Knee Grease and Bituminous Kindlings

The Curious World of Type Specimen Prose

St Bride Foundation holds around 10,000 catalogued type specimens. Some are single sheets while others are mighty doorsteps like the 1925 Stempel specimen (SB34454). Their prose is generally, well - prosaic. Dull, worthy and practical are adjectives which describe much of their content, but there are exceptions to the rule – and they stand out because they are so very different from the norm.

A little-known London typefoundry run originally by John Black and then Alfred Pillar in the early 20^th century (c.1900-1939) had something of a fixation with the word Rickmansworth. All of their specimen books used that single town name to illustrate the faces they could supply. The foundry was in Upper Wedmore Street in Holloway but neither location seems to have been as inspirational as a small market town in Hertfordshire which packed the pages of their specimen books. Sadly, the success of the Monotype machine brought about the extinction of Pillar’s business at the outbreak of WW2. Ironically, a printed circular letter announcing closure, sent by Alfred Pillar to his few remaining customers, was partially set in Gill Sans, one of Monotype’s most successful faces. 

The printer Leslie J. Luker ran a small letterpress business in Merton, south-west London in the 1930s and produced some very fine specimen books for the convenience of his customers. In 1952 Luker took a rather different approach and used his specimen to tell the story of printing from its inception. The 1952 specimen book provides a readable narrative with each typeface and size forming well-written sentences and paragraphs, although the size variations can be distracting, leaping from tiny 6pt Gill Sans at the bottom of a page to 54pt Madonna Ronde at the top of the next one. These are specimen books which can be read like a novel. Not only do they inform, but they also educate and entertain. Luker was also fond of type pictures and included a number in his publications. 

The great 1924 Stephenson Blake specimen book, by which many others are judged is a glorious example of design and fine printing, but the text is rather less inspiring. Phrases like Grand Pianoforte Recital, Durable Wood Material and Suitable Type for Letter Heading don’t inspire. Their prose doesn’t sparkle. 

For sheer entertainment the late 19^th century specimens of the Philadelphia foundry of Mackellar, Smiths and Jordan are worth a look. The author of these works was the co-owner of the business, Thomas Mackellar, a supreme publicist, company historian and prolific poet. His writing style was light-hearted, anarchic, confident and above all, humorous. The sample texts devised for his specimen books persuaded competitors to move away from the dry practicality of Pianoforte Recitals.  

Mackellar’s phrases are sometimes suggestive of the letterforms displayed. A heavily condensed face in the 1853 specimen is described with the words Such Excessive Compressing – Extremely Distressing. It was light years away from the traditional Latin phrase of Cicero’s First Oration Against Catiline, “Quo usque tandem abutere, Catalina…” which decorated early foundry specimens. 

Mackellar, Smiths (there were two Smiths – John and Richard – hence the plural) & Jordan specimen examples include Beardedness: Nature’s Becoming Stamp (of) Rugged Masculinity. Bituminous Kindlings could be had from the Pumpkin-Squash Wine Company, while Facinorous (atrociously wicked) Miscreants had us reaching for our dictionaries. 

Some of our favourite MS&J gems include unconventional but accurate definitions: Compositor – Scrawl Interpreter and Education – Learning in Driblets. Mackellar’s literary inventions also include Snobbish Knee Grease and Ancestral Snuff, products we haven’t been able to find on Amazon. 

Thomas Mackellar’s prose is packed with exuberant, joyous examples of the English language and it’s rather disappointing that English foundries didn’t attempt anything quite so entertaining. 

A handful of English founders were prone to occasional linguistic invention. The world’s first sanserif face with a lower-case character set was issued by William Thorowgood in 1834 and was presented to the printing world by way of the word Meninghurne, a non-existent location. In the 1950s the British Adana company invented the town of Midhabmurton to promote their Palace Script face. Neither example exercises the chuckle muscles as much as Thomas Mackellar’s Slander Check – Legal Muzzles for Smutmouths”. 

Readers with a serious interest in the wording used within type specimen books should consult Alastair Johnston’s Alphabets To Order (Oak Knoll/British Library, 2000). It is now out-of-print but worth seeking out. St Bride Foundation holds copies which may be consulted.