A HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX 



"Bible and Crown," Paternoster Row, suc- 

 ceeded to the business of James Emonson, 

 printer, in St. John's Square, Clerkenwell. 

 Rivington died in 1785, and his widow then 

 continued the business, taking John Marshall 

 into partnership in 1786. The firm became 

 noted for their fine series of the classical 

 authors. After many changes the business 

 passed into the hands of Richard Gilbert, who 

 in 1 830 entered into partnership with William 

 Rivington, great-grandson of the first Charles 

 Rivington ; the firm then became and has 

 since continued to be known as Gilbert & 

 Rivington. 8 The business has since 1881 

 been converted into a limited liability com- 

 pany, and the firm has a high reputation for 

 its oriental printing. 83 



The well-known firm of Nichols, of Parlia- 

 ment Street, Westminster, was founded and 

 long continued in the City of London, and 

 does not come under notice here. The old 

 firm of Charles Whittingham & Co., though 

 on the borders of our county, also properly 

 belongs to London, having started in Fetter 

 Lane, and being now established in Took's 

 Court, Chancery Lane. 



The story of the Kelmscott Press is a 

 fascinating page in the annals of igth-century 

 printing. In May 1891 Mr. William Morris 

 the poet set up a private press in the Upper 

 Mall, Hammersmith, where he printed a small 

 quarto book entitled The Story of the Glittering 

 Plain. This was soon followed by a three- 

 volume reprint of Caxton's Golden Legend, 

 illustrated with splendid woodcuts from the 

 designs of Sir Edward Burne-Jones. Together 

 with those completed by his executors after 

 his death, Morris printed in all fifty-three 

 books in sixty-five volumes, including the 

 magnificent Chaucer. By his tasteful com- 

 bination of artistic borders, initials, and illus- 

 trations, with beautiful paper, Morris showed 

 the world how the book as a whole might be 

 made a thing of beauty, and his influence 

 upon book-production will certainly be long- 

 lived. 



The local presses of Middlesex 9 are not 



important and cannot be treated of at length. 



At RatclifF, John Storye 10 printed in (?) 1585 



A breviat or table for the better observance of 



fish days. William Bentley printed Bibles at 



8 E. C. Bigmore and Chas. W. H. Wyman, Bib- 

 liography of Printing, ii, 263. 



** The firm is now amalgamated with that of 

 Wm. Clowes & Sons, Ltd. 



' See W. H. Alnutt, ' English Provincial Presses,' 

 Bibliographlca, ii, 23, 150, 276. 



10 Col. S.P. Dam. 1581-90, p. 299. 



Finsbury in 1646, 1648, 1651, and later. 

 Thomas Newcomb printed the London Gazette 

 in the Savoy from 1665 to 1668. In other 

 places in Middlesex the earliest known pro- 

 ducts of the press date from the 1 8th century. 

 A few instances may suffice. Thomas Davis 

 printed in Whitechapel in 1706. White- 

 head's Satires were printed at Islington, ' near 

 the Three Pumps,' in 1748. T. Lake was a 

 printer at Uxbridge in 1774. Printing was 

 carried on at Chelsea in 1772." 



Type Founding. Closely allied to the art 

 of printing is that of type-founding. Modern 

 type-founding was first successfully estab- 

 lished in England at Caslon's foundry in 

 Chiswell Street, close upon the City's border. 

 Caxton seems to have imported from abroad 

 some at least of the type which he used in 

 printing. His immediate successors, Wynkyn 

 de Worde and Pynson, may have used their 

 own types, and Pynson is thought to have 

 supplied other printers with type, but of this 

 there is no direct evidence. 12 John Day in 

 1567 cast the type for the works published by 

 Archbishop Parker in Anglo-Saxon. After 

 this date type-founding languished here for 

 nearly two centuries. English type had a 

 poor repute, and the best continued to be im- 

 ported from Holland. In 1637, by a decree 

 of the Star Chamber, type-foundries in Eng- 

 land were limited to four, each of which was 

 allowed tt> have two apprentices and no more. 

 William Caslon, founder of the existing letter- 

 foundry in Chiswell Street, was born in 1692. 

 He first turned his attention to type-founding 

 in 1 740, when he was engaged by the Chris- 

 tian Knowledge Society to make the punches j 

 for a fount of Arabic type for printing the 

 Psalms and New Testament in that language. 

 This decided him to follow type-founding as 

 a distinct trade, and he established his foundry 

 in Chiswell Street, his first punches being cut 

 with his own hands. This foundry became 

 the parent house of type-founding in England, 

 and the excellence of Caslon's workmanship 

 soon drove Dutch types from the English 

 market. William Caslon died in 1766, and 

 the firm was then continued by William his 

 son, who died in 1778, Elizabeth Caslon, 

 who died in 1809, and Henry William Cas- 

 lon, who died in i874. 13 The business is now 

 conducted by a limited company under the 

 style of H. W. Caslon & Co. Limited. 



11 Rev. Hen. Cotton, Typog, Gaz. 43, 318. 

 11 William Blades, Life of Caxton (1882), 104. 

 11 Caslon's Quarterly Circular, July 1877. 



200 



