Cobden-Sanderson Binding 1886 The Princess for Mitford

Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson (; 2 December 1840 – 7 September 1922) was an English artist and

bookbinder Bookbinding is the process of physically assembling a book of codex format from an ordered stack of ''signatures'', sheets of paper folded together into sections that are bound, along one edge, with a thick needle and strong thread. Cheaper, b ...

associated with the Arts and Crafts movement.

Life

Sanderson was born in

Alnwick Alnwick ( ) is a market town in Northumberland, England, of which it is the traditional county town. The population at the 2011 Census was 8,116. The town is on the south bank of the River Aln, south of Berwick-upon-Tweed and the Scottish bor ...

, Northumberland. His father, James, was a District Surveyor of taxes, thirteen years younger than his wife, Mary Ann (née Rutherford How). Sanderson attended a number of schools including the Royal Grammar School Worcester before entering Owen's College ( Manchester University) and then

Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...

, Cambridge to study law. He left without taking a degree, and entered

Lincoln's Inn The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of the four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. (The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn.) Lincoln ...

as a barrister. In 1882 he married (Julia Sarah) Anne Cobden, a socialist, and daughter of Richard Cobden, and they both took the surname Cobden-Sanderson. As a friend of

William Morris William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He ...

, Cobden-Sanderson was involved with the

Arts and Crafts A handicraft, sometimes more precisely expressed as artisanal handicraft or handmade, is any of a wide variety of types of work where useful and decorative objects are made completely by one’s hand or by using only simple, non-automated re ...

ideology, and during a dinner party with the Morrises he was persuaded by Morris's wife Jane Burden to take up book-binding. In about 1884 he opened a workshop, abandoning his law practice. In 1887 Cobden-Sanderson suggested a new group be named the "Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society," and in so doing gave the movement its name. His wife was concerned that his interests were too abstract and she encouraged him to become a bookbinder. In 1893 he set up the Doves Bindery in

Hammersmith Hammersmith is a district of West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It is the administrative centre of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, and identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. ...

, London, naming it after a nearby pub, The Dove. It was his wife who took credit for keeping the business running. By 1900 he had established the

Doves Press The Doves Press was a private press based in Hammersmith, London. During nearly seventeen years of operation, the Doves Press produced notable examples of twentieth-century typography. A distinguishing feature of its books was a specially-devised ...

. Emery Walker became a partner in 1900 and oversaw the creation of the

Doves Type The Doves Press was a private press based in Hammersmith, London. During nearly seventeen years of operation, the Doves Press produced notable examples of twentieth-century typography. A distinguishing feature of its books was a specially-devise ...

used for all of their books. They produced a number of letterpress books, including a five-volume Doves Bible. By 1909 Cobden-Sanderson and his partner Emery Walker were at the height of a protracted and bitter dispute involving the rights to the Doves Type in the dissolution of their partnership. As part of the partnership dissolution agreement, all rights to the Doves Type were to pass to Emery Walker upon the death of Cobden-Sanderson. Yet, when the press closed in 1916 Cobden-Sanderson threw the type along with its

punch Punch commonly refers to: * Punch (combat), a strike made using the hand closed into a fist * Punch (drink), a wide assortment of drinks, non-alcoholic or alcoholic, generally containing fruit or fruit juice Punch may also refer to: Places * Pun ...

es and matrices into the

Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...

. In this time, as there was no digitization, destroying the punches and matrices constituted destroying the typeface itself. Until recently the Doves Typeface was thought to have been lost forever. However, a digital version of the typeface was painstakingly recreated by Robert Green from 2010 to 2013. In 2015, after searching the riverbed of the

near Hammersmith Bridge with help from the

Port of London Authority The Port of London Authority (PLA) is a self-funding public trust established on 31 March 1909 in accordance with the Port of London Act 1908 to govern the Port of London. Its responsibility extends over the Tideway of the River Thames and its ...

, Green managed to recover 150 pieces of the original type. Cobden-Sanderson was a friend of

John Russell, Viscount Amberley John Russell, Viscount Amberley (10 December 1842 – 9 January 1876), was a British politician and writer. He was the eldest son of John Russell, who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and father of the philosopher Bertrand ...

and his wife Kate, and made godfather of their son, the

Nobel Prize in Literature ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , caption = , awarded_for = Outstanding contributions in literature , presenter = Swedish Academy , holder = Annie Ernaux (2022) , location = Stockholm, Sweden , year = 1901 , ...

-winning philosopher and activist

Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, ...

; it 'had been long arranged that, boy or girl, (he) was to be godfather'.The Life of Bertrand Russell, Ronald W. Clark, Penguin Books, 1978, pg 424 Amberley had hoped that, in the event of his death, Cobden-Sanderson and the other godfather, biologist D. A. Spalding (who had tutored the Amberleys' children and lived in the household), as staunch atheists, would shield his son from a religious upbringing; after his parents' deaths Bertrand was however taken in by his grandparents, John Russell, 1st Earl Russell (Prime Minister from 1846–52, and again from 1865-6) and his second wife, Frances, daughter of Gilbert Elliot, 2nd Earl of Minto, under threat of legal action.The Life of Bertrand Russell, Ronald W. Clark, Penguin Books, 1978, pg 27-8 When Russell was convicted in 1918 for a public lecture against inviting the United States to participate in the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

on the side of the United Kingdom, Cobden-Sanderson sent an encouraging letter of support ('with old and constant affection') expressing that he wished Russell's mother was alive to see her son's actions, part of what he considered 'a life fitted to the wonderful scene about (Russell)'.

References

External links

* *
T.J. Cobden-Sanderson Collection
at the Harry Ransom Center at the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

* *
The Doves Type
at typespec.co.uk {{DEFAULTSORT:Cobden Sanderson, T.J. Sanderson, T. J. Cobden Sanderson, T. J. Cobden Alumni of the Central School of Art and Design Sanderson, T. J. Cobden Bookbinders Sanderson, T J Cobden Sanderson, T. J. Cobden Private press movement people

Life

References

Further reading

External links