PHS welcomes new Chair and Secretary

At the AGM on 17 July, the members present elected Alexandra Franklin as Chair of the Society and Alex Kither as Secretary to the Society. Alexandra is Co-ordinator of the Centre for the Study of the Book at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Alex, also NPHC Secretary, is a rare books librarian currently working at SOAS Library, London. The meeting welcomed these two new officers and thanked Vaihbhav Singh, retiring Chair, and Ben Weiner, retiring Secretary, for their contributions over the last few years.

Virtual Museum of Printing launches

A brand new online resource for printing researchers, enthusiasts and the general public has now opened its ‘virtual doors’. The Virtual Museum of Printing is a project that the Printing Historical Society initiated through our National Printing Heritage Committee (NPHC), a group within the Society that focuses on bringing printing heritage to the attention of the public. We are delighted that this new web site is ready for the world and grateful to the NPHC members and the VMoP Steering Group and Executive Committee (chaired by Dr Rachel Stenner, more details here) for their efforts.

The National Printing Heritage Committee and its predecessor the National Printing Heritage Trust have always had the goal of a national museum of printing for the United Kingdom. The VMoP brings this vision closer, uniting existing printing collections around the country in a convenient directory. Anyone can browse the directory for information about the collections available, or to find those organisations which offer courses in printing. Furthermore, the project is a focal point for those who work either as staff or volunteers in the organisations, so they can share their knowledge and experience more easily and profit from each others’ capabilities.

Visit the Virtual Museum of Printing now and, if appropriate, get in contact to register your interest in getting listed in the Directory.

Printing Historical Society Prize for New Scholarship 2024

The 2023 Printing Historical Society Prize for New Scholarship has now been announced. The Prize has been awarded to Chiara Betti for her essay ‘Innovation Meets Tradition: Gilded intaglio plates and the intersection of  art and technology’. The Prize Committee would like to apologise to all the entrants for the delays in reaching a decision this year, and to congratulate Chiara on her success in the competition.

Recipients of PHS Research Grants 2024 announced

We had a good pool of eight applicants, ranging from postgraduate students and academics to retired printers. We have agreed to award the following grants, totalling £1,996: £500 to David Armes for research on the tipoRenesansa collection of letterpress printing equipment in Ljubljana; £470 to Ian Dooley for research on the manufacture of printing ink in the early twentieth century; £426 to Adam Smith for research on radical print networks in eighteenth-century Sheffield and York; £200 to Fabian Vega for research on the Guarani missions press in eighteenth-century Paraguay; £400 to Helen Williams for research to create a series of local histories of the Scottish printing industry.

— Giles Mandelbrote

Apply for a research grant soon!

We are still inviting applications for research grants under our annual grant scheme but the deadline for submissions has almost arrived — Friday 22 March 2024. The total amount available this year is £3,000. Please see the eligibility details on the grants page for full details.

Complete alphabet of rescued Doves Press type to go on show

An exhibition will run from 2 March to 27 April 2024 at Emery Walker’s House, 7 Hammersmith Terrace in London, displaying the type that was famously thrown into the River Thames. The show will be accompanied by a programme of events including an online talk on 21 February, walking tours and mudlarking experiences, and open days and tours at the house.

Further details: https://www.emerywalker.org.uk/events

Worldwide handpress database available from AEPM

It is very gratifying to be able to report that the Association of European Printing Museums has published Bob Oldham’s remarkable database of hand presses online in a searchable format. The information was already available through private enquiry, but publication in a convenient and accessible form brings it to a wider audience. Thank you Bob, thank you AEPM!

About the Worldwide hand press database - AEPM

Edit — clarify by what means the information was previously made available

Research grant applications invited

We invite applications for research grants under our annual grant scheme. The total amount available this year is £3,000. The deadline for submissions is Friday 22 March 2024. Eligibility and application details are on the Grants page.

The Society awarded the following research grants in 2023: £950 to Dr Matthew Payne for research on the first printer in the City of London, specifically on documents relating to John Lettou in Vallettta and Rome; £630 to Dr Shanti Graheli for work on Aldine advertisement lists in editions of the 1570s and 1580s, using Oxford libraries; £420 to Chiara Betti for research and digitisation work on 18th- and 19th-century printing plates in the collections of the Society of Antiquaries.

Giles Mandelbrote, Chairman of the PHS Grants and Prizes Sub-Committee, commented: ‘We thought it was a very strong field this year and we could have awarded more grants if additional funding had been available’.

You still have time to take part in this year’s Prize for New Scholarship

The ‘Printing Historical Society Prize for New Scholarship’ is being offered again this year (2023), with an extended deadline of 1 January 2024. The Prize will be given to the best new article on any printing-historical subject, suitable for the Society’s Journal. The winning author will receive the ‘Printing Historical Society Prize for New Scholarship’ for the year, a purse of £500, membership of the Society for one year, and publication in the PHS Journal (and digitally, subject to the usual processes of peer-review). The competition is open to all, but those new to the subject (current students, early-career scholars, independent researchers and anyone new to printing history) are particularly encouraged to take part by sending their article (between 4000 and 8000 words, in Word format) to the Journal Editor ( editor@printinghistoricalsociety.org.uk), along with a short covering-letter describing their research. The results will be announced before the end of the calendar year. Full details are here. The Editor will be happy to answer queries and discuss possible subjects and approaches for submissions.

Annual St Bride Foundation conference

St Bride Foundation is hosting its annual conference on Saturday 11 November 2023. The list of speakers suggests the event will be broad in scope and the talks stimulating; the Foundation describes the event as ‘celebrating innovation, inspiration, imagination and invention’. Tickets are available in-person and online.

Booking is open now. Full details: https://sbf.org.uk/whats-on/view/the-annual-st-bride-foundation-conference/

Voluntary posts open on our committees

The Printing Historical Society is seeking a new Honorary Treasurer to serve on its committee. Applicants must be members of the Society.

The National Printing Heritage Committee is seeking a new Secretary to serve the committee.

For more information about either of these voluntary and unpaid roles, please contact the Hon Secretary.

Cultures of the book: a summer school at the University of Reading

‘Cultures of the book: lithography, consumption, reading’ is a summer school on 20 and 21 June 2023 at the Departments of Typography & Graphic Communication and Special Collections at Reading.

The event will explore how books have been made, consumed and read following the invention of lithography in the early nineteenth century. The summer school combines talks by leading scholars and practitioners with a hands-on approach using the collections and archives of both departments. The cost is £200.

More details will be published here.

Call for entries: PHS research grant 2023

We are offering up to £2,000 in research grants for 2023. The deadline for receipt of applications is Friday 14 April.

Elegibility and application details are here

Call for entries: PHS Prize for New Scholarship

We are now accepting submissions for the PHS Prize for New Scholarship, which will be awarded in Spring 2023.

The competition is open to all, but it is intended especially to encourage submissions from those new to the study of printing history. The winning entry will be published in the Journal of the Printing Historical Society.

The deadline for entries is 1 January 2023.

Full details

Typographic Surprises! Edinburgh in Print

Our online event series continues with a look at some of the sites and traces left of print’s 500 year history in Edinburgh. Our speaker is Dr Helen S. Williams.

The talk is on Thursday, 20 October 2022 at 18:30 BST. Admission is free, and donations in support of the Society’s work are welcome. Get tickets here

New web site launched

Our new web site is now live. We hope the result is not only attractive but more accessible, making it easier for visitors to learn about the Society and its activities.

The previous site remains online: visit https://mt.printinghistoricalsociety.org.uk.

If you are a new visitor, welcome! Should you decide you would like to join the Society, our membership application form is now here.

Mailing list

A new mailing list is available for Society members to communicate with each other. Go to https://groups.io/g/printinghistoricalsociety to sign up.

If you have an interest in printing history but you are not a member, you are also welcome to join the list.

Bamber Gascoigne

The death has been announced of Bamber Gascoigne, on 8 February 2022, after a short illness. He was Vice-President of the Printing Historical Society and formerly Patron of the National Printing Heritage Trust. A full obituary will be published in the next number of the Journal of the Printing Historical Society.

Bibliographical Society awards Gold Medal to Professor Michael Twyman

From time to time the Bibliographical Society awards a Gold Medal for distinguished services to bibliography to individuals who have made an outstanding contribution to the development of the subject and the furtherance of the Society’s aims. Over forty awards have been made since the Medal Fund was established in 1929. This year the Society’s Gold Medal will be awarded to Professor Michael Twyman, Professor Emeritus of the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication at the University of Reading. Professor Twyman has long been internationally acknowledged for his research and publication in the history of typography, lithography, ephemera, and graphic design, and, of course, for establishing a BA course in Typography & Graphic Communication at Reading and then a full department for such study in 1974, both the first of their kind in the world. He retired from full-time teaching in 1998 but still teaches postgraduate students and is also the Director of the Centre for Ephemera Studies. He will be presented with the Gold Medal at the Bibliographical Society’s meeting on Tuesday, 16 November 2021.

The Printing Historical Society would like to congratulate Professor Twyman, President of the Society, on the occasion of this award.