Grants Programme

Grants for 2021 and 2022

In view of the circumstances surrounding the pandemic, we did not award grants in 2020 or 2021. However, we are able to accept applications during 2022, with a deadline of 31 March. Awards are announced at the Society’s Annual General Meeting which is usually held between May and July.

How to apply

Each application should preferably be made by email and should consist of:

  • a covering letter of up to 500 words, containing a brief curriculum vitae and the name, address and e-mail address of one referee (who has already agreed to serve as referee), and
  • a description of the project and budget, of up to 1,000 words.

The project description should state its purpose clearly, and succinctly. Please also state whether your project is part of a larger one, and whether you are applying elsewhere for funding. You will be expected to submit a written report one year after the award of your grant.

Submit your application to the Chairman of the PHS Grants and Prizes Sub-Committee, Giles Mandelbrote, at giles.mandelbrote@churchofengland.org. If unable to use email for your submission, please mail to the Society, marked for the attention of the Grants and Prizes Chairman, at the address shown on the Contact us page, to arrive no later than 31 March 2022.

About our grants programme

The Printing Historical Society operates a programme of awards for work including:

  • Research on topics relating to the history of printing
  • Publishable reports on archives relating to the history of printing

Scope

Grants are limited to supporting historical research in printing technology, the printing and related industries, printed materials and artefacts, type and typefounding, print culture, and the history of 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, accommodation, photography etc., but excluding basic subsistence expenses such as food. Publishing (except by the Society), training and employment (such as research assistance or salary replacement) costs will not normally be eligible for funding.

Assessment

Applications will be assessed on the viability of the project, the effectiveness of the proposed use of funding and the relevance of the proposed research to the aims of the Society. Applications should specify the amount requested and offer a budget for the envisaged use of the funds; applications for projects that are deemed to be primarily bibliographical, or for conference funding, are unlikely to be successful. Students, academics and independent researchers may apply; some preference will be given to independent researchers. All applicants are strongly encouraged to consider submitting the outcome of their research for publication in the Journal of the Printing Historical Society.

Publicity

An announcement is generally made in Printing History News when a new grant application period opens, but the Society also advertises its grants programme through a variety of public channels, including on this page of the Society’s website.

Grants awarded in past years

The Society awarded the following grants in years prior to 2021:
2020

In view of the circumstances surrounding the pandemic, we did not award grants in 2020.

2019
£1,000 to Jessica Farrell-Jobst, for research on jobbing printers working for local government in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Nurembourg;
£900 to Pierre Pané-Farré, for research on nineteenth-century German wooden types;
£528.40 to Edward Potten, to pay for carbon-dating of a fifteenth-century woodblock in the John Ryland Library, Manchester, and for associated research.

2018
£995 to Julianne Simpson, for research on the seminary press of Montefiascone (founded 1697);
£800 to Daniel Reynolds, for research on the spread of sans-serif typefaces in Germany in the nineteenth century;
£500 to Dr Caroline Archer-Parré, for research on John Baskerville’s punches;
£500 to Dr Adam James Smith, for research on the Hartshead Press in eighteenth-century Sheffield.

No awards were made in 2017.

2016
£900 to Sara Barker, for research into pamphlet copying in sixteenth-century France and the Low Countries;
£900 to Karina de la Garza-Gil, for research into printing practice and technology in Cologne, 1465–1501;
£900 to Stijn van Rossem, for research into the printing house practices of the Verdussen family of Antwerp.

2015
£1,000 to Drew Thomas for research on printing for the Reformation in Martin Luther’s Wittenberg;
£550 to Vaibhav Singh for research on the introduction of mechanical typesetting in Indian scripts in the 1920s and 1930s;
£415 to Benito Rial Costas for research on the breviaries and missals printed by Christopher Plantin for the Spanish crown.

2014
£1,000 to Louise Seaward for research into the international reach of the print trade and the relationship between printers and local authorities in eighteenth century Savoy;
£760 to Paul Dijstelberge for purchase of equipment to support the creation of an online photographic database of fifteenth century type faces; some results of this work can be found on Flickr and here.
£310 to Michael Kniess for reserach into the trade in type between Britain and the United States in the latter half of the nineteenth century;
£930 to Charles Lubelski for research into the history of the printing firm Percy Lund Humphries.

2013
£650 to Teresa Breathnach for research into printing on board ships;
£350 to Emma Greenwood for research into wills and testaments of printing families in the period 1750–1850;
£750 to Helen Ingham for research into the wrestling poster in Great Britain from the 1940s to the 1980s;
£750 to Mei-Ying Sung for work on the Huntington Library woodblock collection;
£500 to Helen Williams for researching the minute books of the 19th-century typographical associations of Dumfries and Perth.

2012
£1,000 to James Clough for analysis of types attributed to Francesco Griffo;
£700 to Vaibhav Singh for research into the typesetting of Devanagari by British compositors, 1796–1896;
£600 to Rebecca Emmett for research into the relocation of the printer Robert Waldegrave to Scotland, 1589–90.