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Socialists and the Art of PrintingAuthor(s): Pat FrancisSource: History Workshop, No. 23 (Spring, 1987), pp. 154-158Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4288754 .

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NOTES AND COMMENT

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Socialists and the Art of Printingby Pat Francis

Printingunderwenta revolution n the early years of this century; incethe fifteethcentury there had been printers and printing;now there was also the newprofessionof typography.Typographers tudied the traditionsof their craftand,exploitingnewtechnology,carriedold skills nto a newage.The involvementof thelabourmovement n this achievementdeservesmore attention hanit hasreceivedto date. There is a need to look at the place of printdesign in propagatingdeasinthe movement, although it will not be easy to ascertain the purposeof thoseinvolved n publication,and probably mpossible o assess the effect of appearanceas distinct rommessage.This article s a preliminary ttempt.On the face of it, itwould seem that socialists have been fortunate in having some of the foremostnational ypographers nd printersamongtheirnumber,andhave had at least thegood sense to give themtheirhead.Among the namesbest known o all studentsoftypographyat least three were associated with the labourmovement WilliamMorris,FrancisMeynell and HaroldCurwen.All through he nineteenthcentury,evolving echniquesn paperproductionandprintingbroughtcheapbooks for the massmarketcloserto reality.Bythe 1890s ifewithout print was inconceivable.Not only were there newspaperswith theirmassreadership, he circulatingibrariesand the new municipalibraries,but therewerehymn books, pamphletsand magazines,there were posters, business-cards ndleaflets, there were bus tickets and traintimetables.And, as every good socialist

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Socialists and Printing 155knows, it was in 1890that WilliamMorrisbeganto set up the KelmscottPress,turninghis face againstshoddygoodsand the profitmotive,andtried to recallthebeautyof the bookasobject,printing pecially-designedypefacesbyhand.Morrisdiedin 1896,and the KelmscottPresscame to anend twoyears ater. Ironically,twas at preciselythis time that Monotypewas perfectedand made commerciallyviable. Monotypeand its predecessorLinotypewere processeswherebydispensibleblocksof text were cut and set from a keyboard. f 1890hadalreadybeen too latefora majorrevivalof the handpress, the twentiethcentury eemedabout to chokethe worldwithreadingmatterproducedby peoplewith little directcontrolovertheappearanceof the end-product.Speedwasall.A few small private pressesat the turn of the centurytook a pride in fineprinting, but they were virtuallynon-commercialventures producinglimitededitions on handpresses.JohnLane andElkin Mathewsat the BodleyHeadwerebolder. They made their name, and a fair income, using machineprintingtoproduce imitedrunsof fine books. Among the BodleyHead authorswas thepoet,Alice Meynell,and it was herson, FrancisMeynell,who wasto become a centralfigure n the typographicalenaissance.n 1911FrancisMeynell oinedhis fatheratBurns and Oates, the Catholicpublishinghouse, where WilfridMeynellwas adirector.Here the youngmanemployedhis talents for book production or a fewyears.But 1911wasa yearof intense ndustrial nrestandanger.Oneof the manyunions on strike that year was the London Society of Compositors. Thecompositors'strikesheet was soon transformednto the Daily Herald,with theencouragementof George Lansbury.FrancisMeynell's politicswere emotionalrather han well-considered,but nonethelessoutspoken or that. Already nvolvedin the women'ssuffragemovement,when he was introduced o GeorgeLansburyn1913 he fell immediatelyunder his spell, becoming one of the earliest of'Lansbury's ambs'at the Daily Herald.Thisnew-found nthusiasmwas not likelyto endearMeynellto his father, and so it was that in 1916 he moved out of Burnsand Oates to found the PelicanPress.The money for this venture was providedby two ladieswho had effected hisintroductiono Lansbury: he Countessde la Warrand MaryDodge. MaryDodgewas a richAmericanwoman; the Countesswas her friendand to some extent acoverfor the money MaryDodge gave to the Britishsocialistmovement.The twowomen were theosophistsas wellas socialists,and so, in thewordsof PhilipJamesin an article on the Pelican Press' they were 'persuadedto believe that animproved tandardof commercialprintingwould add dignity o life, and thinking,perhaps,of the day on which the doctrineof Karmamight be popularised nsomethingbetter than CheltenhamBold, consented o financethe addition o theVictoriaHousePrintingCo. - the printersof the Herald of a specialdepartmentwithMeynellas typographern charge.'To call the PelicanPressa department f the VictoriaHouse PrintingCo. is notstrictlyaccurate,but in one senseit was neververymuchmore. The PelicanPresswas a smallandshabbyroomto one sideof the Herald'sprinters.FromthisroomMeynell,with his specialisedknowledgeandhis literarybackground, ouldwieldenormous nfluenceon the paper's tylein both layoutandcontent. But he wasnotallowed free access to the printing presses. The Pelican Press became acommerciallyuccessfulbusinessand a modelin the deployment f type to enhancea messageandpleasethe eye withoutever owning a pressof its own.Meynell, of course, was not alone in his interest in the evolving art of

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156 History Workshop Journaltypography.Many young intellectuals nvolved to some extent in the socialistmovement were interested in calligraphyand type design, particularlyhe guildsocialists oosely groupedaround he journal,The NewAge. Printwas centraltotheir culture. One othernotablefigurewasHaroldCurwenat The CurwenPress.Harold Curwencame from a familyof ChristianSocialists his fatherstooddownin favour of Keir Hardieas candidate n West Ham Southin 1892. The CurwenPresshadspecialisednmusicprinting ndtonicsolfa,but HaroldCurwen, nspiredby WilliamMorrisand the calligrapher dwardJohnson designerof the mastheadof New Age) expandedthe moreconventionalside of the printingbusiness. Hepioneeredthe spreadof good designto mundanecommercialprinting, uchas hiswork for LondonTransport,but it was plain printing.In reactionagainstlateVictorianexuberance n print, decorationwas eschewed.

The PelicanPress,too, set itself to produce good printing orthe daily,not theexceptional, purpose'2but at the same time Meynell indulgedhis passion forprinters'ornamentsand almostsingle-handedhe recoveredthe art of theiruse,neglectedfor centuries. On Meynell'sown later admission3here was initiallyatendencyto self-indulgencen thisrespect;he remembereda reporton a rallytocelebrate the first Russianrevolutionwhich had 'the manneredelegancewhichwould have suited better an essay by Walter Pater'. A few mistakes must beforgiven,however, in a youngcompanywhichemployedthe techniquesof massproduction,yet avoideduniformity.Meynellwas influential n changinghe designof thetypefacesusedbyMonotype.In thisand otherwaysMeynell,Curwen,and afew otherpeople quicklycame to have a worldwide nfluenceon the appearance fthe printedpage.TheLabourPartybeforethe 1914-1918warwas well servedwithpractical, learprintingromtwoCo-operative rinters theCo-operativePrintingSocietyandtheLeicesterCo-operativePrintingSociety andbythe ILPpresses.Nevertheless,wefind the PelicanPressbeingused, firstin 1917, for a reprint rom the Herald,andthen in 1918for a pamphletby the Webbs, ThePrinciples f the LabourParty.In1922 heTUC andLabourPartyJointBoard ook over all theshares n the VictoriaHousePrintingCo. Two yearsearlier,the LondonCaledonianPresshad been setup by the Iron and Steel andKindredTradesAssociation, andthere was a greatdeal of pridein the idealconditions hey claimed o obtain at this, the firstwhollyunion-owned press. There were now plenty of rivals for Labour movementprinting.FrancisMeynell eft the PelicanPress n 1918,firstto helpre-establish he Heraldas a daily paperafterthe warwasover, and then fora briefsix-month pell at TheCommunist, or which, among other things, he redesignedthe masthead.Hereturnedo the PelicanPress nthe summerof 1921,and movedon again n 1923 ofound the famous Nonesuch Press, but not before a secure traditionof goodprintinghadbeenestablishedntheLabourmovement.A difference nstandardssneverthelessstill at times easy to spot, despite the diffusionof interestin style.Compare, orinstance,Labour'sCall o theNationof 1931asprintedby thePelicanPress,with its classicalproportions nd a borderof printers' lowerswhichmanageto be at once plentifulandunobtrusive, nd the crudereprintproducedby the Co-operativePrintingSociety.Good printingtoday is somethingwith which we are all so familiarthat wescarcelysee it at all, thanks largely to the pioneers whose designs appearedeverywhere romposterson the undergroundo advertisements n the press. By

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Socialists'and Printing 157

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7/29/2019 Pat Francis - Socialists and the Art of Printing

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158 History Workshop Journal1920the PelicanPresswas anundoubted ommercialuccess;among ts customersfrombig business t couldnumberhe MidlandBank andRolls-Royce.Only qualitycould have made these companiesturn to a printerknown for his work in theLabour nterest.Whenwe reflect on the part played by the Labourmovement n the intelligentexploitationof printing echnique,we mayfeel that a littletoo muchheadroomwasgiven to certain ndividualswho dominated hemedium.AlthoughFrancisMeynellnever seems to have suggested any way in whichmore people mighthave beeninvolved n printing,he did admit hat duringhis briefspellat TheCommunist hepaper, nominallyntended o appealto the workingclass,was an entirelymiddle-class product. 'We wrote and cartoonedfor ourselves',he confessed.4But thisconfession of a middle-agedman of the world reviewinghis youthful left-wingindiscretionss not entirely o be trusted.His editorshipof TheCommunistn 1921coincidedwith a promotionaldrive,and thepaperquicklybecamemore attractive.The cartoons were bold and the languageclear, pugnaciousand at timeswitty.Interestwas led into and through he paperby smallcentralcartoonsrepeatedwitha slightdifferenceon eachpage. A morespacious ayoutwas less fatiguing o theeye thanthe oldstyle,and lessforbidding.t was also lesseconomical,andherewereach the perennial dilemma for an editor trying to increase readership or anunder-capitalised aper.To some extent his standards till related to the luxurytrade. In the issue of February12th, 1921,Meynellclaimedthat a month earliersaleshad amounted o 8,500a week, whereaspreprintorders or the current ssueamounted o 40,000.Thishe attributedmainly o the boycott by the wholesalers,which, he said, 'brought t at one bound to the positionof being a self-supportingconcern- not a drain on Partyfunds'. A drainon funds it must have been,however, as The Communist olded early in 1923. Despite poverty and thereluctanceof printers o take on theworkforpoliticalreasons, he improvementnvisual appeal was to some extent maintained o the end, thanks o such details astheredesignedmasthead.If the paperdid fail to attract hose it was intended or, itwasmore likely becauseof contentthan becauseof style. Klugmann,n Historyofthe CommunistParty of Great Britain5 efers to the improvements n 'lay-out,illustrations,cartoons and educational articles'but also blames it for being aMarxistmagazinerather han a topicalnewspaper,and of being divorced rom thelife and strugglesof the Britishworking-classmovement.Good designwas madewidelyaccessiblewhile printwas still virtually he onlymediumof masscommunication.fwe wanta betterrecord,we shouldensure hat,as newtechnologiesdevelop,we give the widest possible access to the technologyitself. That is the wayto do betterthanthe socialistsback in the days before theSecondWorldWar;butwe will find it hardenoughto do as well.NOTES

I Philip James, 'The Pelican Press 1916-1923' in Signature, 12 July 19392 Typography printed and published by the Pelican Press 1923, p. xiv3 The Nonesuch Century, Nonesuch Press 19364 Francis Meynell, My Lives, Bodley Head, 19715 James Klugmann, History of The Communist Party of Great Britain: Volume 1, 1919-1924, Lawrence and Wishart 1968