On The Inky Shoulders Of Giants

An introduction from Bell House historian Sharon O’Connor:

“I know Simon and Tania won’t blow their own trumpet about the amazing event last Sunday so I am going to! 

As part of London Open House, the Stationers’ Company opened their building to the public on Sunday 22 September and in what we believe is a historic first, our volunteers Simon and Tania were actually printing in the livery hall! They spent a hectic day printing the ingenious matchbook almanacs, designed by Tania, and talking nonstop about Bell House. 

They also had a lovely display about what goes on at the house. I joined them late in the day but early enough to see that many more people now know about Bell House. 

The Stationers were of course blown away by the matchbox almanacs and by the attention Simon and Tania got - Simon has reiterated our standing invitation for them to visit Bell House. 

Bell House has a strong connection to the Stationers as the man who built the house, Thomas Wright, was a Master of the Stationers’ Livery Company and printer of almanacs himself. More on him here: https://www.bellhouse.co.uk/wright-family. 

We have two miniature almanacs from Thomas Wright’s day which can be viewed on request and at our monthly open days.”

Simon Trewin tells us more…

Bell House’s Print Room & Bindery went to The Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers on Sunday September 21st to take part in an exhibition of fine books & hand bookbinding held as part of a city-wide initiative called Open House London. We were honoured to be with the Royal Bookbindery and to make friends (and swap tips!) with them during the day and to meet the team from the charity Bounds By Veterans and to hear more about the incredible work they do teaching heritage crafts to former servicemen and women suffering from PTSD.

For our part - the brilliant Tania Hurt-Newton, my partner in print at our Bell House Print Room & Bindery, designed a beautiful miniature Matchbox Almanack containing a potted history of the Stationers’ Company relationship to this wonderful part of publishing history. We printed various pages of our Alamanack in the 17th century Great Hall itself (on top of a 300 year olf table!) and made up little kits for many of the 650 visitors to take home to assemble themselves.

We also brought along some precious Almanacks from our archive and some magnifying glasses to get people to wonder at the  highly legible typesetting of tiny metal type. People were almost disbelieving at how advanced precision engineering was 350 years and were also fascinated at the thought that Bell House was built for the  Master of the Stationers’ Company in 1777. All that connective tissue made of ink, history and ritual was awe-inspiring for us all.

It was also astonishing ‘back to the future’ moment to think that Thomas Wright had very probably stood on exactly the same spot, on the SAME FLOORBOARDS no less, where I set up our stall with Tania and where we inked up our presses.  I even wondered out loud to the current Master - Paul Wilson, as we presented him with a copy of our Matchbox Almanac, as to whether we might have been the only people ever to have been allowed to print in the Great Hall. We are all going to do some research on that front and will report back...

AND COURSE we couldn’t resist being photographed in front of the stained-glass window that shows William Caxton with his press and his assistant Wynkyn De Worde. We liked the thought of WC and WdW looking down jealously on our humble but brilliant Adana 8x5 SELF-INKING press.

A great day out and the beginning, I hope, of a deeper relationship between my Livery company and a rather special Georgian mansion in Dulwich Village… 

Bell House Pottery - The First Year - A Volunteer’s View

It’s August. The first year of the pottery’s life is completed, and it is closed and quiet for a month whilst tutors have a well-earned rest.  

I say ‘quiet’ but I doubt it has been quiet at all. There is always something going on at the pottery - work never seems to stop. I’m sure tutors are, in fact, getting ready for September, and I see that a lovely new forecourt has been installed since classes stopped for the summer.

I started as a volunteer before the building of the studio was even completed so I have seen it transformed from a roofless structure to the beautiful, airy space it has become. There are further developments to look forward to all the time, such as new garden planting nearby and outdoor seating to enjoy in the future months.

My role, which I fell into almost by accident, has turned out to be interesting and rewarding. Becoming part of the Bell House Pottery Committee has meant working with a talented and committed group which believes in the importance and value of individual creativity, and in providing opportunities for people to be involved in a practical and personal way. Through the bursary places and the ‘Let’s clay together’ programme there are free or low-cost courses available to people in the community who could not otherwise afford it. I have found the effort and commitment of those who envisaged the project and are now leading it, very impressive.

The tasks I have helped with might sound mundane in some ways: taking minutes at the monthly planning meetings; putting forward a volunteer’s point of view; being an extra adult helper at some classes; helping in practical ways or at open events. However the volunteer role has given me the opportunity to think about things new to me, and to meet an entirely new set of people. I’ve even enjoyed mopping the floors after a few particularly messy courses, thanks to the friendly conversations with tutors and participants while clearing up is going on.  As a former teacher, I’ve particularly liked seeing young people having great fun while trying a new skill which is not available in every school. 

Highlights of the year for me have been the opening of the pottery studio itself, the enthusiasm of people for the place and the courses, the hundreds of visitors during Dulwich Open House, and the Christmas events and party. 

I’ve also sampled some of the courses myself. First a two hour taster session, which many people reading this will have tried. I went along with two friends. There was much laughter at the time and even more when we collected our pots - they were tiny - but at least they looked as if they were intended to be pots!

Then I tried two evening sessions involving using slip and decoration techniques. I managed to make some small but passable pots. I began to think that some of my mother’s genes had been passed down to me. Pottery was her hobby and consequently I never thought to try it out. Encouraged by my first ‘magnificent’ pieces, I booked taster sessions for my family as a Christmas present. However they wanted me to come too. We all know the expression “Pride comes before a fall”.  My nephew seemed naturally talented and threw several successful pieces first time. I could not produce a single pot that day! They would all have gone into Brymer Jones’ reject bucket, so I saved him the trouble and threw them in myself. But it was a great Christmas present for us all to enjoy together.

After such dismal failure will I go back again?

Even as a beginner, there is something absorbing, fascinating and even therapeutic in the process of handling clay. Sometimes the pots seem to want to build themselves, it feels natural, but that day the clay seemed to resist my efforts to create anything at all recognisable, except a mess.

I have to go back to face the challenge.

I want two vaguely similar soup bowls by the end of this year.

Jacqui Pick, Aug 2024

Theft at Bell House

On Saturday 2 December 1769, Thomas Wright was the victim of theft in his new house at Dulwich. James Simpson was accused of stealing a woollen coat, value twenty shillings. Wright’s coachman, Rubon Cannicot, gave evidence at the Old Bailey:

The coachhouse where the theft took place

‘I am coachman to Thomas Wright; he lives at Dulwich; our coach was locked up, and the great coat on the coach box. The key was left in the door, on the outside; the yard gate was all fast, and the yard is walled all round; whoever got the coat must get over the wall. I know nothing of the prisoner, I never saw him to my knowledge before I saw him here at the bar, it, (the coat) was missing last Saturday morning.’

Was this the coat stolen from Thomas?

Simpson took the coat to Cheapside, offering it to a clothes-dealer called Hugh Riley. Riley and Simpson then went to a pub in Paternoster-row where Riley offered Simpson fourteen shillings for the coat but would not pay until Simpson could prove it was his to sell. Riley was also a watchman for the City police force and becoming suspicious the coat was stolen, took Simpson to the lord mayor. Rubon Cannicot (the coachman) accurately described the coat to the lord mayor ‘before he saw it’. The prisoner’s defence:

‘My brother was a coachman; I had this coat of him; he was coachman to Mr Hutchinson in Southampton. I offered it to this man; (I) am bricklayer; my brother has been dead some time; I am a Guernsey man.’

Simpson was found guilty and transported to the American colonies. Simpson must have reflected on his bad luck that when he stole a coat five miles from London he then tried to sell it a stone’s throw from Thomas Wright’s business, a place where its livery was likely to be recognised and that the person he offered it to was a member of the City's own police force.