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The story of Caslon Old Style

The story of Caslon as published by Redfield-Kendrick-Odell Co (New York City) in their text A Printed Specimen of the Caslon Old Style Type. Being the first of a series of books showing the many beautiful types in the composing rooms of Redfield-Kendrick-Odell Co., Printers and Map Makers (NY: 1921). Their article was reprinted from the specimen book issued by the Caslon Letter Foundry in England. Below is a verbatim quote.

Caslon has perhaps the most interesting biography of all type faces in general use. From first to last, the narrative of its birth, of its rise and fall and rediscovery, and of its present-day superabundant vitality is touched at every point with real human interest. Its history makes a fascinating page in the Romance of Typography.

Though William Caslon, the man who gave the world this beautiful Roman letter, did not actually "beat his sword into a ploughshare," he did something very like it. Starting in life as an engraver of gun-locks and barrels and making a conspicuous success at that difficult and semi-martial trade, he was fortunately induced to turn his talents to the cutting of English type faces instead, and proved so great a genius at his new profession that his charming old style types set the styles in English and American typography until nearly the close of the Eighteenth century. Thereafter for nearly fifty years his faces suffered an almost total eclipse by the modern Roman letter. Happily resurrected in 1843, they have since steadily grown in favor until today no printer would seriously attempt to do business without being plentifully supplied with the classic Caslon letter.

Two hundred years ago printing was in a bad way in England. Whether due to the repressive and illiberal laws which had prevailed under the Stuarts, or to the lack of ideas and ideals of the type-makers themselves, type-founding was especially in a state of degeneracy. Such type as possessed any merit at all was imported from Holland, and even these Dutch faces had fallen away from the beauty of the Elzevirs.

In this crisis a small group of famous London printers, among whom were William Bowyer and John Watts, cast¬ ing about for some one capable of raising the printing art out of the slough of despond in which it seemed hopelessly mired, hit upon William Caslon as the one likely to succeed. Then in the full flush of ambitious young manhood, the latter, who was born in the west of England in 1692, had added the making of bookbinders' tools and stamps to his regular work of engraving gun-locks and barrels, and it was the fine workmanship of his bookbinders' letters that convinced his printer friends of his ability to cut the type faces of which they were so desperately in need.

Like many another who has achieved distinction in the world, Caslon began in a garret in Helmet Row, Old Street, London. There, with £500 which Bowyer, Watts and a third printer advanced him to make a start with, he set up in the business of type-founder in 1720. Success smiled upon him from the beginning. The exaCt sequence of events in his little establishment is somewhat befogged, but he seems to have cut in that first year a pica Roman and Italic and also to have made at the order of the Society for Pro¬ moting Christian Knowledge a fount of Arabic on English body for use in a Psalter and New Testament, which were published several years later. In 1722, it is related, he cut "the beautiful fount of English," which four years afterwards was used in the famous three-volume edition of the works of John Selden, the celebrated lawyer and antiquary. This "noble" fount, says Talbot Baines Reed, historian of English type-founding, "marked a distinct turning-point in the career of English typography, which, from that time forward, entered on a course of brilliant regeneration."

By 1730 Caslon had so far justified the early hopes and expectations of the friends who had financially backed their faith in him that he had distanced all competitors, both in the excellence of his type faces and in the scope of their sales. The earliest of his broadside specimens which has come down to us, printed in 1734, displays thirty-eight founts, all except three of which were cut either by the master himself or under his close personal supervision.

With popularity and success came the need for larger quarters and Caslon graduated from his garret first to Ironmonger Row, also in Old Street, and then to 22 and 23 Chiswell Street, where the business he founded was con¬ ducted in the original building up to nine years ago, when it was torn down. By 1742, the year in which he took his oldest son, William II, into partnership with him, he had accumulated an independent fortune and his type faces were almost without opposition in Great Britain and America.

The younger Caslon proved to be nearly as able a designer and founder of type as his father. Under his direction the business grew and prospered and added to its prestige. William Caslon, the elder, retired soon after 1750 to his country house near London, where he devoted his remaining years to music and books and to the hospitable entertainment of his friends. He died in 1766, at the age of 74, leaving the world of English typography vastly in his debt. His famous type foundry was conducted by his descendants until 1873, when on the retirement of the last of the line, Henry W., due to ill-health which ended his life the next year, the business was continued for a purchaser by Thomas W. Smith, who later became its owner and took the name of Caslon-Smith. The ancient foundry, which in 1920 celebrated its two hundredth anniversary, is now owned by three of his sons, who have assumed the name of Caslon.

The strangest part of the story of Caslon type remains to be told. Despite its unbounded popularity for nearly the whole of the Eighteenth century Caslon old style Roman letter began to be superseded in the century's closing years by the modern style Roman face introduced by Bodoni and modified by the Scotch type founders, and it rapidly fell into a state of total neglect. For nearly fifty years it was absolutely forgotten. That few expected that it would ever come back into use is proved by the fadt that type founders almost universally destroyed their old style punches and matrices. Caslon's descendants, however, moved by a spirit of reverence for the work of their founder, carefully preserved the historic punches and matrices which had so lately revolutionized the typographic art, and the time arrived when they were rewarded for their sentiment and providential foresight.

In 1843 Charles Whittingham, the younger, of the famous Chiswick Press, wanting a type face which in its style should harmonize with the text of a Seventeenth century novel---The Diary of Lady Willoughby---which he was about to print, sought out the Caslons and got them to cast for the book founts from the old style matrices. After this the use of the Caslon face slowly revived---so slowly, however, that it was not until 1860 that the Caslon foundry restored any of the old style types to their specimen book.

Whittingham's good taste, nevertheless, had started the revival and the genius of William Caslon I was now destined for the second time to work a revolution in the printing of the English language. Gradually the foremost type founders of Great Britain joined the Caslons in casting the classic old style Roman letter and long before the end of the last century it had returned to a well-deserved popularity there.

Yet it is in America rather than in England that Caslon has achieved its greatest success and it is in this country that this graceful and pleasing face is most appreciated and most used. A large group of the best American printers are agreed that it is one of the most admirable of all typefaces and they delight to interpret their art through its instrumentality.

Still further identifying American typography with the classic type face which William Caslon has bestowed upon countless millions of English readers---past, present and future---there is the interesting fact that the type which has given him lasting fame was first named Caslon in this country in the year 1895. The American Type Founders Company so designated the historic face in its specimen book of that year. The Caslon type foundry itself adopted the name eighteen years later.

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