John Imison (died 16 August 1788), was an English mechanic and printer. Imison operated in

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of City of Salford, Salford to ...

during the years 1783-85 as a

clock A clock or a timepiece is a device used to measure and indicate time. The clock is one of the oldest human inventions, meeting the need to measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units such as the day, the lunar month and t ...

and

watchmaker A watchmaker is an artisan who makes and repairs watches. Since a majority of watches are now factory-made, most modern watchmakers only repair watches. However, originally they were master craftsmen who built watches, including all their part ...

optician An optician, or ''dispensing optician'', is a technical practitioner who designs, fits and dispenses lenses for the correction of a person's vision. Opticians determine the specifications of various ophthalmic appliances that will give the nec ...

, and printer. Henry Lemoine stated that "among other pursuits he made some progress in the art of letter-founding, and actually printed several small popular novels at Manchester, with

woodcut Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only t ...

s cut by himself." He printed ''Drill Husbandry Perfected'', by the Rev. James Cooke (c. 1783), ''The History of the Lives, Acts, and Martyrdoms of … Blessed Christians'', with cuts (1785), and a pamphlet on ''The Construction and Use of the Barometer or Weather Glass''. His best work was considered to have been ''The School of Arts, or an Introduction to Useful Knowledge'', 1785. A portion of this was separately issued as ''A Treatise on the 'Mechanical Powers' '' London, 1787. Second editions of both came out in 1794, and there were subsequent issues of the ''School of Arts'' in 1803, entitled ''Elements of Science and Art'', and later in 1807 and 1822. Imison died in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

on 16 August 1788.

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;Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Imison, John Year of birth unknown 1788 deaths 18th-century English people People from Manchester English printers British opticians English clockmakers English watchmakers (people)