A Chronology of the Yellowsands Press, 1919-1993

Titles in italic are Yellowsands printings unless otherwise indicated. Entries in small type refer to matters of general school history.

1914  Purchase by J.H. Whitehouse, probably with funds provided by the philanthropist Charles Roden Buxton, of a field overlooking Whitecliff Bay on the eastern tip of the Isle of Wight, as a site for a secondary boys’ summer camp. In 1915 purchase of nearby former hotel.

c.1917  Vintage Albion hand-press installed at 13 Hammersmith Terrace, London, home of Liberal MP and founder of Bembridge School, John Howard Whitehouse.

1919  J.H.Whitehouse, ed., The English Public School: A Symposium. OUP.

1919  May. Bembridge School opens with five pupils and five staff.

1919  End of summer term. Press and equipment installed near back stairs in Old House, almost certainly with the assistance of the eighteen-year-old Harry Carter.

1919  Autumn. Press moved to shed near arts and crafts room (formerly the campsite mess room, and which those who remember the school before 1965 will recognise as the woodwork room) one end of which became the composing area.

First number of Bembridge School Newspaper, eight pages, measuring 11 ½  x 9”. After nine issues this was reduced to 10 x 7 ½”, crown quarto (most Yellowsands pamphlets are 7 ½  x 5”, or crown octavo).

1920  John Masefield, John Ruskin. Completed 8th April. The text of an address forming part of the Ruskin Centenary Celebrations, 1919, to which Whitehouse was honorary secretary.

1920  Summer. First wood-block printed in Newspaper, by Dickson Guest. Printers' Guild established by autumn.

1922  Press and composing room reunited in room in sports pavilion.

1925   Spring. Wood-blocks introduced as a regular feature of the Newspaper. First issue with grey paper cover.

1925  Autumn. First ‘Illustrated Supplement’ to Bembridge School Newspaper. These half-tone sections of photographs were printed by the Isle of Wight County Press (and at Coniston, by the Westmoreland Gazette). Discontinued as a regular feature after issue of Autumn 1955.

1928  J.H. Whitehouse, Creative Education at an English School. CUP.

1929  J.H. Whitehouse, The Craftsmanship of Books. London: Allen & Unwin.

R.G. Lloyd and T.M. Stedman appointed assistant masters.

1930  Ruskin Galleries completed.

1931  Purpose-built printing room, designed by R.D. Muirhead, first occupied in the summer term. Vacated by the printers in 1988 to make way for metal-work class.

Departure of Edward Daws, Sub-Warden.

1932  Brantwood, near Coniston, Ruskin’s former home, bought by Whitehouse. The Ruskin Society, whose membership was mainly by invitation, formed by Whitehouse.

1933  Spring. ‘Book Exhibition’, illustrating the history of book production.

1933  Autumn. Printing completed of Bembridge School Hymn Book. Bound by Oxford University Press. Work had begun in 1930.

1934  Inauguration of school chapel.

1935  Ronald Muirhead departs to teach woodwork and printing at Bryanston School. T.M. Stedman becomes Printer.

T.M. Stedman’s compilation, Bembridge School Records, printed in June (2nd edition, 1939).

1936  Spring. Fiftieth number of Newspaper, including Whitehouse’s account of the early history of the Yellowsands Press. Eric Gill exhibition reviewed by Stedman.

1936  Whitehouse founds the ‘Order of Companions’, his school version of Ruskin’s Guild of St George.

1938  Hopkinson & Cope demy Albion hand-press, c.1870, replaces original school Albion, now worn out.

1940  Summer term. School closed early to prepare for evacuation to Coniston. Press and equipment moved after initial decision to leave them at Bembridge is reversed.

1940  Christmas. First ‘overseas’ number of Newspaper. Sixteen issues in all were printed at Coniston.

1941  Departure of Ernest Baggaley, Second Master, to Wakefield Grammar School.

1942  Spring. J.H. Whitehouse, Wartime Christmas.

1945  Autumn term. School re-established at a Bembridge site much damaged by army occupation.

Printing resumed at Bembridge by wholly Coniston-trained core group of printers.

1952  Christmas. One hundredth number of Newspaper.

1953  Summer term. Whitehouse struck in the eye by a cricket ball during the annual Old Bembridgians match, an accident from he never fully recovers.

1955  28^th September, death of John Howard Whitehouse (b. 8 June 1873).

1955  Autumn (Michaelmas) term. Whitehouse memorial number of Newspaper.

1958  Summer. J.S. Dearden, Printing at Coniston, printed in June.

Autumn. Dearden takes over from T.M. Stedman as Printer.

1959  Spring term. New type (Caslon Old Face) brought into use, the first bought since before the war.

Summer. T.M. Stedman, Bembridge School: The first forty years printed in June, but not issued until the autumn, the printing of the illustrations having been delayed by a printers’ strike.

Revival of pupil Geoffrey Eyles’s Yellowsands Alphabet of ornamental initials cut in the early 1920s.

1959  Autumn term. Peter Rendall takes up his duties as the new headmaster.

1960  Christmas term. Reorganisation of lower senior school classes results in more periods of printing, in smaller groups, increasing output in form time.

1961  Spring. One hundred and twenty-fifth number of Newspaper, including ‘The Yellowsands Press’, pp. 19-27, reprinted in the summer as  J.H. Whitehouse, An Account of the Yellowsands Press.

1961  Installation of foolscap folio treadle platen press, by Jardine of Nottingham, built c.1940. In some records this is referred to as the Franklin press. Produces up to 25 copies per minute. Albion henceforth used only for Newspaper and posters.

1962  Summer. Visit from Charles L. Pickering, Her Majesty’s Inspector of Printing.

Christmas term. Service of Nine Lessons and Carols held in Bembridge School Chapel at Christmas 1962. Blue wrappers. The first of twenty-four such orders of service decorated with wood-engravings and  reaching a peak of typographic elaboration in the late 1960s, the last printed in 1986.

Restoration of stiff grey wrapper to Newspaper, dropped in 1940.

Replacement of stock of 18pt Caslon Old Face (on an 18pt body, the 18/16pt long since discontinued by Stephenson, Blake). First italic founts installed: 12 and 18pt Caslon Old Face.

1964  Spring term. Press acquires large quantity of wood letter from                  P. Saunders of Shanklin, twelve founts ranging in size from ‘48pt to 4 ½ ins.’. Some type cases from the same source are filled with new type: 36pt Caslon Old Face and 12, 18 and 30pt Old Face Open (Stephenson, Blake). Some 6pt Caslon OF was also acquired around this time.

Acquisition of Adana 85 hand-press (no. S1150), obtained new. Mike Conder was using a similar press at home on the Island and had brought it in to show Dearden who decided that the school should have one. Used to print from foil, gold initial in 1964 Nine Lessons and Carols service order.

Summer. J.S. Dearden, Notes & Rules for Compositors at the Yellowsands Press.

P.G. Rendall, Bembridge School Prospectus, revised edition. The first of eight editions printed in school, the last in the mid-1980s.

Christmas term. Senior Printers listed among school officers in Newspaper.

1965  January. J.S. Dearden, Printing at Bembridge School. Totland Bay: Printed by M.J. Conder.

1965  Spring term. About half-term, move into extension provided by completion of adjoining Whitehouse Memorial Building. Printer’s corner office, including stone, built as part of rearranged floor plan. Composing frames placed in extension. Albion now to right of entrance, in front of sinks. Loss of gas fire. Hot water and central heating reach the printing room.

1966  Summer term. Acquisition of 24pt Blado. Wooden racks  accommodating 21 galleys made for Printer’s office by George Ibars.

1969  [J.S. Dearden]  A Yellowsands Bibliography, 1919-1969, printed for the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the school.

Foundation Weekend printed ephemera include traditional keepsake for visit of Earl Mountbatten and elaborate, gilt-blocked booklet for Sunday Service of Thanksgiving.

Summer term. Stedman’s last number of Newspaper as editor. He had been a contributor since 1931, printer from 1935 to 1958, and editor from 1953 to 1969.

Christmas term. New editor of Newspaper H.H. Carnell. Light blue cover introduced.

1973  Easter term. First number of Newspaper printed on the Furnival treadle platen press acquired from Lightbown’s of Ryde a few years earlier.

Summer term. Woodcut illustrations replaced by photographs in Newspaper.

1975  Spring term. With new editor light pastel coloured covers to Newspaper introduced, to match seasons.

1976  Autumn term. First girls admitted to Bembridge School.

1977  Summer term. Yellowsands Press awarded third place, out of 35 entrants, in National Printing in Schools competition organised by the Department of Printing, Watford College, and the British Printing Industries Federation

.

1978  Summer term. Reintroduction of Arts and Crafts section in Newspaper, dropped in 1970.

1979  Summer term. Yellowsands Press wins second place, out of 38 entrants, in National Printing in Schools competition.

1982  Christmas term. Printing room hosts sixth-form ‘printing company’ as part of national Young Enterprise scheme.

1983  Summer term. Token issue only of Newspaper, work on new school prospectus taking inordinate amount of printing room time.

1983  Christmas term. Newspaper cover title henceforth printed in Victorian gothic type.

1984  Summer term. In Dearden’s absence, due to illness, production of the school newspaper overseen by sixth-former Mason Salmon. Formal teaching of printing comes to an end.

1986  Easter term. Two hundredth number of Newspaper. In his foreword R.G. Lloyd (now Lord Kilgerran) notes that in a general review of the arts and crafts curriculum conducted in the early 1980s the practice of printing had been vindicated by the consultant employed by the school governors.

1988  Eviction of printers from the purpose-built printing room of 1931, to make way for Craft, Design and Technology metal-working class. Printers occupy two rooms in old stable block near Old House, where the ceiling is too low to operate the Albion.

1991  Christmas term. Dearden’s hundredth number as printer of Newspaper (Vol. 73, No. 217).

1992  Easter term. A note in the Newspaper about the new fortnightly school newsletter Today which employs the ‘latest…technology’.

1992  Last letterpress number of Bembridge School Newspaper, Vol. 74, No. 220, an eight-page token issue consisting largely of Dearden’s history of the school chapel.

1993  The Dream Alive. Tennyson Anthology for People in Prison. Printed in the autumn term. The last work printed at the Yellowsands Press. Unfinished. A collection of poems by local prisoners following a competition organised by Isle of Wight Independent Arts.

1993-94  Bembridge School Newspaper, 75 th  Anniversary [edition]. Typed and printed on Apple Mackintosh LC475 and Hewlett Packard DeskWriter 550C. ‘This newspaper hopefully heralds the rebirth…’

1996  Closure of Bembridge School.