Booksellers, Binders & printers

Booksellers' tickets on pastedowns. The paste-down is the portion of the endpaper that is glued to the inner boards of a hardback book

Kerby, Stafford Street in the Royal Kalendar 1811

2 Stafford Street just north of Piccadilly, was built in 1686, part of London’s westerly expansion when a number of the old large private house were demolished to be replaced by the streets we see today. The site was that of Clarendon House, said to be the model for Belton House. John Kerby owned the booksellers in 1791. Someone has doodled a lion's head from the 1st Earl's bookplate.

Edward Kerby appears in a similar volume for 1820. He was declared bankrupt in 1827 (Berkshire Chronicle - 8 September 1827).

W. Houghton

Houghton of 161 New Bond Street (now Dior) appears in Dickens's Dictionary of London 1879 (Charles Dickens' son). William Houghton originally established his business in 1822. His ticket appears in the 1829 version of the Kalendar. In 1868 he went into partnership with Charles Henry Gunn. Asprey, originally in the same street, bought them out in 1906.

Other than stationary and books, the shop had another use by their wealthy customers,

A Gentle Hint - The lady who is supposed to have taken by mistake a fan off the supper table at the Marquis of Salisbury's Ball on the 17th instant is requested to send it either to Mr Houghton at 162 New Bond Street or to the owner at No. 6 Park Street Grosvenor Square (The Pilot 28 July 1845).

Rolandi

The brothers Giambattista and Pietro Rolandi, were booksellers and publishers (the former was also an editor and translator). Italian printing in London stretched from 1553 into Edwardian times. The Rolandi left their native Piedmont to set up a bookshop in 1826 specialising in Italian books and prints. After their deaths, their nephew took over the business, known as Libreria Italiana (opens pdf).

Their shop was at 20 Berners Street, Soho, a rendez-vous point for Italian refugees and a centre for cultural activity. Berners Street is entirely redeveloped, but the street behind, Newman Street has examples of the late C18 buildings that made up the Berners Estate (opens pdf). The Rolandi bookshop would have been similar.

alla cara mia Adelaide per recordo - to my dear Adelaide as a keepsake

Likely to Countess Adelaide Brownlow from M. L. B. presumably in 1888. Mention of the shop peters out after the death of Frederick Rolandi in 1911.

Mitchell Bookbinder 33 Old Bond Street

In one of Viscountess Marian Alford's books. John Mitchell 1833-1874 (fl.). (Royal) Library, 33 Old Bond Street, London, now Gucci (in 1837, 1840, 1845) 32 Old Bond Street, London (in 1833, 1839) 53 Old Bond Street, London (in 1835).

The Royal Library was opened in 1834 by John Mitchell (1806–1874), an entrepreneur, publisher to Her Majesty (Queen Victoria), bookseller and theatrical impresario and promoter. Mitchell's Royal Library became an exclusive rendezvous for the fashionable, as a source of the day's news and gossip, the latest literature and, also, as a reading room and lending library. Mitchell also acted as a ticket agent, selling exclusive seats to theatre productions from his premises. The Royal Library traded for forty years until Mitchell's death in 1874.

Illustrated left is an aestel from Mitchell's library made of bone. An aestel pointed out words being read, lest the finger wear away ink from the 'parchment'.

Mitchell leased St James's Theatre, King Street for 12 years and would put on French plays (Weekly Chronicle (London) 30 June 1850). He also presented German conjurors, Tyrolean singers, dramatic readings by Fanny Kemble, P. T. Barnum's infant prodigies – Kate and Ellen Bateman, aged eight and six – in scenes from Shakespeare, and, most popular of all, the Ethiopian Serenaders who enthused London about the American-style minstrel shows.

Fraser & Son Book Boxes

James Fraser (c.1740-1811), production date of sticker above, 1808.

These look like books but open to reveal several unbound booklets or pamphlets.

From the names often written on the contents, Lord Brownlow this may sometimes refer to the 1st Baron or the 2nd Baron. The index gives the Barons' interests. In this case, Italian documents, German English phrases and the Female Jockey Club.

Trade cards in Heal Collection and Banks Collection. Heal 16.16 advertises James Fraser, Book-Binder...Binds Books in Moroco (sic), Russia, and all other curious & Elegant bindings at the most Reasonable Rates. Likewise, Gilds & Marbles Leaves after the neatest & best manner. Gentlemen's Libraries Repair'd &…

Trade unions were illegal in England until 1824. It seems James Fraser a well-known London 'master' bookbinder was behind the imprisonment of five journeymen bookbinders for "combination" or forming a "union". The bookbinders attempted to have their work day reduced by one hour from the existing 13 hour schedule from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Only after these 13 working hours did the masters pay overtime. Within this grueling schedule the binders had a half-hour break for breakfast and an hour for dinner. Belton's library is built on the backs of the working man.

Grubb Street Printers

Bernard Alsop (floruit 1602 - 1650)

A well documented printer. Bernard Alsop was one of the twenty master printers allowed by the Act of 1637. At that time the printer could be imprisoned for printing what could be construed and seditious. He was imprisoned in Fleet Prison in 1643 for printing Fleet Prison His Majesties Propositions to Sir John Hotham and the Inhabitants of Hull, July 11. A reader in Belton's book has written his own commentary on a blank page towards the end.

Now called Milton Street, in the late 17th century Grub Street or Grubstreet became synonymous with literary hack writers and the crass commercialism associated with writers-for-hire who scribbled out drivel to appeal to the lowest tastes of the public. Samuel Johnson defined it as "much inhabited by writers of small histories, dictionaries, and temporary poems; whence any mean production is called grubstreet."

The Grub Street Project is a digital edition of eighteenth-century London. By mapping its print culture, literature, and trades, it aims to create both a historically accurate visualization of the city's commerce and communications, and a record of how its authors and artists portrayed it.

Stamford Mercury 22 July 1808

Stamford Mercury 7 December 1827

Robert Storr of Grantham (1778-1861), Study, shelf 141.

Presumably Sophia (1811-1882) , daughter of the 1st Earl Brownlow and his first wife Amelia Sophia Hume, acquired the unbound book from Rolandi in London (see above) and had it bound locally for her stepsister, Caroline (1819-1898) born to the Earl's second wife, Caroline Fludyer.

In a later advert, Storr informs his customers that he has moved shop from Church Pavement, by St Wulframs to Vine Street, Grantham. He branched out in to tea selling. Puffing, the practice of making exaggerated commendations especially for promotional purposes. Still used in America, but not so in the UK. By 1836 the business had been talekn over by Thomas Bushby.

Jean-Pierre Giegler (1772-1828)

Gênes is Genoa in French, a maritime republic until 1797. Originally from Lausanne, where he opened a bookshop and a literary cabinet before June 1792. Established in Milan from the year 1797. Also published under the name "Giegler and company". Author of two travel guides to Italy. His widow Françoise Barrat and his heirs succeeded him in 1828 before ceding their license in 1831 to Carlo Branca and Alessandro Clemente Dupuy.

Yhe Honourable John Cust, future Earl, likely boughht this book on jis grand tour in the 1800s.

Thomas Wightman

Appears in Viscount Tyrconnel's accounts as a bookbinder; Town, meaning London perhaps. Here paid £344 for his work (RPI 2023).

He and another bookbinder, Bower, are thought responsible for the humorous book spines in the Study dating to around 1730,

Paradise Improv'd, Wooden Lectures, Leath'r Works (The Book Collector)

A Thomas Wightman appears as an apprentice book seller in Leicester in 1714 for £12. Thomas Wightman appears as an apprentice master in Wandsworth later in that century, as a print cutter in the book trade.

Heathcote's sale

Some books came via auctions such as this one. Mr Robert Heathcotes Grand Sale is reported in the Morning Post , 4 June 1823. He had died in Paris in 1823, but also lived in Hill Street, Berkeley Square, neighbours to the Cust family. The sale included all manner of items such as the wash basin and ewer of the guillotined Marie Antoinette. The estimated value of his objects d'art was £20,000 of that year. He was an intimate friend of George IV, when Prince Regent. One wonders if the fire irons in the Red Drawing Room, said to have belonged to Marie Antoinette came from this sale.

His library comprises one of the most elegant collection of rare, curious, and valuable Books, in every department of literature, ever offered by public sale. (Morning Herald (London) 24 May 1823)

The cost of this 1st edition book, £7.17.6, was not a bargain at £772 (RPI). AbeBooks has it currently for sale at £485.

This is Robert Heathcote of Lobthorpe, Lincolnshire, the former seat of the Sherrards. His brother, Sir Gilbert Heathcote was the owner of Normanton Park, Rutland (demolished 1926). A branch of the family continues at Grimsthorpe Castle. Robert married Elizabeth Searle, left, an actress, dancer and noted beauty in 1807.

Not a Book!

This is a sample from a bookbinder on how they propose to bind a book at Belton.

It illustrates the raised bands on the spine that cover the sewing supports holding the pages together.

The Board is the stiff paper or wood boards for the sides of a hard bound book, covered with paper, cloth or leather.

Th endpaper is the paper, white or coloured, printed or unprinted, inserted by the binder at the beginning and the end of a book to help fasten the sewn sections to the cover. One half is pasted to the inside of the cover; the other is pasted to the end leaf of a section. In this case, the sample is decorated with a variety of colours in an irregular pattern evoking the veins of marbles. Marbling results from the transfer to the sheets of paper of colours floating on the surface of a gum solution.

The headband or endband, a small band often of coloured silk threads, at the head of a book on the spine, which is sewn or glued to the folds of gatherings or quires, between them and the cover, and projecting slightly beyond the head. Here planned as green and white. Nowadays they are glued on for effect.

On the sides of the leather covered board are gilt lines. The folded over leather sections on the board are turn-ins. These have edges with a gilt diagonal pattern. Sometimes, the dentelles, the inside of the turn-in are gilt-patterned.

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