printing Archive Trust in the University of Reading. Other Clarke), individuals associated with issued its first newsletter with the title designers included are Vanessa Bell, the library (Claudius Gilbert, Jonathan NewSPRAT. Nicolete Gray, Fiona Ross, Freda Sack, Swift, James Stephens), maps, drawings, Two new privately-owned printing Elizabeth Corbett Yeats of the Cuala children’s books, music, exhibitions museums were announced – David Press, Shelly Winter of Linotype and held in the library, the second-hand Winkworth’s at Cockermouth and Beatrice Warde of Monotype. booksale, the printed catalogue and Geoffrey Willis’s at the Heritage the conservation laboratory. For details Centre, Elsecar, Yorkshire. Distillers Press. The Letterpress Print please see www.fourcourtspress.ie. Rupert Cannon’s collection of Workshop in the Department of Visual material relating to photo-mechanical Communication is the only working New Museum website. The National processes was donated to Watford letterpress facility in third level educa- Print Museum of Ireland’s new website Museum and, later, further items went tion in Ireland. Run by master printer, has just been launched. Highlights to the St Bride Printing Library. Sean Sills, it is used by students on a include their new collection video Reading University set up the Centre daily basis for creative projects and shorts, education section, ‘what’s on?’ for the Book in the Department of also as a teaching tool to introduce and workshop pages. The Museum Typography & Graphic Communica- the fundamentals of typography. With would love to hear what you think. tion. It would later house Maurice several operational presses, it has a See www.nationalprintmuseum.ie. Rickards’ large collection of printed substantial collection of type in a wide ephemera. variety of founts – approximately 280 A group of Friends of the NPHT cases of metal type and 110 cases of visited the recently completed museum wood type, details of which can be From the N P HT Newsletter – at Oxford University Press at the invit- found at www.distillerspress.com. The twenty years ago ation of Archivist Peter Foden. Press is planning to display its work Derek Nuttall this year at the Oxford Fine Press Book 1994. An appeal was launched for fund- Fair on 2–3 November. If you are plan- 1993. The first Trustees of the NPHT ing to ensure the future of the unique ning to visit the Fair this year please were Gwyn Evans (who printed the collection of artefacts at Stephenson, drop by and say ‘hello’. Newsletter free of charge for 10 years); Blake and Company’s Sheffield Type- Rev. Dr Richard Hills (first Director foundry. The Gathering 2013: demonstration of Manchester Museum of Science and The Trust had approached Sir Neil day. If you once worked in the printing Industry); Clifford James (the Trust’s Cossons, Director of the Science Mus- industry, or have a relative who did, you Treasurer for 21 years), James Mosley eum, to ask for his help in safeguarding printing history news 39 3

the Stephenson Blake collection and Allied Trades Exhibition at Earls Court, Twenty years after IPEX, in 1983, also to ensure that the proposed Type but I mainly recall the complementary Karl Pressler in Munich published a Museum be properly housed, funded show of fine and/or significant books handsome reprint of Printing and the and administered. embodying the contemporary view of mind of man, with a new introduction The Owen Thomas Press Working ‘the evolutionary course of thinking by Muir. Good copies change hands Museum, at Llandrindod, had been from which Western man has emerged’ for about £125. obliged to vacate its room in the Old (PMM) held at the British Museum. There is a copy of the 1963 edition Town Hall, and help was needed to The history of PMM began in 1940, on the second-hand market priced at find homes for the printing equipment. when Stanley Morison prompted the £2,740, signed by Carter and Muir It was later reported that most of the Deputy Printer to Cambridge Univer- for ‘our Adjutant General for the artefacts had been acquired by Blists sity Press (Brooke Crutchley, assisted United States’, David A. Randall (the Hill Museum and the Cockermouth by John Dreyfus) to mount the Guten- Librarian of the Lilly Library). Sounds Printing Museum. berg Quincentenary exhibition ‘on the like a bargain. Newsletter 11 reprinted an article, history and influence of printing’ at by H. Beresford Stevens, originally the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge – printed in The British printer in 1930, which closed after a few days because First winner of Peter Isaac prize setting out the desirability of a Nati- of the risk of bomb damage, thus mak- announced onal Museum of Printing. ing the catalogue a desirable rarity. Attempts were being made to save a Morison wrote ‘There is no moral to In honour of its founder, the late Pro- Hoe Web Rotary Press, built in 1900 this exhibition. It aims at portraying ... fessor Peter Isaac, the ‘Print Networks’ for the Yorkshire Post, and later moved the uses to which printing from movable conference committee announces the to Skipton where it was used to print type has been put’. first winner of a biennial prize for the the Craven Herald until 1988. Then Oxford University Press printed, best essay in the field of the History and the IPEX organiser F. W. Bridges of the Book Trade in the Anglophone and Company published, an amazingly world. The committee is pleased to punctual catalogue entitled Catalogue announce that the prize winner in this of a display of printing mechanisms and inaugural year is Sylvia Nickerson, a printed materials arranged to illustrate doctoral candidate in the Institute for the history of Western civilisation and the History and Philosophy of Tech- the means of the multiplication of liter- nology and Science at the University ary texts since the 15th century, organ- of Toronto. Her essay is entitled ‘Ref- ised in connection with the eleventh erees, publishers’ readers and the image International Printing Machinery and of mathematics in nineteenth-century Allied Trades Exhibition, under the title England’. Sylvia wins £150, free atten- Printing and the mind of man, assembled dance at the ‘Print Networks’ confer- at the British Museum and at Earls Court, ence in Chichester (23–25 July) on London, 16–27 July 1963. ‘Travel, topography and the book Fifty years have passed, and this article Trade’ (see page [1]) and publication reading acquires pens celebrates IPEX and particularly the of her essay in the journal Publishing associated book Printing and the mind history. The University of Reading’s Depart- of man, edited by John Carter and If you have any questions about the ment of Typography & Graphic Com- Percy H. Muir with the assistance of prize please e-mail Catherine Arm- munication has recently acquired by Nicolas Barker (who still flourishes as strong, Chair of ‘Print Networks’, on donation a large collection of pens for the editor of The book collector), H. A. [email protected]. a ruling machine. Four are depicted Feisenberger, Howard Nixon and S. H. above. The technology which allowed Steinberg (of 500 years of printing paper to be ruled by the application of fame), designed by John Dreyfus and doctoral award in art a multiple ‘nib’ which channeled a printed four years later (1967) in grand and design 2013–2014 fluid ink continued to be used until style at Cambridge and published in well after the middle of the twentieth the UK by Desmond Flower’s Cassell. Caroline Archer century, but is now all but forgotten. The roll-call of those involved is Michael Twyman would be glad to impressive indeed. Morison’s opposite Birmingham Institute of Art and Design know if any readers of PHN have number, the President of the Master (BIAD) has one Arts and Humanities experience of using these machines. Printers’ Federation, was Jack Matson Research Council doctoral studentship (also M D of the Monotype Corpora- in art and design available for an tion), to whom Muir in his introduc- October 2013 start. Doctoral awards tion pays unstinting praise. There were provide support for a minimum of one FIFTY YEARS ON some outstanding lenders: King’s Col- year and up to three years of full-time John Trevitt lege, Cambridge, alone lent fifty-one study, or between two and five years books ‘from the collection bequeathed of part-time study, leading to a doctoral Book-lovers with long memories will by Lord [J. M.] Keynes’; thirty-one degree. A full award includes tuition remember – possibly quite dimly – the books came from the Lilly Library at fees and a maintenance grant. Applic- year 1963, particularly ‘Printing and Indiana University; forty-four came ations and enquiries from qualified the mind of man’ (PMM) and IPEX. from the collection of ‘firsts’ formed by candidates should be directed to I am almost certainly undervaluing the Ian Fleming (which is now in the Lilly [email protected]. For further International Printing Machinery and Library). details see www.bcu.ac.uk/biad. 4 printing history news 39

Ulverstonian which he believed to be one of a handful in existence. It is inter- esting to note that from this machine Dawson and Payne developed the now famous Wharfedale Press. The last word should go to Brian, a true ‘gentleman of printing’. When asked about his interest Brian remarked ‘Some people do up old cars, some people do tractors but printing has been my life. By the time I was twelve years old I was running machines for my father and I can’t give it up now’.

Appreciation by Derek Nuttall Wharfedale free to a good home. The Topolski Studio in London is looking Brian Aldred loved letterpress and was for a new home for Feliks Topolski’s passionate about presses. He was a Wharfedale (depicted above). It is in BRIAN ALDRED Friend of the National Printing Heritage need of extensive refurbishment. If (1930–2013) Trust from its first years, but I had interested please contact Andrea Marie first met Brian some years before at a at Topolski Century, 150–152 Hunger- Appreciation by Eugene Nicholson meeting of the Northern Group of the ford Bridge, Concert Hall Approach, Printing Historical Society held at Waterloo London se1 8xu. E-mail: May saw the passing away of one of and . Subsequently, he did [email protected]. the popular letterpress printers, print valuable work at the newly-established historians and collectors of printing Otley Museum where he restored their memorabilia and ephemera of the West ‘Diadem’ platen press in 1988. Brian, Riding. Brian Aldred (depicted above) along with a few like-minded friends, was born on 20 April 1930. His intro- put in an enormous number of (unpaid) duction to printing came at the age of hours refurbishing presses and other USEFUL CONTACTS seven when he was encouraged to help items for Industrial Museum, National Printing Heritage Trust his father print newspapers on a Sat- as well as other Yorkshire museums. It was Brian and a couple of his friends www.npht.org.uk urday morning. When he reached the Hon. Correspondent: Paul W. Nash age of fifteen Brian become an appren- who dismantled a huge two-colour [email protected] tice and continued to work in a num- Wharfedale cylinder press for trans- Treasurer: E. C. James, The Pinfold, Church ber of printing firms in Leeds (Pettys), portation to the Type Museum. Road, Dodleston, Chester, Cheshire ch4 9ng (Fretwells) and Bradford Although I had not met Brian face [email protected] (Remploy) until his retirement. to face for several years, we had kept Once retired, Brian became a friend in touch by telephone and have had Printing Historical Society many a long chat about the problems c/o St Bride Library, Bride Lane, Fleet Street, of the National Printing Heritage Trust, ec4y 8ee with the restoration of machines or – London a volunteer at both Otley Museum and www.printinghistoricalsociety.org.uk Bradford Industrial Museum, where he occasionally – about the frustrations [email protected] of getting museum curators interested undertook research, restoration and the Chair: John Hinks, [email protected] operation of their growing collection in preserving printing machinery. Like so many of the early members Treasurer: Andrew Dolinski, 34 Martineau of printing equipment. Together with rg10 0sf of the N P H T, Brian was keen to see Lane, Hurst, Berkshire Eugene Nicholson, Keeper of Tech- [email protected] nology, Brian was instrumental in a national museum of printing and its related techniques established, but Journal Editor: Sandro Jung, Department creating a Letterpress Printing Gallery, of Literary Studies (English Studies), Ghent ably assisted by a group of printing when this did not materialize, he used University, Blandijnberg 2B-9000, Ghent volunteers he had encouraged to join. his vast knowledge and skill helping set [email protected] Brian was able to extend his know- up displays at those museums which ledge and expertise to institutions such sought his help. His death highlights St Bride Library, Bride Lane, Fleet Street, as York Museum, the University of the problem there is going to be in the London ec4y 8ee. www.stbride.org Sheffield, U L I TA in Leeds, the Type future of finding people with his know- Librarian: post vacant Museum and many others. Through ledge and practical expertise. [email protected] his many museum contacts, Brian forged friendships with anyone inter- Friends of St Bride Library ested in letterpress printing and/or its SMALL ADS [email protected] history. This interest also extended Printing History News abroad, especially when Brian was able Bibliophile journals for sale. Complete Editor: Paul W. Nash, 19 Fosseway Drive, to exercise his knowledge to pursue runs of The book collector 1952–2012 Moreton-in-Marsh, Glos. gl56 0du his particular interest in Wharfedale (with indexes) and The book-collector’s [email protected] presses. One such occasion was when quarterly 1930–1935. Offers around he went to Sydney in Australia, as part £2,000.00. If interested, please contact Published by the NPHT, PHS and the of a fact-finding trip. Instead of finding John Trevitt (typographia) by e-mail: Friends of St Bride Library, June 2013. a Wharfedale press he discovered an [email protected]. Printed by Wayzgoose Ltd, Birmingham.

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