Teaching Historical Printing Techniques at Cambridge University Library

David Macfarlane, Cambridge University Library

The pioneering bibliographer R. B. McKerrow wrote in the 1913 Transactions of the Bibliographical Society:

It would, I think, be an excellent thing if all who propose to edit an Elizabethan work from contemporary printed texts could be set to compose a sheet or two in as exact facsimile as possible of some Elizabethan octavo or quarto, and to print it on a press constructed on the Elizabethan model. [...] It would teach students not to regard a book as a collection of separate leaves of paper attached in some mysterious manner to a leather back, nor to think that the pages are printed one after another beginning at the first and proceeding regularly to the last. They would have constantly and clearly before their minds all the processes through which the matter of the work before them has passed, from its first being written down by the pen of its author to its appearance in the finished volume, and would know when and how mistakes are likely to arise.

A Common Press, built by Philip Gaskell and the Cambridge University Engineering Department (Credit: Cambridge University Library)

This inspired the “bibliographical press movement” and led to practical teaching establishments being set up at Yale University in 1927, University College London in 1934, and the “Bibliography Room” at the University of Oxford in 1949.

After years of investigation and persuasion, Philip Gaskell set up the first “Bibliographical Press” at Cambridge University in 1953 as the third in the country. This was the Water Lane Press in the basement of King’s College, which he meticulously documented in 1955 in Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society.

Among his students were James Mosley, librarian of the St Bride printing library, and Donald F. McKenzie, the literary scholar and bibliographer from New Zealand. Other countries joined the movement later: Canada in 1957 at McGill University; New Zealand in 1959 at Auckland and in 1961  in Dunedin and Australia in 1961 at the University of Queensland. By 1965, Gaskell was able to list 25 Bibliographical Presses around the world in his article for the inaugural issue of the Journal of the Printing Historical Society.

After working as a librarian in Glasgow, Gaskell returned to Cambridge in 1967 to the position of Librarian of Trinity College. The next year, Sir Allen Lane, the founder of Penguin Books, presented to the University Library Stanley Morison’s books and remaining papers (those that hadn’t been lost in the Second World War). This donation constituted the beginning of the Morison Room: an archive repository to which would be added the collected papers of Beatrice Warde (aka Paul Beaujon), Sir Francis Meynell (of the Nonesuch Press), Oliver Simon (of the Curwen Press), and many other individuals and organisations important to typography and printing.

In this rich field of typographical and bibliographical scholarship, Gaskell established the Cambridge University Library’s (CUL) bibliographical press in the Morison Room. By 1974, he was able to hold the first class where he taught the elements of hand composition and press operation, producing Esmond Harried from Thackeray’s manuscript.

Nicholas Smith and David McKitterick, on the staff at the University Library, joined Gaskell on the first few courses and continued to run the course after Gaskell moved on to other things. McKitterick taught every course until 1987 and Smith continued until 2024. Colin Clarkson, also at CUL, joined Smith in 1987 and has served as an instructor to 2024. An enumeration of the initials printed in the pamphlets finds Nick Smith (NAS) 96 times, Colin Clarkson (CTC) 71 times, and David McKitterick (DJM) 25 times.

From left to right: (1) An Albion from the 1840s; on the wall is a pencil portrait of Stanley Morison, after whom the room is named; (2) New Baskerville Ornament - from Skyline Type Foundry in Arizona we commissioned some newly cast Baskerville Ornaments for the cover of our class project (an accurate transcription of Baskerville's interesting Will)

The Historical Printing Room (HPR) at the Cambridge University Library, also known as the Morison Room, is now located on the ground floor of the south front. It houses three Albion presses, a Columbian press, an Arab platen press, and an MM Kelton rolling press. It also has full-size replica of a late eighteenth-century wooden hand-press which was built to Gaskell’s designs in the workshops of the Cambridge University Engineering Department. The type collection, taken broadly, includes the Baskerville punches, assorted foundry matrices for ornaments and fonts, as well as punches, matrices, and type from the Kelmscott, Cranach, and Ashendene Presses, and type from the Eragny Press. It also has workaday type and other material, including six pairs of cases of twelve-point Ehrhardt type specially arranged for student composition.

Based on current (2025) practices, the classes are usually held over an eight-week period, meeting Mondays and Thursdays at five o’clock in the HPR. The first session includes introductions all around, a review of the syllabus, and a tour of the print shop, highlighting the presses, the type, and the specialised tools.

The students are then introduced to the type cases they will be working from, which often elicits an “aha!” moment when they realise why letters are called “upper case” and “lower case”. They configure their composing sticks to the correct measure and set a few lines of text to get accustomed to manipulating. the stick, the setting rule, and the type without spilling it all.

Once they are comfortable setting type, the students get the source text for the class pamphlet, which is usually a photocopy of an interesting historical manuscript on which they can practise their semi-diplomatic transcription skills. The students then work their way through enough type to fill six to eight pages of a medium quarto pamphlet. The type is arranged in galleys and printed so the class can proof their work. They review their edits in an editorial session around a table and the corrections are then collated and applied to the type.

Sheets Drying - the class prints on dampened paper, so they need to dry on cord tied around the room

The type is split into pages and arranged in the correct imposition scheme on the bed of the press for the first forme. This is typically on the shop’s largest press, a Barrett/ Hopkinson Albion press made in the 1840s. Each student practises inking the type with a two-handed roller and pulling an impression on dampened paper held between the frisket and the tympan. On the second day of printing they print the other side of the sheets. The course finishes with a class where they fold and stitch the covers and the printed sheets together.

Each student gets two copies to take home; a copy is submitted to the Cambridge University Library for cataloguing, and any spares are filed for study by future classes in the HPR.

David Macfarlane is the Curator of the Historical Printing Room at the Cambridge University Library and teaches the historical printing class. This article originally appeared in "Handlist of Letterpress Pamphlets". We are grateful that David adapted the article for the VMoP blog.