The Private Press Movement


Guild of Handicraft

Charles R Ashbee who is an architect, graphic designer, jeweler and silversmith founded the Guild of Handicraft in 1888. This Guild was highly doubted by William Morris, but reached success regardless.  Its School of Handicraft unified the teaching of deign and theory with workshop experience. It sought to restore holistic apprenticeship.  Unfortunately it disbanded on 30 January 1895.

The Guild continued to exist in agreement where the workers shared governance and profits. Socialism and the Arts and Crafts Movement inspired the designers of the Guild of Handicraft. In 1902 the Guild moved to a rural village in London called Chipping Camden. Ashbee tried to turn the village in to communal society of workers. All the expenses associated with this move drove the guild to voluntary bankruptcy in 1907. Ashbee wasn’t too devastated by this loss as he was able to just return to his architectural firm that was left dormant the past  2 decades.  Although Ashbee was the leading follower of Ruskin and Morris’s philosophies, he became a major English voice for integrating art and industry. 

Essex House

This firm was leased by the Guild in 1890 and was set in an old Georgian mansion in a shabby and desolate area. When the Kelmscott Press disbanded in 1898 Ashbee fought to move Essex House into the Kelmscott building. But when Ashbee found out the William Morris requested for the woodblocks he designed for the Kelmscott Press to be sent to the British Museum after he died and not to be used for a 100 years, he gave up on that initial battle. As an alternative he hired personnel from the former Kelmscott Press and bought all the available equipment to eventually form the Essex House Press.

This press produced its renowned masterpiece, The Psalter, in 1902. It was written in English vernacular text. Ashbee developed a graphic program for each Psalm consisting of roman numerals, Latin titles in red capitals, English descriptive titles in black capitals, woodcut initials and body text and the verses were separated with ornamental red leafs.

Charles R. Ashbee, page from the Essex House Psalter, 1902.
Hand‑cut woodblock initials, calligraphic type, handmade paper, and hand‑press
 printing combine to recreate the quality of the incunabula.

Roycroft Press and Shops.

After meeting and being inspired by William Morris, Elbert Hubbard established the Roycroft Press (printing) and Roycroft Shops (handicraft) in New York in 1894.  The Roycroft community became a tourist attraction where 400 employees produced furniture, copperware, leather goods and printed material. The books, booklets and 2 magazines produced by the Roycroft Press resembled the Kelmscott volumes.
Elbert Hubbard died in 1915 but the Roycroft community only closed down in 1938.

Critics claimed that Hubbard tarnished the Arts and Crafts movement and was an obnoxious imitator of Morris. In contrast to these harsh statements, Roycroft’s followers thought that he brought beauty into the lives of ordinary people.

Louis Rhead, title page for The Essay on Walt Whitman, 1900.
The Roycroft Press commissioned this design from a prominent graphic designer.    


Eragny Press

Lucien and, his wife, Esther Pissarro established the Eragny Press in 1894.  Lucien learned to draw from the renowned Camille Pissarro (his father) and apprenticed as a wood engraver and illustrator for Auguste Lepère. Lucien and his wife collaborated on designing, wood engraving and the printing their books. Each of these had about 3-4 woodblock prints based in Lucien’s drawings. Nicholas Jenson inspired their type design and in addition to the norm, the Pissarros  were inspired by past and present book designs. Hence they combined the traditional sensibility of the Private Press Movement with the blossoming Art Nouveau movement and expressionism.

Lucien and Esther Pissarro, pages from Ishtar’s Descent to the Nether World, 1903.
Image, color, and ornament combine to generate an intense expressionistic energy.

Ashendene Press

G.H. St. John Hornby of London established the Ashendene Press in 1895. It proved to be an exceptional private press. Semi-Gothic types inspired the typeface designed for this press. It had a ringing elegance and straightforward legibility with modest weight differences between thick and thin strokes. It also appeared slightly compressed

C. H. St. John Hornby, pages from Saint Francis of Assisi’s Legend, 1922.
A liberal use of all-capital type and initial words printed in color
brought distinction to Ashendene Press page layouts

Doves Press

In 1900 T.J. Gobden-Sanderson and Emery Walker established the Doves Press in Hammersmith. Their goal for this Press was to “attack the problem of pure typography” with the view that “the whole duty of typography is to communicate to the imagination, without loss of the thought or image intended to be conveyed by the author.”
In 1903, the Doves Press produced a remarkably beautiful book called the Doves Press Bible. It had no illustrations or ornaments, was produced on fine paper, displayed perfect presswork, exquisite type and spacing. Edward Johnston was hired to design the Bible’s striking initials. Johnston was a master calligrapher. Inspired by William Morris, he left his medical studies to become not only a scribe, but also a major influence on the art of letters.

T.J. Cobdem-Sanderson and Emery Walker, pages from the Doves Press Bible, 1903.
This book’s purity of design and flawless perfection of craft have seldom been equaled. 


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