Alternate Subtitle(s)

• A Journal of the Graphic arts; Stationery and Fancy Trades Gazette; with which are Incorporated The British Bookmaker and British Lithographer (journal itself)

Related Journals

• British Bookmaker
  • Absorbed The British Bookmaker in 1894
• British Lithographer
  • Incorporated The British Lithographer either in August/September of 1895 (Shep) or January/February of 1900 (Stewart)

Start Date(s)

• 1888 (journal itself)

End Date(s)

• 1915 (NSTC )

Editor(s)

• Hilton, Robert
• Whetton, Harry

Printer/Publisher(s)

• Raithby, Lawrence, & Co.

City

• London, England (journal itself)

Circulation Count

• 3000 (Roberts)

Type of Content

• Information about design and technical branches (Catalogue p. 12)
• The British Printer "was published every other month and specialized in educational material, examples of jobbing work, practical hints for compositors and pressmen, biographies and portraits of eminent printers, topical items of interest and reports of the British Typographia for which it had now become its official mouthpiece” (Brewer p. 39)
• Advertised in Photograms of the Year: "The Educator of the Craft. Always Up-to-date: Contains Portraits and Biographies of Eminent Printers -- Specimen Jobs in Colour and Monochrome -- Fine Art Picture Supplements -- Instructive Technical Papers -- Valuable Hints and Trade Information -- Reports of the Technical Classes and of the progress of Technical Education for Printers"; a journal for the printing trades" (Waterloo Online)

Notes

• Motto: "Such as would excel in art must excel in industry"
• Official journal of the British Typographia" (vols 1-4)
• Subtitle varies: vol. 1, no. 2-6 (Mar/Apr-Nov/Dec 1888) = The British Printer, Stationery and Fancy Trades Gazette
• Incorporated The British Lithographer (vol. 8, no. 73, January-February 1900), and later (in 1894) absorbed The British Bookmaker (Stewart vol. 1, p. 423); Shep contends these two journals were absorbed into The British Printer (along with a third, The Counting House) in 1894-95 (Shep, "British Printer")
• "The British Printer appears in response to a widely expressed desire among British printers to possess an organ of their own which shall represent the higher aspirations of the craft in the manner so ably illustrated by such worthy exponents of all that is good and artistic in typography as The American Model Printer, and more recently by The Modern Printer, The American Art Printer, and The Superior Printer. . . . The growing interest in fine work amongst the craft and the unceasing demand by the public for new and novel styles are stimulating, the latent talent of our printers, with the result that the standard of taste and execution has been realised in a most gratifying manner" ("Salutatory" vol. 1. no. 1, p. 1)
• Raithby & Lawrence and their works' manager George Jones "were enthusiasts for the new style in jobbing which their journal set out to encourage"--Hilton was editor from 1888-95, and he was followed by Harry Whetton, "a leading printer-journalist, who occupied the editorial chair for forty-eight years. Under the leadership of R. S. Hutchings, one of our leading authorities on type history, The British Printer, which had previously appeared six times a year, became a monthly and a world-wide medium of modern printing practices" (Berry and Poole p. 261)
• “Ere the valedictory number of The Modern Printer had reached the craft, two new art printing journals--both destined to affect the typography of this country, one in a pre-[34] eminent degree--had been inaugurated in order that technically there should more ‘lyght be’: The American Art Printer in January 1887, and The British Printer in the same month of 1888” (Joyner pp. 33-34)
• “Coincidentally with The American Art Printer, it [The British Printer] was founded on the lines of a predecessor, the size and literary arrangement being similar to The Modern Printer. In addition, however, to being a two-monthly instead of a quarterly journal, The British Printer possessed another advantage over its prototype, in that American, German, and English material were brought into combination in its production” (Joyner p. 34)
• “‘Americo-German’ was the predominating style of the early numbers of The British Printer” (Joyner p. 35)
• “Some six months later--January-February, 1889--The British Printer again referred to the ‘wonderfully taking new style of design’ that Mr. Jones had inaugurated, and assisted its promotion by giving examples” (Joyner p. 36)
• “Excellent work was being done in some few well-known houses; but the influences operating to higher attainments in the art were not widespread, and the task of practical demonstration, necessary to a general acceptance by the craft of a more artistic system of typography, devolved upon the new journal” (Joyner p. 38)
• “The first issue of the ‘BP’ was produced by fewer than a dozen people including ‘improvers,’ apprentices and girls. The inside pages were printed on the demy cylinder, a ‘Wharfedale’ and the cover on a newly-acquired platen. Wharfedales were the work-horses of the printing industry for many years. . . . In its Editorial entitled ‘Salutatory,’ The British Printer was to announce itself with the artless pride and boundless self-confidence of the era that ‘in response to a widely expressed desire among British printers to possess an organ of their own which shall represent the higher aspirations of the craft in the manner so ably illustrated by such worthy exponents of all that is good and artistic in typography as The American Model Printer, The Art Printer and The Superior Printer’” (Brewer p. 41)
• Publisher's address, early: Queen Street, Leicester
• Publisher's address, later: 1 Imperial Buildings, Ludgate Circus, London (BTL19)

Subject Categories

• Advertising
• Book Trade News
• Commercial Art
• Design
• Fine Art
• Lithography
• Paper & Stationery
• Printing History
• Printing Trade
• Trade Unions
• Typography

Issues

• The British Printer 1.1 (Jan.-Feb. 1888)
• The British Printer 1.2 (Mar.-Apr. 1888)
• The British Printer 1.3 (May-June 1888)
• The British Printer 1.4 (July-Aug. 1888)
• The British Printer 1.5 (Sept.-Oct. 1888)
• The British Printer 1.6 (Nov.-Dec. 1888)
• The British Printer 2.7 (Jan.-Feb. 1889)
• The British Printer 2.8 (Mar.-Apr. 1889)
• The British Printer 2.9 (May-June 1889)
• The British Printer 2.10 (July-Aug. 1889)
• The British Printer 2.11 (Sept.-Oct. 1889)
• The British Printer 2.12 (Nov.-Dec. 1889)
• The British Printer 3.13 (Jan.-Feb. 1890)
• The British Printer 3.14 (Mar.-Apr. 1890)
• The British Printer 3.15 (May-June 1890)
• The British Printer 3.16 (July-Aug. 1890)
• The British Printer 3.17 (Sept.-Oct. 1890)
• The British Printer 3.18 (Nov.-Dec. 1890)
• The British Printer 4.19 (Jan.-Feb. 1891)
• The British Printer 4.20 (Mar.-Apr. 1891)
• The British Printer 4.21 (May-June 1891)
• The British Printer 4.22 (July-Aug. 1891)
• The British Printer 4.23 (Sept.-Oct. 1891)
• The British Printer 4.24 (Nov.-Dec. 1891)
• The British Printer 5.25 (Jan.-Feb. 1892)
• The British Printer 5.26 (Mar.-Apr. 1892)
• The British Printer 5.27 (May-June 1892)
• The British Printer 5.28 (July-Aug. 1892)
• The British Printer 5.29 (Sept.-Oct. 1892)
• The British Printer 5.30 (Nov.-Dec. 1892)
• The British Printer 6.31 (Jan.-Feb. 1893)
• The British Printer 6.32 (Mar.-Apr. 1893)
• The British Printer 6.33 (May-June 1893)
• The British Printer 6.34 (July-Aug. 1893)
• The British Printer 6.35 (Sept.-Oct. 1893)
• The British Printer 6.36 (Nov.-Dec. 1893)

Sources that Discuss this Journal

• BLT19
• Berry and Poole p. 261
• Brewer p. 39, 41
• Brown and Stratton p. 246
• COPAC
• Joyner pp. 33-38
• "Milestone One" p. 82
• Mitchell’s 1895 p. 208
• NSTC
• Roberts p. 36
• Shattock p. 52
• Shep, "British Printer"
• Stewart vol. 1, p. 423

Works Cited

• Berry, W. Turner, and H. Edmund Poole. Annals of Printing: A Chronological Encyclopedia from the Earliest Times to 1950. Blandford P, 1966.
• BLT19 Trade and Professional Press Database 1900. Created by Andrew King, 2020.
• Brewer, Roy. 1776-1876 Raithby Lawrence & Co. 1876-1976: De Montfort Press. De Montfort Press, 1976.
• Brown, Peter, and George B. Stratton. World List of Scientific Periodicals Published in the Years 1900-1960. 4 vols. Butterworths, 1963.
• COPAC: Consortium of Online Public Access Catalogues. Library Hub Discover, JISC.
• Joyner, George. Fine Printing: Its Inception, Development, and Practice. Cooper and Budd, 1895.
• "Milestone One." The British Printer, vol. 76, no. 2, Feb. 1963, pp. 81-85.
• Mitchell’s Newspaper Press Directory and Advertiser’s Guide. C. Mitchell, 1895.
• NSTC (Nineteenth-Century Short Title Catalogue), in C19: The Nineteenth-Century Index, Chadwyck-Heaney, 2020. ProQuest.
• Roberts, Helene E. “British Art Periodicals of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.” Victorian Periodicals Newsletter, no. 9, 1970, pp. 1–183. JSTOR.
• Shattock, Joanne. The Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature. Vol. 4: 1800-1900. Edited by Frederick W. Bateson. 3rd ed. Cambridge UP. 1999.
• Shep, Sydney J. “The British Printer.” Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century Journalism, Updated online edition, 2014. C19 Index.
• Stewart, James D., editor. British Union-Catalogue of Periodicals. 4 vols. Butterworths, 1968.