ARCHIVE NEWS
March 2023
Women's histories in the Stationers' Company Archive
8 MARCH 2023
International Women's Day is the perfect occasion to think about the many women, both celebrated and unseen, who have contributed to the history of the Stationers. This year, we seized an early opportunity to reflect on these women at our Gender, Archives and Inclusion study day, held on the 24th of February at Stationers’ Hall.
Main image: some of the participants on the 24th of February. Left to right: Clarissa Angus (National Archives), Ryan Prince (Young Stationer), Abira Hussein (UCL), Lizzy Baker (Tyne and Wear Archives), Caroline Duroselle-Mellish (Folger Shakespeare Library), Katie Aske (Northumbria University), Ellie Sheppard (Stationers’ Bursary recipient), Ruth Frendo (Stationers’ Company Archive), Aislinn O’Connell (Young Stationer), Beth Debold (PhD student, University of Newcastle/Stationers’ Company CDA)
READ MOREFebruary 2023
Romeo and Juliet: A Stationers' Company production
14 FEBRUARY 2023
This Valentine’s Day, we look at the Stationers behind the publication of one of the greatest love stories of all time: Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
Main image: Frontispiece of Giulietta e Romeo by Luigi da Porto, 1530. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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Meeting Ana Garcia Perez, our conservation student at West Dean College
1 FEBRUARY 2023
On the 30th January, I was delighted to accept an invitation to a Scholars’ Lunch at West Dean College, an annual event where the College invites bursary-givers to come and see the work they’re funding. Over the years, the Stationers’ Foundation has bestowed Major Awards and Francis Mathew Scholarships to several conservation students at West Dean. I was eager to meet the current award holder, Ana Cristina Garcia Perez, and learn more about the training provided.
READ MOREJanuary 2023
Welcome home to Queen Elizabeth's Prayer Book
18 JANUARY 2023
This week the Archive welcomed a seventeenth-century prayer book back from the National Conservation Service’s studio in Dalston CLR James Library. Here we take a look at the conservation work carried out, and share some pages from this exquisite volume.
READ MORENovember 2022
The London Cry, 1955
7 NOVEMBER 2022
A fascinating new deposit has been added to the Stationers’ Company Archive, courtesy of Emeritus Past Master Patrick Shorten and late Past Master Sir Ray Tindle. It’s a collection of eight issues of the London Cry, an unofficial newsletter published in April 1955, when strike action halted the Fleet Street presses.
READ MOREAugust 2022
Blake and the Stationers
4 AUGUST 2022
This 4th August 2022 marks 250 years since the apprenticeship of William Blake to Stationer and engraver James Basire. Although Blake chose not to take up the Freedom of the Stationers’ Company himself, this apprenticeship was one of the most significant periods of his life.
READ MOREMay 2022
Interpreting Error: A Stationers' Company Conference - July 29th, 2022
23 MAY 2022
In partnership with the University of Newcastle, the Stationers' Company Archive is delighted to announce the programme for our first conference in our newly re-opened Hall.
*Please note that the programme has been revised, 19/07/2022. This is to accommodate an earlier finish for attendees affected by train strikes on Saturday 30th July .
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'Monsters, Myths and Methods': online presentation by James Raven, Wednesday 4th May
3 MAY 2022
James Raven (Cambridge), ‘Monsters, Myths and Methods: Writing a Global Book Biography of Erik Pontoppidan’s Det første Forsøg paa Norges naturlige Historie (1752-3) [ The Natural History of Norway (1755)]’
- Venue: Zoom (see below for details)
- Start: Wed, 04 May 2022 16:00:00 BST
- End: Wed, 04 May 2022 17:00:00 BST
Main image: Frontispiece of 1752 edition, https://mineralogicalrecord.com/new_biobibliography/pontoppidan-eric/
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January 2022
1787: Thomas Cadell publishes Robert Burns
25 JANUARY 2022
To mark Burns night, we look at the story of Burns’s first publication in London by Stationer Thomas Cadell (1742–1802).
Main image left: title page of first London edition of Burns's Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect; right: portrait of Thomas Cadell by Sir William Beechey
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2022 Summer schools at the Institute of English Studies
6 JANUARY 2022
After the turmoil of the last couple of years, you may be wary of making travel plans for next summer. But you can still expand your horizons, with these exciting summer schools run by the University of London's Insitute of English Studies.
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PhD at the Stationers' Company - applications now open!
6 JANUARY 2022
We're excited to announce that the Stationers' Company Archive is partnering with the Universities of Durham and Newcastle to offer a fully funded research opportunity into early modern apprentices in the print trades. Our project, The Importance of Youth in the Early Modern Economy: Apprentices and their peer-networks, 1605-1800, has been approved for Collaborative Doctoral Award funding by the AHRC’s Northern Bridge Consortium.
READ MOREAugust 2021
James Basire
4 AUGUST 2021
This day in the archive: 4th August
On the 4th of August, 1772, William Blake was bound as an apprentice to the engraver James Basire. Blake, of course, went on to become one of the most important visionary artists and poets in England. Basire's story is less well-known, but as a Stationer, a leading engraver of his day, and a significant early influence on Blake, it's worth telling here.