Roger Powell (17 May 1896 – 16 October 1990) was an English

bookbinder Bookbinding is the process of building a book, usually in codex format, from an ordered stack of paper sheets with one's hands and tools, or in modern publishing, by a series of automated processes. Firstly, one binds the sheets of papers alon ...

. Powell was born in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. He was educated at

Bedales School Bedales School is a coeducational boarding and day public school, in the village of Steep, near the market town of Petersfield in Hampshire, England. It was founded in 1893 by Amy Garrett Badley and John Haden Badley in reaction to the li ...

, of which his father was co-founder. He served as a

signals officer A signal is both the process and the result of transmission of data over some media accomplished by embedding some variation. Signals are important in multiple subject fields including signal processing, information theory and biology. In s ...

in the

Royal Flying Corps The Royal Flying Corps (RFC) was the air arm of the British Army before and during the First World War until it merged with the Royal Naval Air Service on 1 April 1918 to form the Royal Air Force. During the early part of the war, the RFC sup ...

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

and then became a

poultry Poultry () are domesticated birds kept by humans for the purpose of harvesting animal products such as meat, Eggs as food, eggs or feathers. The practice of animal husbandry, raising poultry is known as poultry farming. These birds are most typ ...

farmer. In 1930 he began training as a bookbinder at the

Central School of Arts and Crafts The Central School of Art and Design was a art school, school of fine arts, fine and applied arts in London, England. It offered foundation and degree level courses. It was established in 1896 by the London County Council as the Central School ...

in London. After he completed the course he opened his own bindery, then became a partner with Sandy Cockerell in the major bindery of Cockerell & Son in

Letchworth Letchworth Garden City, commonly known as Letchworth, is a town in the North Hertfordshire district of Hertfordshire, England. It is noted for being the first garden city. The population at the time of the 2021 census was 33,990. Letchworth ...

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and one of the home counties. It borders Bedfordshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Essex to the east, Greater London to the ...

. He also taught part-time at the Central School until 1943, when he moved to the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public university, public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City, London, White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design uni ...

, where he taught until his retirement in 1956. There he was succeeded by his best pupil

Peter Waters Peter Godfrey Waters (19 May 1930 – 26 June 2003), a former Conservation Officer at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., United States, worked in the areas of disaster recovery and preparedness, and the salvage of water-damaged pape ...

. Powell left Cockerell & Son in 1947 and again set up his own bindery in

Froxfield Froxfield is a village and civil parish in the English county of Wiltshire. The parish is on the Wiltshire-West Berkshire border, and the village lies on the A4 national route about west of Hungerford and east of Marlborough. Froxfield vil ...

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Berkshire to the north, Surrey and West Sussex to the east, the Isle of Wight across the Solent to the south, ...

. Here he did some of his most notable work, including the rebinding of the

Book of Kells The Book of Kells (; ; Dublin, Trinity College Library, MS A. I. 8 sometimes known as the Book of Columba) is an illustrated manuscript and Celts, Celtic Gospel book in Latin, containing the Gospel, four Gospels of the New Testament togeth ...

and

Book of Durrow The Book of Durrow is an illuminated manuscript gospel book dated to that contains the Vulgate Latin text of the four Gospels, with some Irish variations, and other matter, written in Insular script, and richly illustrated in the style of Ins ...

in 1953, the

Lichfield Gospels The Lichfield Gospels (also known as the St Chad Gospels, the Book of Chad, the Llandeilo Gospels, the St Teilo Gospels and variations of these) is an 8th-century Insular script, Insular Gospel Book housed in Lichfield Cathedral. There are 236 ...

in 1962, and work on many other important historical manuscripts. He studied, but did not alter, the oldest European leather binding to survive, that of the Stonyhurst or

St Cuthbert Gospel The St Cuthbert Gospel, also known as the Stonyhurst Gospel or the St Cuthbert Gospel of St John, is an early 8th-century pocket gospel book, written in Latin. Its finely decorated leather binding is the earliest known Western bookbinding to s ...

, and his two chapters on the binding in books edited by Battiscombe (1956) and Brown (1969) remain the most important literature on the subject. He and Peter Waters became partners in the Froxfield firm, working together until Waters emigrated to the United States in 1971. Aided by the design talents of Peter's wife, calligrapher Sheila Waters, this partnership produced some of the most masterful and acclaimed collector designer bindings of the mid-20th century. They worked on the conservation of the many books and manuscripts damaged in the Florence flood of 1966. Powell was appointed an

Officer of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(OBE) in 1976. He was a member of the

Red Rose Guild The Red Rose Guild was a guild based in Manchester, with the aim to promote British arts and crafts. It was “regarded as the most influential national outlet for makers” in Britain during the first half of the twentieth century. The Guild was ...

. Fellow binder and collector Bernard Middleton described Powell as "one of the most important and influential bookbinders of the last hundred years and, arguably, of any period". In his monograph on the Book of Durrow, Bernard Meehan, Keeper of Manuscripts at

Trinity College Dublin Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the Unive ...

, described Powell as "the leading bookbinder of his day".Meehan, 74

Footnotes

References

Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...

*Meehan, Bernard. The Book of Durrow: A Medieval Masterpiece at Trinity College Dublin, 1996, Town House, Dublin

Footnotes

References

Further reading