Historical London Type Archive
Article: CASLON FOUNDRY NGS INSIDER
Inside the world of the Caslon Foundry, Chiswell St
Article by the Gentle author – Read time 4-6 min
Chiswell St is a canyon lined with glass and steel buildings leading from Moorgate to the Barbican today, yet once this was the centre of printing in the City of London. The foundry established by William Caslon in 1737, Britain’s most celebrated type designer, stood here until 1937. For more than two centuries, Caslon was the default typeface for printing in the English language and when the Americans wanted to make their Declaration of Independence and publish their Constitution, they imported type from the Caslon Foundry in Chiswell St to do it.
These historic photographs from St Bride Printing Library, taken in 1902 upon the occasion of the opening of the new Caslon factory in Hackney Wick, record both the final decades of the unchanged work of traditional type-founding, as well as the mechanisation of the process that would eventually lead to the industry being swept away by the end of the century.
22/23 Chiswell St with Caslon’s delivery van outside the foundry
The Directors’ Room with portraits of William Caslon and Elizabeth Caslon
Sydney Caslon Smith in his office
Clerks’ office, 15th November 1902. A woman sits at her typewriter in the centre of the office.
Type store with fonts being made up in packets by women and boys working by candlelight
Another view of the type store with women making up packets of fonts
New Caslon Letter Foundry at Rothbury Rd, Hackney Wick, 1902
Harold Arthur Caslon Smith at his rolltop desk in Hackney Wick with type specimens from 1780 on the wall, Friday 7th November, 1902
Hand forging in the Machine Shop
Metal store with boy hauling pigs upon a trolley
Founting Shop, with women breaking up the type and a man dressing the type
Machine shop on the top floor with a fly-press in the bottom left
Caretaker’s cottage with caretaker’s wife and the factory cat
Photographs courtesy St Bride Printing Library
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