John Baskerville (baptised 28 January 1707 – 8 January 1775) was an English businessman, in areas including

japanning Japanning is a type of finish that originated as a European imitation of East Asian lacquerwork. It was first used on furniture, but was later much used on small items in metal. The word originated in the 17th century. American work, with ...

and papier-mâché, but he is best remembered as a printer and type designer. He was also responsible for inventing "wove paper", which was considerably smoother than "laid paper", allowing for sharper printing results.

Life

Baskerville was born in the village of Wolverley, near Kidderminster in Worcestershire and baptised on 28 January 1706 OS(1707 NS) at Wolverley church. Baskerville established an early career teaching handwriting and is known to have offered his services cutting gravestones (a demonstration slab by him survives in the Library of Birmingham) before making a considerable fortune from the manufacture of lacquerwork items (

). He practised as a printer in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...

, England. Baskerville was a member of the

Royal Society of Arts The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), also known as the Royal Society of Arts, is a London-based organisation committed to finding practical solutions to social challenges. The RSA acronym is used m ...

, and an associate of some of the members of the Lunar Society. Baskerville directed his

punchcutter Punchcutting is a craft used in traditional typography to cut letter punches in steel as the first stage of making metal type. Steel punches in the shape of the letter would be used to stamp matrices into copper, which were locked into a mould ...

, John Handy, in the design of many

typeface A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font. There are thousands o ...

s of broadly similar appearance. His typefaces were greatly admired by

Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading int ...

, a fellow printer, but were criticised by jealous competitors and soon fell out of favour. He also pioneered a completely new style of

typography Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing ( leading), an ...

, adding wide margins and leading between each line. In 1757, Baskerville published a remarkable quarto edition of

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: th ...

on wove paper, using his own type. It took three years to complete, but it made such an impact that he was appointed printer to the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

the following year. An

atheist Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...

, he nonetheless printed ''

The Book of Common Prayer The ''Book of Common Prayer'' (BCP) is the name given to a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion and by other Christian churches historically related to Anglicanism. The original book, published in 1549 in the reign o ...

'' in 1762 and a splendid

folio The term "folio" (), has three interconnected but distinct meanings in the world of books and printing: first, it is a term for a common method of arranging sheets of paper into book form, folding the sheet only once, and a term for a book ma ...

Bible in 1763. Baskerville innovated in printing, paper, and ink production. He worked with paper maker James Whatman to produce a smoother whiter paper, sometimes called "wove paper", which showcased his strong black type.

Death and interments

Baskerville died in January 1775 at his home, ''Easy Hill''. He requested that his body be placed However, in 1821 a canal was built through the land and his body was placed on show by the landowner until Baskerville's family and friends arranged to have it moved to the crypt of

Christ Church, Birmingham There was a building called Christ Church based in central Birmingham, in the Church of England on Colmore Row, Birmingham from 1805 to 1899. In 2021 a new church without a fixed building called Christ Church Birmingham opened and now serve ...

. Christ Church was demolished in 1897 so his remains were then moved, with other bodies from the crypt, to

consecrated Consecration is the solemn dedication to a special purpose or service. The word ''consecration'' literally means "association with the sacred". Persons, places, or things can be consecrated, and the term is used in various ways by different gro ...

catacomb Catacombs are man-made subterranean passageways for religious practice. Any chamber used as a burial place is a catacomb, although the word is most commonly associated with the Roman Empire. Etymology and history The first place to be referred ...

s at Warstone Lane Cemetery. In 1963 a petition was presented to Birmingham City Council requesting that he be reburied in unconsecrated ground, according to his wishes.

Legacy

The 20th century renewed interest in and appreciation for Baskerville's typefaces. His most notable typeface, Baskerville, is held to represent the peak of transitional type face and a bridge between Old Style and Modern type design. Since the 1920s, many fonts based on his work—mostly called ' Baskerville'— have been released by Linotype, Monotype, and other

type foundries A type foundry is a company that designs or distributes typefaces. Before digital typography, type foundries manufactured and sold metal and wood typefaces for hand typesetting, and matrices for line-casting machines like the Linotype and ...

. In 1996, Emigre released a popular revival of this typeface called

Mrs Eaves Mrs Eaves is a transitional serif typeface designed by Zuzana Licko in 1996. It is a variant of Baskerville, which was designed in Birmingham, England, in the 1750s. Mrs Eaves adapts Baskerville for use in display contexts, such as headings and b ...

after Baskerville's wife, Sarah Eaves.

Commemoration

In the 1930s,

Baskerville House Baskerville House, previously called the Civic Centre, is a former civic building in Centenary Square, Birmingham, England. After serving as offices for the Birmingham City Council, it was extended with additional floors in 2007. History The ...

was built on the grounds of ''Easy Hill''. In 1947, BBC radio broadcast a radio play about his burial, named ''Hic Jacet: or The Corpse in the Crescent'' by Neville Brandon Watts. The original recording was not preserved but a performance was staged by students at the Birmingham School of Acting in 2013 at the Typographic Hub Centre of Birmingham City University. A copy of the script is in the Norman Painting Archives at the

University of Birmingham , mottoeng = Through efforts to heights , established = 1825 – Birmingham School of Medicine and Surgery1836 – Birmingham Royal School of Medicine and Surgery1843 – Queen's College1875 – Mason Science College1898 – Mason Univers ...

A Portland stone sculpture of the Baskerville typeface, ''Industry and Genius'', in his honour stands in front of Baskerville House in Centenary Square, Birmingham. It was created by local artist David Patten in 1990.

Gallery

Some examples of volumes published by Baskerville. Image:Publii Virgilii Maronis Bucolica, Georgica, et Æneis by John Baskerville 1757.jpg, Title-page of the 1757

quarto Quarto (abbreviated Qto, 4to or 4º) is the format of a book or pamphlet produced from full sheets printed with eight pages of text, four to a side, then folded twice to produce four leaves. The leaves are then trimmed along the folds to produc ...

edition of the works of

Image:Milton Baskerville.jpg,

John Milton John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet and intellectual. His 1667 epic poem ''Paradise Lost'', written in blank verse and including over ten chapters, was written in a time of immense religious flux and politica ...

's ''

Paradise Lost ''Paradise Lost'' is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton (1608–1674). The first version, published in 1667, consists of ten books with over ten thousand lines of verse. A second edition followed in 16 ...

'' (1758) Image:Work-baskerville.jpg, Volume One of ''The works of

Joseph Addison Joseph Addison (1 May 1672 – 17 June 1719) was an English essayist, poet, playwright and politician. He was the eldest son of The Reverend Lancelot Addison. His name is usually remembered alongside that of his long-standing friend Richar ...

'' (1761) Image:Baskerville bible.jpg, Title-page of Baskerville's 1763 Bible Image:BaskervilleVirgil.JPG, The 1766 translation of Virgil into English, by Robert Andrews

References

;Citations ;Bibliography * * * * * ARCHER-PARRÉ, Caroline & Malcom DICK (Editors), JOHN BASKERVILLE: Art and industry of the enlightenment. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2017. 8vo, (240x160mm), xviii,269p

External links

*
Birmingham City Council page on ''Industry and Genius''
(includes picture)
Revolutionary Players websiteBaskerville the Animated MovieSome typographical studies
on the use of the Baskerville font (in French). {{DEFAULTSORT:Baskerville, John 1707 births 1775 deaths English printers English typographers and type designers English atheists People associated with the University of Cambridge Associates of the Lunar Society of Birmingham Artists from Birmingham, West Midlands