[Illustration: BASIL MONTAGU PICKERING.
B M Pickering
Aldi Discipulus Anglus]
[Illustration: THE CHISWICK PRESS.
HOPE WELL AND HAVE WELL
CW]
The “Chiswick Press” of Messrs. Whittingham and Co., is in several
respects a link with the long past, and, having been in existence for
more than a century, is one of the oldest offices in London. It has
attained a world-wide celebrity for the excellence of its work, the
careful reading and correction of proofs, and the appropriate
application of its varied collection of ornaments and initial letters.
The Chiswick Press was the first to revive the use of antique type in
1843, for the printing of “Lady Willoughby’s Diary,” published by
Messrs. Longmans. Since that time its use has become universal. The
founder, Charles Whittingham, was born on June 16th, 1767, at Calledon,
in Warwick, and was apprenticed at Coventry in 1779, working
subsequently at Birmingham, and then in London. He commenced business on
his own account in Fetter Lane in 1790; and in 1810 he had removed to
Chiswick, and since that period the firm has always been known as “The
Chiswick Press.” In 1828 he began to execute work for William Pickering,
the publisher, and his press quickly acquired an unrivalled reputation
for its collection of ornamental borders, head and tail pieces. The
publisher Pickering, and the printer Whittingham, had employed about two
dozen marks in their various books: the former justly calling himself a
disciple of Aldus, and using a large number of variations on the
original Anchor and Dolphin Mark of the great Venetian printer. Of these
we give two examples, one with, and one without a cartouche; and also
the mark of Basil Montagu Pickering, the son and successor of William
Pickering. We also reproduce three of the more striking Marks of the
Chiswick Press, the shield on one of which, it will be observed, carries
the Aldine Anchor and Dolphin.
[Illustration: THE CHISWICK PRESS.]
[Illustration: THE CHISWICK PRESS.