Photographs of printing at Bembridge School and other images of the press

The 'ATCO' printing room, 1920

The oldest photograph of printing at Bembridge School has the title the ‘ATCO Printing Room’ and was taken in 1920. It’s one of three printing-related photographs published in 1936 in the fiftieth number of the school newspaper. It takes its name from the later use of the shed as a lawnmower store - and gives a good impression of the somewhat cramped conditions there. The others are a photograph of John Pearce, dated 1929, standing at a composing frame in the ‘Pavilion Composing Room’ - the press’s home between 1922 and 1931 - and one of ‘The Press-Room Today’, which gives an excellent view of the original layout of what was the purpose-built printing room used by the Yellowsands Press from 1931 until 1988 (it shows a young and slim Tom Stedman, too, assisting a boy compositor).

Composing in the arts and crafts room, c.1920

An unpublished photograph found in the oldest of the surviving school albums certainly dates from the early 1920s and probably shows the corner of the arts and crafts room (the pre-1965 woodwork room) used as a composing room until 1922. The workshop scene depicted is noticeably informal and improvisatory. A boy is composing type from cases roughly placed on a sideboard, the upper case propped up against the window frame.

The printing room in 1936, then five years old, showing the original layout.

There are at least two photographs of printing at Coniston, where the press was set up in a garage belonging to the Waterhead Hotel whence the school was evacuated in 1940. One is printed in Dearden’s Printing at Coniston, 1958, and shows Stedman supervising two boys working the Albion, while another boy apparently sets type. (Another, rather less informative photograph taken on the same occasion appeared in the illustrated supplement to the school newspaper, Christmas 1942.)

The printing room, 1950

In 1950, Picture Post - of whose publishers Hulton Press, John Pearse was by now general manager - sent a photographer to the school to record various activities. These images were to accompany the piece about Bembridge in an article by Ruth Bowley, ‘Shall I pay for my child’s education?’ published on 28th January. But in the event none of the photographs of printing were used. Copies were obtained by the school, however, and one was published in the spring number of the school newspaper. It shows ‘Hope, Tweed and B. Miller’ operating the Albion, still in the far left-hand corner of the printing room (as seen from the door), but now against a slightly altered background to that of 1936. (Among the school records there is another, unpublished photograph from the same session showing the boys failing to hold a sober, workmanlike pose.)

Roughly contemporary with the Picture Post photographs are two, very amateur, snaps of the same corner of the printing room. They’re chiefly notable for the mess they show, and in one, the parlous state of the covering of the tympan, which looks to be in shreds.

The printing room in the early 1950s

Unfortunately, there is a dearth of photographs after the 1950s, which makes it difficult to trace the changes in the layout of the printing room before that more spacious and familiar arrangement, established for many years, which followed the expansion of floor-space after the opening of the adjoining Whitehouse Memorial Building in 1965.  There is, however, a photograph of the last Printer, Jim Dearden, taken in situ, in 1964. The view of the printing room is towards the opposite corner to that just described, including the door, and shows the stone centrally placed, with composing frames to left and right. The presses (there was the treadle platen as well as the Albion by then) would have been behind the camera.*

The cover of The Small Printer, June 1966

In a rather frustrating photograph published on the cover of the Small Printer in 1966 we can see the Albion in its new position, immediately to the right as one entered the printing room - and just visible is part of the stud-frame wall of the corner office where one would go to pick up a composing stick and a strip of copy, customarily laid out on the stone. But the picture’s not at all clear, as the background has been deliberately obscured to make a diagram of the Albion, the main purpose of the image.

After 1988 printing was moved to two rooms which were part of the former coach house or stable block belonging to the hotel which became School (and later) Old House. But except for a second or two of promotional video made in 1993, no photographs are known.

Not all graphic images of the Yellowsands Press were made with a camera, however. There are at least two pupil-executed cuts of the press, or ideas of the press. Imperfectly designed, but nonetheless arresting, is Geoffrey Kadleigh’s linocut from the mid-1930s. Then there is the more traditional representation, echoing the earliest historical images of the wooden hand-press, which adorned the cover of the school newspaper at Christmas 1952. Finally, we must not forget the excellent device, most familiar from the colophon to the Nine Lessons & Carols orders of service, introduced in the mid-1960s.

Linocut by G. Kadleigh, from the mid-1930s.

* Two photos from 1964 have recently (April 2020) come to light showing the position of the presses at the far end of the printing room. The Albion was then more centrally placed than before, presumably to make room for the Printer's desk which was in front of the window on the far left. The treadle platen can be seen in its original position on the far right. (Thanks to Mike Conder.)

The Yellowsands Press collection at the Ruskin Library, University of Lancaster

Compiled in November 2016

These items belong to the Education Trust Ltd., the former owners of Bembridge School, Isle of Wight. They are in the care of the Ruskin Library where they were taken as material for the exhibition Keeper of the flame, 2005, a celebration of the Ruskin collector and founder of Bembridge School, John Howard Whitehouse (1873-1955). They are not catalogued by the Ruskin Library.

Unless otherwise described, all items are crown octavo, 7 ½ x 5” (or thereabouts) and wire-stitched in wrappers.

1919

Bembridge School Newspaper 1:1 – 74:220, 1919-92, bound in 40 vols, 4to, half red morocco or red cloth, and Bembridge School Newspaper 1993-94, 75^th Anniversary [edition]. All published. J.H. Whitehouse’s copy.

1920

John Masefield, John Ruskin. Printed by Howard Whitehouse and Edward Daws…8 April 1920. 11 x 8 ¾”. Pp. [i], 10. 149/150 copies. Unstitched and uncut. No cover.

1921

John Masefield,  A Foundation Day Address, 1921. 7 ½ x 4 ¼”. 250 copies printed in December 1921. Pp.[iv],6. Cover same as text paper. Sewn.

The Ruskin Museum, Catalogue of an Exhibition of Arts and Crafts to be held from October 5^th to December 17^th 1921. Bembridge, 1921. 8 ¼ x 5 ¼”. 4pp. leaflet. ? Front page printed by YP.

1923

[Christmas greeting] Peace. Bembridge School, Christmas 1923. 9 x 6”. 4pp. leaflet. Wood engraving by Geoffrey Eyles.

1926  

Richard B. Miles, The Manufacture of Soap. Printed by Barry Grinsell, John Pearce and David Rendall. November 1926. Pp. [i], 10. Sewn.

1927  

Doreen Salisbury Simpson, Market and Other Poems. Printed by John Pearce, David Rendall and Brian Wright. March 1927. Pp. [v], 16. Sewn.

A.W.R. Miller, Florina. Printed by John Pearce, David Rendall and Brian Wright. June 1927. Pp. [ii], 7. Sewn.

1928  

Stanley Baldwin, The Bible. 1928. Pp. [iv], 9. 17/150 copies. An address given to the British and Commonwealth Bible Society at Queen’s Hall, May 2^nd, 1928. No cover.

1929  

Alastair W.R. Miller, Medley, being Poetry, Parody and Prose. Printed by A. & R.Doncaster, R.Ewan and P.Grinsell, 1929. Pp. 16. Uncut in wrapper with MS title.

 ______ another copy, without wrapper.

?1930

May Valentine, printed wrapper only. Laid in is an AL addressed to ‘Jim’ [Dearden] from ‘Richard’ [? Lancaster] concerning identity of author, possible date and printers involved.

1931 

[Christmas greeting] To wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, Christmas 1931. 4pp. leaflet.

1932  

Leofric Temple, Two Sonnets. Printed by Anthony Doncaster and Leslie Williams …June 1932. Pp. [4]. French-fold. Wrapper with MS title.

1933  

[J.H. Whitehouse, Ed.] Bembridge School Hymn Book, 1933. Pp. [188]. Blue cloth (by the OUP bindery). The copy described in the 1969 bibliography has 226pp.

Some Modern Poems. Printed…by R. and M. Doncaster, L. Williams, and R. Showell, 1933. Pp. [iii], 12. Uncut. Wrapper with MS title. Includes poems by Robert Bridges, Wilfrid Gibson, Walter de la Mare, W.H. Davies, John Masefield, Ralph Hodgson, Rupert Brooke and Thomas Hardy.

______ another copy, without wrapper, most of the poems struck through in blue pencil.

1935

Bembridge School Records. 1935. Pp. vii, 26.

Brochure of Brantwood [?c.1935]. 10 x 7 ½”. 4pp. leaflet. A short description of the house and grounds followed by notes (and the tariff) for visitors, signed ‘C.C. Moss for The Brantwood Trust’.

The Brantwood Estate. The home of John Ruskin. Printed at the Yellowsands Press…Isle of Wight, n.d. [c.1935]. 10 x 6”. 4pp. leaflet. Contents similar to above.

1936  

Bembridge Verse. June 1936. Pp.24.

1939

Bembridge School Records. 2nd. ed., June 1939. Pp. [ix], 17-18, 16-20, 5-15, 1-4, 21-31.  

1942  

J.Howard Whitehouse, Wartime Christmas. Coniston, 1942. Pp. [11]. Cover same as text paper. Another copy seen has a grey wrapper.

c.1955

[Stedman, T.M.] The Ruskin Gallery…being part of the collection made by John Howard Whitehouse, Esq., and consisting mainly of drawings by John Ruskin. N.d. [?1955]. Pp. [12]. Wire-stitched without wrappers.

1958  

James S. Dearden, Printing at Coniston. June 1958. Pp.[iii], xiv. 4pp. half-tones.

1959

[Dearden, J.S.] Arthur Severn, R.I., 20-31 March 1959 [exhibition catalogue]. Printed at the…27 February 1959. Pp. [7]. Wire-stitched without wrappers.

Marshall Druce, The Yellowsands Press or the Printing Room to you. Printed at the…May 1959. Pp. [7]. 13/25 copies. Reprinted from BSN 40:119.

1960

James S. Dearden, Ruskin, Oil-Painter. With a note on a newly-discovered example of his work. 1960. 8 x 5”. Pp. [4]. Sepia print laid in.

Stray Thoughts from Shell. 1960. Pp.[15].

1961 

T.L.M. Errington, Beeslack in the County of Midlothian. 1961. Pp.[iv],6. 41/50 copies …finished 1 June 1961.

[Dearden, J.S.] Illumination and Lettering. Ruskin Galleries. [Exhibition catalogue]. Autumn 1961. Pp.[15].

1962  

Bound volume of Nine Lessons & Carols service booklets, 1962-77.  7 x 4 ¾”. 450-500 copies.

1963  

In Memoriam, Niel Rocke: An address given in Bembridge School Chapel on 7 July 1963. October 1963. Pp.6. 100 copies reprinted from BSN.

1964  

Toshio Otsuki, Poetry in Japan. N.d. [February 1964]. 8vo. Pp. [7]. Linocut background block. Printed in red, pink and black. Japanese vellum covers. 30 copies.

[J.H. Whitehouse]  Facsimile of a letter addressed to Fridjof Nansen, April 1928. November 1964. One of 12 copies. Pp.[6]. Sewn.

John Ruskin, A Ride in Wales. 1964. 9 x 5 ¾”. Pp. [10]. 25 copies.

1966  

Nine Lessons & Carols. A service to be held in Bembridge School chapel, Christmas 1966. Pp. [18]. 500 copies.

1967

[Dearden, J.S.] Catalogue of the Drawings by John Ruskin on Permanent Exhibition in the Ruskin Gallery, Bembridge School.  May 1967. Pp.10. 250 copies.

[Order of service] Thanks be to God 18 June 1967. Pp. [8]. Printed in black and three colours. 425 copies printed.

Order of the Service to be held…on 16 September 1967 for the Wedding of Kirsteen Morrison and Derek Morris. 175 copies printed…August 1967. 9 x 5 ¾”. Pp. [8]. Printed in black and three colours. Imitation parchment wrappers.

James S. Dearden, Books from John Ruskin’s Library, Brantwood. 1967. Pp.12.

Nine Lessons & Carols. 1967. Pp. [16]. 500 copies.

1968

Order of the Service to be held…on 20 April 1968 for the Wedding of Jeannette Glasspell and David Couling. 175 copies printed…April 1968. 9 x 5 ¾”. Pp. [8]. Printed in black and three colours. Imitation parchment wrappers.

[Order of service] Praise to the Lord 8 June 1968. 8vo. Pp. [8]. Printed in black and red.

Nine Lessons & Carols. 1968. Pp. [16]. 500 copies.

1969

[Dearden J.S.]  A Yellowsands Bibliography, 1919-1969. Bembridge, 1969. Pp. 21. 250 copies printed…May 1969. Two copies. Laid into one is J.S. Dearden, Printing at Bembridge School, January 1965. 8pp. Printed by M.J. Conder at Totland Bay ‘for the ISPA bundle’ – the International Small Printers’ Association was the forerunner of the British Printing Society.

[Programme] Foundation Days 1969. 4pp. leaflet.

Bembridge School 1919-1969. A service of thanksgiving, 11 July 1969. 9 x 5 ¾”. Pp. [8]. 700 copies printed…June 1969. Printed in black and three colours. Imitation parchment wrappers, gilt-stamped.

[Ann Rendall]  Little Chippings. Printed by E.S. Rendall at the…Bembridge School [1969]. Pp. [12]. 28/32 copies. Simon Rendall is the son of the then headmaster, Peter Rendall. Simon was not a pupil at Bembridge but used the printing room during the school holidays.

Nine Lessons & Carols. 1969. Pp.[15]. 500 copies.

1970

P.C. Ensom, Tertiary Fauna of Whitecliff Bay, Isle of Wight, 1966-1970. 1970. Pp. 13. Pupil project.

Paul Roche, Lament for Erica. The Yellowsands Press. 8 x 4 ¼”. Pp. [5]. 100 copies printed by E.S. Rendall…September 1970.

[Order of service] Bembridge School 7 June 1970 [The Kingdom of God: A series of hymns & readings of which all the words are ascribed to Jesus]. 10 x 5 ½”. Pp. [8]. Printed in black and red.

Nine Lessons & Carols. 1970. Pp. [15]. 500 copies.

1971

George Herbert, Easter Wings, 1971. 6 x 4”. Pp. [3]. 30 copies.

[Order of service] Bembridge School Chapel 6 June 1971. Pp. [8]. Printed in black and red. Wire-stitched without wrappers.

Nine Lessons & Carols. 1971. Pp. [15]. 500 copies.

1972

Bembridge School Chapel. Order of the Service for the Unveiling of the New Old Bembridgians Memorial on Remembrance Sunday 1972. 9 x 5 ½”. Pp. [12]. Printed in black, purple and gold. Imitation parchment wrappers.

Nine Lessons & Carols. 1972. Pp. [12]. Wire-stitched without wrappers. 500 copies.

1973

Paul Carter, Before Cold Mountain. 1973. 8 ¾ x 5 ½”. Pp. 24. Printed for the author [by Simon Rendall].

John Sparrow, S. Maria della Salute, 1973. 7 x 4”. Pp. [7]. Printed by Simon Rendall. 50 copies / out of series. Black wrappers with printed label. Sewn. The published copies were issued in a full blue leather portfolio.

Nine Lessons & Carols. 1973. Pp. [16]. Wire-stitched without wrappers. 500 copies.

1974

Nine Lessons & Carols. 1974. Pp. [15]. No colophon.

_______ another copy.

1975

Nine Lessons & Carols. 1975. Pp. [16]. Wire-stitched without wrappers. 450 copies.

1976

F.W. Sander, A Foundation Day Address…delivered in the chapel of Bembridge School on the day of his retirement, 11 July 1976. Easter Term, 1977. Pp.8. Pink card covers. 2 copies.

Nine Lessons & Carols. 1976. Pp. [15]. Wire-stitched without wrappers. 450 copies.

1977

Old Bembridgians Association, Constitution, Objects & Rules, 1977. 5 x 3 ¾”. Pp. 8. Wrappers.

Bembridge School Annual Concert 5 March 1977. 10 x 5 ½”. 4pp. leaflet

Bembridge School Chapel 6 March 1977. Order of Service. 4pp. leaflet. Printed in black and red.

R. Hadley, Aviation over the Isle of Wight, 1977. Pp. [i], xiii. Pupil project.

Edward Woolgar, No place like Coniston. Bembridge, 1977. 8 ¾ x 5 ½”. Pp. [vii,5]. Card covers. Stapled.

Nine Lessons & Carol. 1977. Pp [15]. Wire-stitched without wrappers. 450 copies.

1978

David Sturman, Dear Reader. Bembridge, 1978. Pp. [16]. 50 copies printed. 2 copies. Pupil project.

Nine Lessons & Carols. 1978. Pp. [15]. Wire-stitched without wrappers. 450 copies.

1979  

Order of the Service to be held…on 31 March 1979 for the Wedding of Adele Margaret Whitby and Simon Jeremy Harding. 150 copies printed…February 1979.  9 x 5 ¾”. Printed in black and three colours. Pp. [8]. Imitation parchment wrappers.

1980

Fanny Talbot, A Visit to Brantwood. Bembridge: The Ruskin Association, 1980. Pp.[10].

Simon van den Begin, Niton. The Yellowsands Press, 1980. Pp. iii, 12. Pupil project.

Nine Lessons & Carols. 1980. Pp. [15]. Wire-stitched without wrappers. 45o copies.

1981

Bembridge School Prospectus, rev. ed., 1981. Pp.16.

Joan Plane (Ed.) The Bembridge Collectanea, 1981. Pp. [iii],11. A collection of household hints and ‘cures’.

Nine Lessons & Carols. 1981. Pp. [12]. Wire-stitched without wrappers. 400 copies.

1982

An address given at the service of remembrance for F.W. (Sammy) Sander by the headmaster on Sunday 28 June 1981 in Bembridge School Chapel. February 1982. 950 copies printed.

Order of the Service to be held…on 31 July 1982 for the Wedding of Geraldine Pamela Browne and Trevor Robert Whitby. 120 copies printed…May 1982. 9 x 5 ¾”, Pp. [8]. Printed in red and black. Imitation parchment wrappers.

Order of the Service to be held…on 25 August 1982 for the Wedding of Sarah Jane Dearden & William James Washington. 175 copies printed…March – April 1982. 9 x 5 ¾”. Pp. [8]. Printed in black and three colours. Imitation parchment wrappers.

Nine Lessons & Carols. 1983. Pp. [12]. Wire-stitched without wrappers. 350 copies.

1984  

Order of the Service held prior to the First Sitting in the Law Year 1984-5 of the Crown Court of the Isle of Wight on Monday 1 October 1984. Pp. [8]. Stapled without wrappers.

Nine Lessons & Carols. 1984. Pp. [12]. Wire-stitched without wrappers. 375 copies ‘printed by M.J. Harrison, Christmas Term, 1984’.

1985

Nine Lessons & Carols. 1985. Pp. [12]. Wire-stitched without wrappers. 385 copies.  

1986 

Nine Lessons & Carols. 1986. Pp. [12]. Wire-stitched without wrappers. 400 copies.

1987  

A Special Service held prior to the First Sitting of the Crown Court 1987-88…on Monday 5 October 1987. 8vo. Pp. [8]. Wire-stitched without wrappers.

Nine Lessons & Carols. 1987. Pp. [12]. Wire-stitched without wrappers. 400 copies.

1993

The Dream Alive. Tennyson Anthology for People in Prison. Bembridge 1993.            9 x 5 ¾”. Pp. [vi], 11. 200 copies printed in the Autumn Term 1993. Plain card cover. The last work printed at the Yellowsands Press. Unfinished. A collection of poems by local prisoners following a competition, judged by Ted Hughes, organised by Isle of Wight Independent Arts.