At the beginning of June 2020, I was flattered to receive an invitation from my old friend, Richard Wilson, to take over proprietorship of The Perpetua Press. Sadly, Richard was in the terminal stages of the cancer which was to claim his life before the end of August, so he was understandably keen to ensure the continuity of the Press before his time ran out. He, in his turn, had inherited this from his father-in-law, Vivian Ridler, via Hugo Brunner (a former collaborator with Vivian and Lord Lieutenant of Oxfordshire between 1996 and 2008). During his short time in charge of the Press, Richard was able to publish one book in association with the Oxford bookseller, S.P. Tuohy, Some Book Decorations by Berthold Wolpe, Discovered in a Collection of Line Blocks Belonging to his Friend, Vivian Ridler. The transfer of ownership was effected by the simple deposit of a ‘bun penny’ (a penny with a profile of Queen Victoria sporting a bun) – alas, in digital format only as no such physical coin could be obtained in the time available.
The Perpetua Press was first established by Vivian Ridler with his friend David Bland in 1931 (David Bland went on to become Production Manager for Faber & Faber). One year, their Fifteen Old Nursery Rhymes was chosen as one of the 50 best books of the year. Vivian’s interest in printing and typography had begun while still at Bristol Grammar School. During that time, he met Eric Gill and Douglas Cleverdon and went on to serve an apprenticeship at E.S. and A. Robinson. After a promising freelance career, he later joined Oxford University Press, firstly for a brief period between 1937 and 1938, and then again at the invitation of Charles Batey from 1949 until his retirement in 1978, being promoted to Printer to the University of Oxford from 1958.
After his retirement from OUP, Vivian returned to the Perpetua Press in earnest, where he continued to print a series of exquisitely produced publications on his hand-press, which included books (often in collaboration with his wife, the poet, Anne Ridler), as well as broadsides and other types of ephemera. Due to the demise of letterpress printing in the late 1970s, he had been able to build up a substantial selection of typefaces, one of his favourites being Bembo – which name he coined to good effect for a set of comic verse by his former colleague, OUP editor John Bell, lampooning publishing and entitled Mutiny on the Bembo. An exhibition of some of his work was held at The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art in Oxford University in 1993.
I had known the Ridler family since being introduced to them by my aunt in the mid-1970s. Having myself been one of the last generation to be trained in hot-metal composition at the London College of Printing (as it then was), by happy coincidence it turned out that my first boss in publishing, John Robson, had himself sat the City & Guilds examination in typography under Vivian’s aegis – Vivian at the time being a part-time lecturer in typography at the Royal College of Art. During the 1980s, John Robson had a regular lunch date in Oxford with Hugh Williamson, author of Methods of Book Design, which Vivian sometimes joined – and to which I was also on occasion invited. My association with Vivian was therefore both a personal one and to some extent professional.
Soon after Vivian died at the age of 95 in 2009, Richard Wilson had overseen disposal of the printing equipment so that there were no longer any physical assets associated with the Press by the time I took it on. However, the imprint has a distinguished pedigree which I am particularly keen to maintain. I have for many years admired the output from John Randle’s Whittington Press, having been one of the original subscribers to Matrix. During the Whittington Press Open Day in 2019, I was privileged to see early proof sheets from 2020 Vision, demonstrating the Press’s immaculate printing of wood engravings from the original block – some of which entailed a particular challenge, being over 100 years old. (Much of the printing was carried out by Anna Parker, who has been working at the Whittington Press as an unofficial ‘apprentice’ for the last 2 years.) It so happened that I already had an association with Pat Randle, having recently invited him to speak at a meeting of Letter Exchange, the association for professionals in the lettering arts. I am delighted that Pat has agreed to be responsible for printing the posters and is now an enthusiastic contributor to the project.