Past events

Typographic Surprises! number 5, February 2022

Our next event will be on Tuesday 17 February 2022.

Tim Pye will speak on ‘Printing Remnants in the National Trust’ and Edward Potten on ‘“Exhibiting every mark of antiquity”: Dating the Rylands Apocalypse Woodblock’

Tickets are free of charge. Full details and booking here

Typographic Surprises! Printing and politics in the sixteenth century

Thursday 4 November 2021. 6:00 -- 7:30 pm

The fourth Typographic Surprises online event features two more sessions from recent beneficiaries of the PHS Grants Programme.

Sara Barker: (Re)printing the French Wars of Religion: producing pamphlets in a time of civil conflict

Benito Rial Costas: Printing Accents by Plantin, or a Case Study of a Spanish Graphic Feature

The event will take place on Zoom. Tickets and full details on Eventbrite

Typographic Surprises! German double bill

Friday 2 July 2021. 6:00 -- 7:30 pm

The third Typographic Surprises online event features two sessions from recent beneficiaries of the PHS Grants Programme.

Jessica Farrell-Jobst. Jobbing printers working for local government in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Nuremburg

Pierre Pané-Farré and Dan Reynolds in conversation. Discoveries in the archives: nineteenth-century German wood types and sans-serif foundry designs

The event will take place on Zoom. Tickets and full details on Eventbrite

Ghost Signs: a London Story

Our second Typographic Surprises! event is presented by Sam Roberts and looks at the legacy of the hand-painted advertising once commmon on London's buildings.

The online event is on 4 June and tickets cost £3.

Full details and booking

Typographic Surprises! webinar series launches

Typographic Surprises! is a series of webinars which look at lesser-known aspects of print’s past, investigate curiosities of typographic archives, and delve into the corners of printed collections. The first event will be held on Friday 26 February at 6 pm GMT and is free of charge. Full details and tickets

Speakers confirmed to date are Dr Alexandra Franklin (Bodleian Library), Patrick Goossens (independent printing historian), Martin Killeen (Cadbury Research Library, retired).

2020 Annual General Meeting

The 2020 Annual General Meeting of the Printing Historical Society was held online on Wednesday 16 September. The number participating in the AGM was a record for recent years, including non-UK members who have not been able to attend AGMs when held, as usual, in London. A full report will appear in Printing History News and here in due course.

Conference ‘Post-war printing : technologies, processes, products’

The Printing Historical Society, the Centre for Printing History & Culture and the Centre for the Study of the Book organised a conference entitled Post-war printing : technologies, processes, products, held at the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, on 10 & 11 October 2019.

When the first post-war printing trade show opened its doors in 1955 the organisers enthusiastically declared: ‘man is on the threshold of a new age of technological development.’ This excitement was reflected on the show floor, which was brimming with photocomposing machines, automatic engravers, vast photogravure presses and mammoth cameras. In the pressroom offset was dominant, while in the composing room computer assisted typesetting had come of age.

As the century progressed technology opened up new prospects for the industry, with innovative materials, inks and finishing techniques. One of the furthest reaching of the advances came in 1985 when Apple adopted Adobe’s PostScript page description language for its Apple LaserWriter printer and this, combined with the advent of DTP software, sparked a revolution in typographic technology.

Today the revolution continues and printing has become hybrid, having merged with other technologies such as electronic paper, conductive ink and three-dimensional printing.

Over a period of seventy years technological advancements have revolutionised how printed material is designed, manufactured, distributed and consumed. No longer dependent on mammoth machines the industry is dominated by invisible digital software. Just as technology has changed the way that print is produced, so technology has also brought changes in the culture around its consumption largely due to the democratisation of print through the advent of ‘instant print’ and the availability of technology for the masses.

Despite the huge amount of change in the post-war printing industry and allied trade, this era seems to have received scant attention from historians. This conference seeks to address this gaps and will consider the progress of the post-1945 printing including the technologies, processes and products of print, and also the users and consumers of the printed word.

The final programme was:

DAY ONE Dave Steel From duplicating to digital; Jim Pennington, The stencil duplicator; Gülizar Çepoglu, The break of the rigid dichotomy between text and image; Rebecca Roach, Books or mainframes? Rockefeller and Ford Foundation print policy in the post-war years; Patrick Goossens, From organ to microchip: dissimilarities in technology or from the swan song of hot metal to the hymn of ‘hot’ letterpress; Martin Andrews, Golf-ball typesetting; Erik Spiekermann, Post-digital printing; Mohamad Dakak, The complex status of current Arabic type design and usage in relation to post-war contexts; Vaibhav Singh,Technologies of transition: Intertype’s Fotosetter and filmsetting for Indian scripts.

DAY TWO Gong Xiaofan, Interpretation on the covers of 'Red Books’ 1949-66 in China from the perspective of political iconology; Matthew Wills, Propaganda and paperbacks: Creating a National Socialist readership in Mao’s China; Meaghan Allen, Paper traces: Projekt journal and the distribution of Polish poster design; Wendy Stephens, Modernization or expurgation?: revision and recalibration of canonical American children’s literature; Miriam Intrator, Print and the post-war reconstruction of people; Gina Baber, A paratextual and bibliographical study of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl; Oral history project.

The organising committee comprised: Dr Caroline Archer (CPHC/PHS); Francis Cave (PHS); Alexandra Franklin (Bodleian Library, Oxford); Richard Lawrence (Printer, Oxford/PHS); David Osbaldestin (CPHC/PHS).

2019 Annual General Meeting

Chairman’s report

Dr John Hinks retired as Chairman of the Society at the 2019 AGM. The full text of his report to the AGM appeared in the Summer 2019 issue of Printing History News.

Secretary’s report

Following the sad death of the Society’s first Life President, Iain Bain, there had been two important appointments made by the Committee: Michael Twyman agreed to be appointed Life President of the Society, and Bamber Gascoigne agreed to be appointed Life Vice-President in Michael’s place. The Committee were most grateful to Michael Twyman and Bamber Gascoigne for enabling such a smooth transition.

One of the Hon. Secretary’s responsibilities in recent years has been the maintenance of the Society’s website. All are agreed that the website needs to be kept fresh, but the current website is based upon relatively old technology that limits the scope for improvement. Holly Trant, a co-opted member of the Committee, has suggested that a thorough review is needed, and it is hoped that a working party will be able to come up with some concrete proposals over the course of the next year.

Membership of the Society has remained very stable over the past year, with individual membership falling by just one member since 2018 and institutional membership being unchanged in the same period.

There has been a gradual transfer of book-keeping duties over the course of the past year from Hon. Secretary to the new Treasurer, David Osbaldestin, and it is hoped that this process will be completed well before the next AGM.

Treasurer’s report and presentation of the Society’s 2018 accounts

David Osbaldestin reported that, with assistance from the Hon. Secretary, he was in the process of changing the Society’s banking arrangements. Subject to acceptance of the Society’s application (subsequently confirmed), a new account was being opened with CAF Bank Ltd, a bank dedicated to providing its services to charities and other not-for-profit organisations. During the remainder of 2019 the existing arrangements with RBS and Santander will be wound down, and these accounts will eventually be closed. The move will enable the Society to resolve various problems with the existing banking arrangements that have been experienced in recent years.

The financial statements for the year 1st January to 31st December 2018 were presented to the AGM by the Treasurer. The Society made a loss in the year of £3,679, largely to be accounted for by the escalating cost of printing and distribution of the Society’s publications, which was greater than income from subscriptions. Fortunately, the financial position had recovered somewhat since the end of 2018.

The Treasurer explained that the Charity Commission, the body responsible for ensuring that the Society continues to be eligible for charitable status, has introduced a series of new policy documents that will need to be reviewed and implemented by the Committee over the course of the next year. These include policies on investment, avoiding conflicts of interest, handling complaints and managing volunteers (Committee members beware!).

Publications Secretary’s report

Paul Nash reported that two numbers of the Journal had appeared in 2018, a bumper year with over 240 pages of learned articles. Journal No 30 was almost ready to go to press (published in August 2019) and No 31 will appear over the winter. In 2020 a Third Series of the Journal will be started, with publication becoming annual instead of biannual. Over the coming year the Publications Sub-committee would be considering a number of other issues relating to the Journal: the question of whether or not to digitise the Journal; the appointment of an Editorial Fellow; and the institution of a prize to encourage article submissions.

Paul Nash also reported on plans to trial delivery of Printing History News in digital form (this report is appearing in the first issue in that trial).

National Printing Heritage Committee report

The main matter of concern before the NPHC has been the future of the John Jarrold Printing Museum, threatened with closure and the dispersal of most of its collections. Paul Nash, NPHC Chairman, reported that he had been to Norwich to try to persuade the City Council’s planning committee to reject the plans presented by the owners, the Jarrold company, but that had been unsuccessful. The campaign to preserve the museum had therefore entered a new phase in which the NPHC is supporting efforts to persuade the owners to consider an alternative plan for the museum and its collections.

The NPHC continues to concern itself with developing ideas for the establishment of a National Printing Museum in the UK, but these ideas are at an early stage. Plans to digitise the NPHC Directory are continuing, with the hope that a digitised version in PDF format can be made available on the Society’s website, to encourage the submission of additions and corrections.

Grants & Prizes Sub-committee report

Giles Mandelbrot reported that the Grants & Prizes Committee had made three awards for 2019 totalling £2,428. The full text of his report to the AGM appeared in the Summer 2019 issue of Printing History News.

Events Sub-committee report

The main activity of the Events Sub-committee was the planning of the conference entitled Post-War Printing History, in collaboration with the Centre for Printing History and Culture and the Centre for the Study of the Book. A full and varied two-day programme of papers had been assembled.

Elections of Chairman and Committee members

With John Hinks stepping down, the Society was fortunate in having persuaded Vaibhav Singh to be nominated to be the new Chairman of the Society in his place, and he was duly elected. The following were re-elected to the Committee for a two-year term of office: James M’Kenzie-Hall, Giles Mandelbrote, John Hinks. The Society’s constitution limits the number of elected Committee members to eight, excluding officers, but three other candidates had been nominated for election, taking the overall number of Committee members to ten. For this reason it was agreed that Matt McKenzie, Holly Trant and Ben Weiner would be co-opted to the Committee for a period of one year.

2018 Annual General Meeting

Chairman’s report

This has been another rather difficult year, largely due to the lack of a permanent Treasurer. Our very grateful thanks to Francis Cave for carrying out the role of acting Treasurer for a second year. Thanks also to Andrew Dolinski, former Treasurer, who has kindly provided advice and assistance with the preparation of the Society’s accounts.

Thanks also to: Paul Nash, our Publications Secretary, Editor of the Society’s Journal, and Chair of the National Printing Heritage Subcommittee; Caroline Archer-Parré, who co-ordinates the Society’s various events; Giles Mandelbrote, who chairs our Grants and Prizes Subcommittee – an important part of the Society’s activities as a charitable organisation; Ken Burnley, editor of Printing History News; and to James M’Kenzie-Hall, reviews editor of the Journal. I am grateful to all who serve on the Society’s Committee and Sub-committees and especially to Michael Twyman, our Life Vice-President for his invaluable service.

I am pleased to report that the Society has recently become associated with the Centre for Printing History and Culture, a joint venture between Birmingham City University and the University of Birmingham, of which Caroline Archer-Parré is co-director.

To end on a sad note, I regret to have to report the deaths of Iain Bain, Life President of the Society, and Ken Brooks, who served for many years as Treasurer.

Secretary’s report

This report covers membership and financial matters, as well as my usual responsibilities as Secretary.

The Society’s Committee has met twice since the last AGM, in October 2017 and March 2018. The Committee was able to co-opt several members to assist with the management of the Society, and I would like to thank them for their contributions: Barbara Jossi, David Osbaldestin, Vaibhav Singh, Tony Smith and Holly Trant.

Turning to the Society’s financial affairs, I am pleased to report that the Society’s finances have continued to be relatively stable since the last AGM and have not caused either myself or the Committee the concern that we had in the early part of 2017. I must record my thanks to Andrew Dolinski, who, apart from his assistance with the 2017 accounts, is continuing to provide advice and support as we seek to streamline the administration of the Society’s financial affairs, which should make the role of Hon. Treasurer a significantly lighter burden to bear in future.

I can report a similar picture of stability in the Society’s membership. We currently have 297 individual members on our books, which includes 209 in the UK and 88 overseas members. 24 these are Supporting Members, choosing to make donations to the Society in addition to the annual subscription. There are 116 institutional members of which 21 are in the UK. These figures represent a small but, I believe, significant increase on the figures I presented at last year’s AGM. The membership of 40 individuals ceased at the end of 2017, either because they resigned or their membership lapsed due to non-payment of 2017 subscriptions, but these have been more than made up for by new members. I would like to end this part of my report by thanking Rachel Stenner for her collaboration on membership matters over the past year, especially on dealing with this year’s subscription renewals.

With assistance from the Committee, I have drafted a Privacy Policy for the Society, which explains what personal data the Society holds concerning individual members, how we hold it and what we do with it. This Privacy Policy is available on our website and all members whose email address we hold have been asked for their consent for us to use their personal data in line with this Privacy Policy. Our membership application and renewal processes will in future require that members give similar consent.

Presentation of the Society’s 2017 accounts

The financial statements for the year 1st January to 31st December 2017 were presented to the AGM by Francis Cave (copies are available to members from the Hon. Secretary upon request). The Society made a surplus for the year of £4,800, on receipts of £25,000.

Publications Secretary’s report

The Publications Sub-committee has met once in the past year. The Society continues to publish Printing History News and the Journal according to the established pattern. In 2019 it is planned to publish a double number of the Journal to end the current series and it is proposed thereafter to start a third series of the Journal, to be published annually. Annual publication would offer a number of advantages, including the opportunity to publish articles of greater length than in the current series, as well as cost advantages, and could be achieved without any reduction in the overall extent of articles published each year. The design for the third series would follow closely the design of the current series. The Society is not currently publishing monographs, but a number of projects are awaiting a resumption of monograph publishing at some future date.

NPHC Sub-committee report

The NPHC Sub-committee has met twice in the past year. Work has been focussed upon preparing a Directory of UK printing heritage for online publication, and on lobbying and exploring options for the creation of a National Printing Museum for the UK.

Grants & Prizes Sub-committee report

For the 2018 research grants a total of 11 applications were submitted by researchers in the UK, Europe and USA. Very interesting projects were proposed, covering a wide geographical and chronological range. From a strong field the sub-committee selected four applicants to receive grants (for details see the report in PHN 59).

Events Sub-committee report

The Society enabled a successful workshop to be held in London in December 2017, one of the continuing Interactions series, at which a group of printing historians and cartographic historians explored areas of common interest and concern. The Society plans to host its next conference in 2019.

By the end of 2017 the Society found itself in a much improved financial position and the Trustees were able to agree to resume the Society’s programme of research grants. Four grants were awarded earlier in 2018. The Society will publish two issues of the Journal and four issues of Printing History News in 2018.

Elections of officers and Committee members

Mr David Osbaldestin was proposed for election as Hon. Treasurer of the Society, to serve for a period of three years, and was duly elected. Dr Paul Nash was proposed for re-election as Publications Secretary, to serve for a further period of three years, and was duly elected. The following were proposed for election to the Committee for a period of two years and were duly elected: Caroline Archer-Parré, Sebastian Carter, Richard Lawrence, James Mosley, Pia Östlund, Vaibhav Singh (new elected member).

The meeting was followed by refreshments and an illustrated talk by Dr Paul Nash on his attempt to represent every major printing technology of the past millennium in the Society’s Anniversary Keepsake.

2017 Annual General Meeting

The 2017 Annual General Meeting of the Printing Historical Society was held on Wednesday 5 July at the St Bride Institute. During the formal business Dr Rachel Stenner was appointed as Membership Secretary, and a proposal to change the Society's constitution to recognise a new category of membership, Supporting Member, was approved.

The formal business was followed by a fascinating talk on the impact of American printing technology transfer on the UK by Michael Knies, Special Collections Librarian at the Weinberg Memorial Library, University of Scranton, Pennsylvania. The talk focused in particular on the (frequently questionable) antics of type foundries on both sides of the Atlantic during the latter part of the nineteenth century, when pirating of typeface and ornament designs was rife both in the UK and the USA, having been made much easier by the invention of electrotyping.

Conference on twentieth century printing history

A full report on this conference is included in Printing History News No 54.

On 30 and 31 March 2017 the Printing Historical Society, the Centre for Printing History and Culture and The National Print Museum, Dublin, organised a conference on twentieth century printing history entitled From craft to technology and back again: print’s progress in the twentieth century. The conference was hosted by the National Print Museum in Dublin.

During the twentieth century the printing industry underwent considerable change as it shifted from a craft-based trade to a technology-led profession, largely as a result of three major revolutions. In the composing room there was a move from hand- to machine composition followed by photo-setting and finally digital means of letter assembly; while in the press room printers experienced a shift from letterpress to off-set lithography and latterly digital methods of production.

These revolutions initiated both organisational and structural changes: compositors moved out of the printing office and re-located to trade typesetting houses; printers concentrated wholly on graphic reproduction and presswork; whilst design was undertaken by professional typographers working in private practice, remote from the trade typesetters or printing office. Change brought new methods of management into the industry and old grievances surfaced which often resulted in unrest, marking the twentieth century as an era of industrial disputes with the rise and demise of the print unions.

Education and training were seen as necessary in the management of change, with the advent of formal education for printers and the emergence of school-trained professional typographic designers who assumed a defined and prominent role in the preparation of printed products, which showcased typographic trends and new modes of graphic communication.

External factors also affected the industry including political upheaval, two world wars, fluctuating economies, international competition, politics and changing social values all impacted on print’s progress.

However, the end of the twentieth century also saw a revival of interest in craft techniques and an increase in the number of printers who chose not to be taken over by technology but held to older methods of production in order to satisfy a rising alternative market of customers seeking tradition and craft.

The programme was as follows:

DAY ONE

GUEST SPEAKER – Professor Michael Twyman (University of Reading), Industrial photogravure: its influence on design 1920–50

Caroline Archer, Just like last time only better: a review of IPEX; Jürgen Bönig, who changed print? Gains and losses; Chris Hill, Printers and press freedom in modern Britain; Daryl Lim, From metal type to typewriter: case of the Plebeian newspaper in 1963; Pouya Jahanshahi, Harmony and discord: the visual language of Iranian graphic design; Patrick Goossens, The psychological profile of the Monotype caster; Katherine Walter, Letters in the light, the advent of photosetting as a new hybrid media technology; Trond Klevgaard, A reconsideration of narratives of New Typography in graphic design history, seen from the perspective of the Scandinavian printing trade.

PRINTERS’ QUESTION TIME – Chair: Anne Brady; Panel: Mary Plunkett, Gloria Kondrup, David Steele, Sean Sills.

DAY TWO

Dermot McGuinne, From Colum Cille to Colmcille; Stephen Hoskins, The graphic screen print; John-Daniel Harrington, Form follows technology—the effects of type making technologies on type forms; Alex Cooper, Rose Gridneff, Andrew Haslam, An education in letterpress: from apprentice to design student; Gordon Johnson, The Eleventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica: an early twentieth-century example of disturbance in printing and publishing; Jessica Glaser, Beatrice Warde, May Lamberton Becker and Books Across the Sea; Robin Fuller, Uppercase, 1958–1961: British Typography in transition; Niall McCormack, Hiding in plain sight: Irish commercial label art, an overlooked letterpress aesthetic; Angela Griffith, Elizabeth Yeats, ‘art printing’ and the Cuala Press.

The members of the organising committee were: Professor Caroline Archer (Centre for Printing History & Culture); Anne Brady (National Print Museum, Dublin); Francis Cave (Printing Historical Society); Dr Christopher Hill (Centre for Printing History & Culture); Dr John Hinks (Printing Historical Society); Carla Marrinan (National Print Museum, Dublin); Sean Sills (National Print Museum, Dublin)

2016 Annual General Meeting

The 2016 Annual General Meeting of the Printing Historical Society took place at the St Bride Institute, London, on Wednesday 4 May. The formal business was followed by an informal discussion about priorities for the future work of the Society, especially in the light of the expected merger with the National Printing Heritage Trust.

Other past events

Annual General Meeting, 2015

The 2015 Annual General Meeting of the Printing Historical Society took place at the St Bride Institute, London, at 5.30 pm on Wednesday 10 June. The formal business of the meeting was followed by printing demonstrations in the Printing Workshop at St Bride by Pia Östlund.

Annual General Meeting, 2014

The 2014 Annual General Meeting of the Society took place on Friday 16 May at the Society of Antiquaries, Burlington House, Piccadilly in London. A report of the meeting is to be published in Printing History News No 43.

Society’s 50th Anniversary Conference

The main event of the Society's 50th Anniversary year was the Anniversary Conference, held on 13 and 14 November 2014. The event was held at the Society's long-standing home in London, the St Bride Institute. Entitled Landmarks in Printing: from origins to the digital age, the conference was attended by over seventy participants. Activities at St Bride alongside the main conference programme included demonstrations of a new wooden hand-press built by Alan May, based upon the well-known drawing by Albrect Dörer, and demonstrations of nature printing by Pia Östlund.

The final programme was as follows.

Annual General Meeting, 2013

The 2013 Annual General Meeting was held on Wednesday 8 May at the St Bride Foundation, London, and attracted slightly more members than in recent years. The formal business was followed by a fascinating opportunity to view selected treasures from the St Bride Library collections, notably the Blades Library.

Industry and Genius in the Printing Trade

A conference organised jointly by the Printing Historical Society and the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design

4–5 September 2012, Birmingham School of Art, Margaret Street, Birmingham B3 3BX

Between the Hall of Memory and Baskerville House in Birmingham stands a sculptural tribute to John Baskerville. On the columns of Portland Stone are reversed bronze letters spelling ‘Virgil’, the Roman poet whose works were printed by Baskerville in 1757 in the famous typeface that bears his name. A poem in praise of the printer appeared in the Aris’s Gazette in 1751, entitled ‘Industry and Genius’ from which the sculpture takes its name.

This successful conference examined the contribution made by printers, processes and products to their industry and the wider political and cultural world.

Main presentations in the final programme

Malcolm Dick – ‘The Republic of Learning’: John Baskerville and the Enlightenment

Paul Laidler – Digital publications and technical innovations: the collaborative print studio in the digital age

Vaibhav Singh – British compositors and the Devanagari script, 1796–1896

Caroline Lafitte – ‘Forced to pump bread’: Grub Street plagiarism and the first women's periodical

Brian Foster – The Coalbrookdale Hoard

Caroline Archer – Leonard Jay and the Birmingham School of Printing

Anne Brady – The Queen's primer

Val Loggie – ‘Both useful, elegant and ornamental’: James Bisset's Magnificent Directories of Birmingham

Geff Pulaski – The Grasshopper

John Hinks – Eighteenth century provincial printing in its urban context

David Osbaldestin – The making of the Baskerville and Caslon animations

Annual General Meeting, 2012

The 2012 Annual General Meeting was held on Wednesday 16 May at the St Bride Foundation, London.

In addition to the regular formal business, the Annual General Meeting agreed a proposal to establish a new Officer post of Publications Secretary, in effect to make the post of chair of the Publications Sub-Committee into an elected post with a three-year term of office.

The results of elections were as follows. Paul Nash was elected as the new Publications Secretary and Sandro Jung was elected as the Journals Editor. The following were elected to the Committee: Sebastian Carter, Victoria Gardner (Journal Book Reviews Editor), Richard Lawrence and James Mosley.

Following the formal business of the AGM, Michael Twyman gave an excellent illustrated talk entitled “Chromolithography: the critical years”.

Annual General Meeting, 2011

The 2011 Annual General Meeting was held on Tuesday 12 April at the St Bride Foundation, London.

The following members of the committee retired by rotation in 2011 and, being willing to stand for a further term, were re-elected: Martin Andrews, Andrew Boag, Giles Mandelbrote.

Following the formal business of the AGM, Professor Ian Rogerson, Honorary Research Fellow at the John Rylands Institute, University of Manchester, gave a talk entitled Book Illustration: the Search for Affordable Colour. Professor Rogerson is a former University Librarian, Manchester Metropolitan University, and is author of monographs on Agnes Miller Parker and Barnett Freedman.

Annual General Meeting, 2010

The 2010 Annual General Meeting was held on Tuesday 27 April 2010 at 5.30pm at the St Bride Foundation, London. Elections were held for the following officers:

Hon. Chairman: Dr John Hinks
Hon. Treasurer: Mr Andrew Dolinski
Hon. Secretary: Mr Francis Cave
Hon. Membership Secretary: Dr Catherine Armstrong
Hon. Journal Editor: Mr John Trevitt (who retired by rotation and was willing to stand again)

The election of these five officers was proposed by Richard Lawrence and seconded by Michael Twyman, and was welcomed by the meeting.

The following members of the committee retired by rotation in 2010 and are willing to stand for a further term: Ken Brooks, Richard Lawrence, Paul W. Nash, James Mosley and Peggy Smith.

After the meeting Dr John Hinks spoke on 'Printing: a Revolutionary History'.

Annual General Meeting, 2009
The 2009 Annual General Meeting was held on Thursday 12 March 2009 at 5.30pm at St Bride Foundation, London. The Meeting was followed by a talk by Dr Cristina Dondi on The two earliest illustrated books of Hours: Verona: Boninus de Boninis 1481 and Venice: Georgius Arrivabene and Paganinus de Paganinis, 1 Apr.1485.

Alan May's One-pull press demonstration
Tuesday 6 May 2008, 18.30 - 20.00
The British Library Conference Centre

THE MACHINE THAT MADE US: GUTENBERG'S BRILLIANT INVENTION
Johann Gutenberg's printing press, which brought about the dawn of mass communication is of barely equalled significance in the development of human culture. His achievement reached its pinnacle with the printing of the Gutenberg Bible in 1455.
A new documentary 'The Machine That Made Us', presented by Stephen Fry, was screened on BBC4 in Spring 2008, and excerpts were featured in this event. For the programme, and in order to unravel mysteries of Gutenberg's technique, a team of experts built a unique copy of his press: watched it action at the event, alongside discussion of the remarkable story behind its invention.
Speakers included Alan May (printing expert and press builder), Martin Andrews (University of Reading) and Patrick McGrady (Wavelength Films)

Annual General Meeting, 2008
The 2008 Annual General Meeting was held on Tuesday 22 April 2008 at 5.00 at the St Bride Library.

Hot Metal to Hot Keys: Fifty years of turmoil 1950-1999
PHS Conference, 22 & 23 April 2008, St Bride Library, London

The conference specifically addressed the overwhelming changes in the British printing industry during the second half of the twentieth century. Day one featured the changes brought about by flexography, gravure and print on demand, and the roles of 20th-century apprenticeships. Day two continued the theme of changes in technology but featured a �film festival� of fascinating and informative archival films bringing the past alive.

List of speakers on Day 1, and their papers:
Rob Clayton, Significant extracts from the award entries of the Donald Milham Awards
Anthony White, Against the tide: the replacement of letterpress by
flexo at the Daily Mail in the 1990s
R. O. Bradley, John Crosfield C.B.E., D.Sc., M.A., his company�s contribution to the advances in printing technology
Brian Reynolds, Commentary to film �Inside Sun Printers Ltd 1938�
Bernard Catterall, At the sharp end
Peter Milham, Apprenticeships were special
Antony White, Print on Demand? Can it be that easy?

Rob Banham introduced the second day�s programme and talked about his research on films showing some clips. Viewing of Pen-ruling: a vanishing craft, 1985 (15mins).
Mick Stocks talked about his experiences of the CRTronic typesetting system � discussing advantages and disadvantages, the mystical coding used and the problems of specification and design.
Martin Andrews outlined the evolution of �strike-on� composition, and the dominance of Letraset from the 1960s to 1980s. He explored the impact of these mediums on low-budget production and the democratization of typesetting.
Ann Pillar explored how type manufacturers produced publicity for
changing technology.

Printing on film: The creation of a printing type from the design to the print by Fredrick W. Goudy, c. 1935 (11 mins). Spot News, 1937 (9 mins); the sending of photographic images by telephone for printing as half-tones. Learning to set type, 1959 (10 mins).
Printing on film: Farewell etaoin shrdlu: an age-old printing process gives way to modern technology, 1978 (29 mins). The last day of linotype hot metal composition at the New York Times.
Printing on film: The art and technique of photo-engraving, c. 1950 (29
mins). From hot metal to cold type, c. 1955 (25 mins). Looking at litho, c. 1955 (23 mins).

Annual General Meeting, 2007
The 2007 Annual General Meeting was held on Tuesday 27 March 2007 at 5.00 at the St Bride Library. At 5.30 Tony Edwards, Professor of Textual Studies at DeMonfort University, spoke on 'Directions in the study of English incunables'.

3&4 July 2006: Jobbing printing; the stuff of life

In 2006, the PHS and The Ephemera Society joined forces for a two-day conference at The University of Reading on the theme of the jobbing printer and his work. There was a reception the evening of 2 July, and on the 3rd a day of papers. On Tuesday the 4th the conference moved to the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication, which houses the Centre for Ephemera Studies, for short talks, demonstrations and the opportunity to explore the Maurice Rickards Collection of ephemera. The University Library's John Lewis Collection of ephemera was also featured.

Speakers on Monday 3 July included James Mosley, Rob Banham on lottery printing, Barry McKay on chapbooks, Patrick Frazer on George Madeley, Mary Ann Bolger on Catholic memorial cards, Patricia Thomas on ephemera's role in 19th-century emigration, Graham Hudson on the Printers' International Specimen Exchange, and Paul Shaw on W.A. Dwiggins. On Tuesday, somewhat less formal talks were given by Michael Twyman, Johan de Zoete, Claire Bolton, Maurice Collins and Sebastian Carter.

At the AGM for 2006, John Tuck, Head of British Collections at the British Library, gave an illustrated lecture, 'From ephemera to icon: enhancing access to the British Library'.

On March 10th 2005, Robert Faber of Oxford University Press gave an illustrated lecture, 'The Oxford DNB and scholarly publishing 1882–2004', following the Society's AGM.

The 2004 PHS Conference
Conference 2004: Printing and the worlds of learning
5 and 6 January 2004, at Downing College Cambridge

The Printing Historical Society, in association with the Cambridge Bibliographical Society and the Textbook Colloquium, held its 2004 Conference. In addition to the papers delivered, participants had opportunities to visit the famous Wren Library at Trinity College Cambridge, the recently built Quinlan Terry Library at Downing College, the Rampant Lions Press, and at Cambridge University Library, Stanley Morison's Library and the 'bibliographical' press.

The conference theme related printing and printing history to education and learning. Printing has contributed to learning at all levels and to the educational sector since its inception in a wide variety of ways. This conference considered the past, present and future of these relationships.

Printing and universities: university printers, university presses and printing houses, university censorship of printing, printing history as an academic study, university libraries and printing history, bibliographical presses for training academics

Printing and schools: printing and literacy, printing and textbooks, school presses, training the printer

Printing and learning beyond academia: non-university printing museums and libraries; private and fine presses; printing and self-help; printing as rehabilitation.

The list of speakers and their papers:
Paul Hoftijzer, Jobbing printing in Leiden during the seventeenth-century
Karen M. Johnson-Weiner, Defining place: textbooks and identity in Old Order Amish and Old Order Mennonite communities
Judy Ivy, Sir Frank Short: prints and printmaking beyond the classroom
Lucy Lewis, Page design and commentary formats in early printed books
Paul Luna, Type for lexicography
Lisa Maruca, 18th-century technologies of learning: the how-to manual and print
Henry Notaker, Printer or cook? The role of the printer in early modern cookbook publishing
Martyn Ould, Stanley Morison & Oxford University Press
Robert Ritter, The Clarendon Press and the origins of Oxford house style
Nicola Robson, Design for children's reading: the style and influence of the Isotype Institute
Jan Roegiers, The first Leuven University Press (1759–1797)
Fred Schurink, Printing for the grammar schools in Elizabethan and Jacobean England
Chris Stray, Paper wraps stone: the beginnings of educational lithography
Patricia Ann Thomas, Printer to/for/at the University
Daniel Wakelin, The first printed classics, the schoolroom and the vernacular
Sue Walker, The tales the letters tell: typography in children's readers 1830–1960

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