THE BRITISH BINDINGS IN THEHENRY DAVIS GIFT

MIRJAM M. FOOT

W H E N Henry Davis, C.B.E. died on io January 1977 the majority of his magnificentcollection of bookbindings joined those already on exhibition in the British Library. TheGift, which comprises approximately 800 decorated bookbindings and 260 reference booksis too extensive and too varied to receive proper justice in a series of articles, but whilea full-dress catalogue is in preparation, a few high spots may be worth a preliminary airing.

The earliest of the Enghsh bindings comes from Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire andcovers a 'Liber Ezechialis' written there in the latter part ofthe twelfth century. It is madeof white whittawed skin over wooden boards and has a brass clasp on a long leather thongwhich fastens almost in the centre of the lower cover. A thirteenth-century manuscript'Biblia Sacra' was bound in Canterbury c. 1470 by John Kemsyn^ and a London bindingof c. 1475 by the Scales binder covers Jean Charlier de Gerson, De passionibus animae [andother works], [Cologne]: Ulrich Zell [and others], [r. 1470-3] and is illustrated here(fig. i). It shows a different design on each cover, built up of small tools among which isa pelican in her piety depicted twice on one stamp and by herself on another. The initialsr s, cut in the leather, are probably those of the original owner. A blind-tooled browncalf binding on Vocabularius utriusque iuris (Basel: N. Kessler, 1488) was made in Cam-bridge in the late fifteenth century and is signed W G and one other late-fifteenth-century binding was made in London by Henry Cony, whose name is hidden in a stampshowing a rabbit and the initials h c.̂ It covers Publius Virgilius Maro, Opera (Nurem-berg: A. Koberger, 1492).

The sixteenth century starts with a binding on Thordynary ofChrysten Man (London:W. de Worde, 1506), made by the binder who worked for Wynkyn de Worde after hemoved to Fleet Street. It is decorated with bHnd panels, showing the Mass of St. Gregoryon the upper cover and St. Barbara on the lower. When Wynkyn de Worde was still atWestminster he used the binder who worked for Wilham Caxton and an example of hiswork covers Eusebius, Historia ecclesiasttca (Hagenau: H. Gran, 1506).^

English bindings ofthe first half of the sixteenth century are most commonly decoratedin blind either with rolls or with panels. A number of these come from known shops, suchas a 151 o Paris Bible with a panel depicting two entwined dragons, signed Pierre Auctorre 4There are four bindings made in the 1520s and 1530s by the London publisher and book-binder John Reynes, tooled either with his signed roll or with various panels; two signed

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Fig. I. Jean Charlier de Gerson, De passionibus animae [and other works], [Cologne,c. 1470-3.] 225 X 150X50 ram. Bound by the Scales binder

panel-stamped bindings ofthe 1540s by Martin Dature and various panels with initials,such as a rose panel and an Annunciation panel signed A H and used c. 1515, another rosepanel and one with the English royal arms signed H I on a binding of c. 1530, and panelswith the initials M E and depicting St. Paul, used at about the same time. A Cambridgepanel-stamped binding of c. 1523 comes from the shop of Garrett Godfrey and onedecorated with rolls was made c. 1535 by Nicholas Spierinck. Gerard Pilgrim of Oxfordbound a 1535 Cologne Clichtoveus and his townsman GK used a signed roll abouttwenty years later on a 1516 Paris Missal.

The gold-tooled bindings ofthe century are more obviously appealing. A fine examplemade c. 1550 by the Medallion binder for King Edward VI covers a Bible in Greek(Basel, 1545)5 and the King Edward and Queen Mary binder bound Vittoria Colonna, Rimespirituali (Venice, 1548) and two other works, printed in Venice in 1531 and 1544, togetherfor William Bill̂ at the time that he was Master of St. John's College, Cambridge and oneof King Edward VI's itinerary chaplains. Queen Mary disapproved of Bill's dedicatedProtestantism, but Queen Elizabeth installed him as Dean of Westminster shortly beforehis death in 1561. The same binder bound Actes Made in the Parliament (London, 1554)for Queen Mary,*̂ and her successor's arms and portrait occur on [Elizabeth I], 'RoyalCharter of Confirmation in favour ofthe town of Dunwich', MS. [c. 1575] bound by theHuguenot immigrant Jean de Planche (fig. 2). As well as the corner pieces used on thisbinding he possessed a set of signed corner blocks and the various hatched tools he usedgive his work a distinctly French look. Queen Elizabeth's favourite, Robert Dudley, Earlof Leicester, owned several bindings now in the Davis Gift, all but one of which have hisbadge of a bear and a ragged staff in the centre. One of these was made c. 1577 of browncalf, with gold-blocked corners signed E D, over a sunk panel of punched purple velvet,̂a striking combination, which is also found on a Nouveau Testament (Lyons, 1564) andPseaumes [and] Kalendrier (Geneva, 15^5) bound dos-d-dos by the MacDurnan Gospelsbinder.*^ This binder, who started work in London in the 1560s, bound for Queen Elizabeth,Archbishop Matthew Parker, Robert Dudley, William Cecil Lord Burghley, and othersfrom the fashionable ranks of Elizabethan society, and his successor John Bateman becameroyal binder to James I in 1604. He bound The Statutes and Ordinaunces ofthe . . . Orderof. . .ye Garter, MS. [1616] for Robert Sidney, Viscount Lisle. It is well known thatArchbishop Matthew Parker had a bindery working for him at Lambeth Palace. One ofthe products of this shop covers John Caius, De antiquitate Cantebrigiensis academiae andtwo other works, printed by John Day in 1574. This binder remained active after Arch-bishop Parker died in 1575 and some of his tools turn up as late as 1642 on five works byH. Hexham, printed in Delft and The Hague between 1614 and 1642.

There are a number of very pretty embroidered bindings from the end ofthe sixteenthand the beginning ofthe seventeenth centuries. A canvas binding embroidered with goldand silver threads and coloured silks was made for Henry, Lord Norreys of Rycote and hiswife Margaret and has their arms on the covers. A red velvet binding embroidered withsilver thread covers a 1603 Dort New Testament and has the initials of Queen Elizabeth(fig. 3^). A folio Bible and Prayer Book (London, 1611) was lavishly embroidered to

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Fig. 2. Dunwich Charter [MS. c.1575.] 292X202X20 mm. Bound by Jean dePlanche

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a pattern of vines, flowers, and angels for James Montague, Bishop of Bath and

Later seventeenth-century embroidered bindings show the figures of Peace and Plentyon W. Camden's Britain (London, 1610); the figures of Taste and Sight on The WholeBooke of Davids Psalmes (London, 1628) (fig. 3^); King David on a 1635 London Psalterand an admonition to 'be wise as serpents and innocent as doves' on Samuel Smith,David's Repentance (London, 1637)." Some fine floral designs include one embroideredin gold and silver threads and coloured silks on purple satin made c. 1630 for John Daven-ant, Bishop of Salisbury, covering Biblia Sacra (London, 1585) [and] Psalmes (London,1587),'^ and one embroidered in silver on red velvet on a 1632 London New Testament,bound dos-d-dos with a 1633 London Psalter. Velvet bindings could be tooled in gold likeleather, and a binder who practised this technique several times was Daniel Boyse whoworked in Cambridge from c. 1616 until 1630. He bound a 1629 Cambridge Bible andPrayer Book in gold-tooled blue velvet,^^ and a gold- and silver-tooled and red-paintedbrown goatskin binding covers E. Spenser, The Faerie Queene [and other works] (London,i6o9-ii-i2).^4 \ very attractive Cambridge binding of about thirty years later made ofblack goatskin, onlaid in red and citron and tooled in gold with tools very similar to thoseused by John Houlden, covers F. Quarles, Devine Poems [and] Emblemes (London, 1643).

The 1660S herald the 'golden age of English bookbinding' and no major collection ofbindings would be complete without a fair display of Restoration treasures. The Giftcontains five bindings by Samuel Mearne. A 1659 Cambridge Bible in gold- and blind-tooled olive-brown goatskin, onlaid in various colours and decorated with paint, wasprobably together with its companion Prayer Book, now in the Broxbourne Library,supplied for use in the Chapel Royal in 1666;'^ a gold- and blind-tooled Book of CommonPrayer (London, 1662), decorated with silver paint and with a fore-edge painting, under-neath the gold, of the Crucifixion, was probably supplied for use in one of the royalchapels in the same year;'^ a red goatskin binding of a more simple design, tooled in goldwith the cypher of Charles II, covers A. A. Barba, The Art of Mettals (London, 1670);a Common Prayer ofthe same year, also bound in red goatskin, has the cyphers of Charles IIand James II as Duke of York ;'^ and Bacon's Essays (London, 1680) is in gold- and blind-tooled dark brown goatskin. Mearne's contemporaries and successors are equally wellrepresented. Charles Mearne bound T. Browne, Certain Miscellany Tracts (London,1683)'^ in red goatskin onlaid in black and tooled in gold to a cottage-roof design. A gold-tooled black goatskin binding of 1672 is signed on the fore-edge 'Owen fecit' and coversa 1671 London Holy Bible [and] 1669 Whole Book of Psalms,^"^ and a blind-tooled blackgoatskin binding by the Sombre binder on a Holy Bible (London, 1660) [and] Psalms inMetre (London, 1661) has in the centre the initials M M and the date 1673.̂ *̂ The Queens'binder A, who has been tentatively identified as William Nott, was responsible for fourbindings in the Gift, one of which, a two-volume R. Cudworth, The Intellectual System ofthe Universe (London, 1678) [and] A Discourse Concerning . . . the Lords Supper (London,1676) in gold-tooled red goatskin, is illustrated here (fi%. 4). Queens' binder D used smalltools and drawer handles on two gold-tooled brown goatskin bindings, one covering a 1624

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Fig. 4. R. Cudworth, The Intellectual System ofthe Universe (London, 1678).317X201 X 45 mm. Bound by Queens' binder A {} William Nott)

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Leiden New Testament in Greek,^' the other Philippe de Comines's History (London,1674)." The Naval binder bound a manuscript Dimentions and Burthen of his Maf Ships,[c. 1681] for Samuel Pepys in gold-tooled red goatskin^^ and Richard Bailey, 'bred underthe tuition of Suckerman at Mr. Merne's' and renowned for his so-called backless bindings,made the attractive black goatskin binding, onlaid in cream and red and tooled in gold,illustrated here (fig. 5^). It covers H. Waring, The Rule of Charity (London, 1690). Otherlate-seventeenth-century bindings include work by the Devotional binder and hisimitator, by the Small Carnation binder, by the Centre-Rectangle binder, and by thebinder of Elizabeth Dickinson. Roger Bartlett, who settled in Oxford after the Great Fireof London, bound Comber's Companion to the Altar (London, 1678) there in a delightfulgold-tooled red goatskin binding^ and Alexander Cleeve signed a leather strip above theturn-in of the lower cover of the gold-tooled black goatskin binding on The Holy Bible(Cambridge, 1663) [and] The Book of Common Prayer, [and] Psalms in Metre (Cambridge,i666).̂ 5 One of Samuel Mearne's apprentices and probably his successor was RobertSteele. He bound A. Horneck, The Crucified Jesus (London, 1700) in dark blue goatskintooled in gold to a cottage-roof design. Another cottage roof decorates a 1701 OxfordBible bound by Richard Sedgley. The Geometrical Compartment binder, who workedin London in the beginning of the eighteenth century and who favoured geometricalpatterns based on the French fanfare style, bound Jeremy Taylor's Dissuasive from Popery(London, 1686)̂ ^ and L. Eachard, A General Ecclesiastical History (London, 1702).Another late imitation ofthe fanfare style was used to create a mosaic effect in red goatskinwith black and citron onlays on De Royaumont, History of The Old Testament (London,1701). The Oxford binder who worked for Lord Kingsale achieved this same effectc. 1720 on a 1717 London Book of Common Prayer .^'^ Elkanah Settle, the City poet, boundhis own Eusebia Triumphans (London, 1702-3) for Sir Charles Duncombe in gold-tooledblack goatskin with Sir Charles's arms. John Brindley, binder to Queen Caroline and toFrederick, Prince of Wales, used his characteristic tool of a pair of crowned dolphinswithin circular wreaths on the three volumes of G. Trissino, La Italia Liber at a da Got hi(Rome/Venice, 1547-8). An English heraldic manuscript on vellum of the first quarterofthe seventeenth century belonged to Maurice Johnson, the founder ofthe Gentlemen'sSociety of Spalding, and was bound for him c. 1751 by Christopher Norris who livednear St. Paul's.

As well as London and Oxford, Cambridge remained an important centre of book-binding. Ed Moore, who is mentioned in the accounts of various Cambridge colleges fromthe 1740S until the late 1760s, bound the two-volume edition of Pine's Horace (1733-7)and a 1760 Baskerville Common Prayer, decorating them with his characteristic floralrolls and concave diamond centre pieces built up of small solid and floral tools. AnotherBaskerville Common Prayer of a year later was bound c. 1761 by Andreas Linde, a Germanimmigrant binder who worked for George III while he was Prince of Wales, and decoratedwith birds, trumpet-blowing angels, and feathers around a Paschal lamb.^^ There arebindings for Thomas Hollis and Jonas Hanway and a very nice rococo binding in redgoatskin for Philip Stanhope, fifth Earl of Chesterfield, covering a 1776 Oxford Prayer

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Book and a 1768 Oxford Psalter.^o Richard Dymott, who worked as a bookseller anda binder in London in the 1760s, 1770s, and 1780s, bound L. Ariosto, Orlando Furioso(Venice, 1584) in red goatskin, inlaid in yellow-brown marbled calf and tooled in gold(fv^. Sb). The Gift contains four bindings from the hands of the much-praised and much-derided Roger Payne. A set of small but very attractive olive goatskin bindings coversa 1644-5 Leiden Livy in three volumes^" and a 1636 Leiden Virgil is in red goatskindecorated with floral garlands. Payne bound c. 1796 W. Dugdale's History of Imbankingand Drayning of Divers Fenns and Marshes (London, 1662) in gold-tooled brown Russiafor Sir Richard Colt Hoare,^' and R. Sanders, Physiognomie and Chiromancie (London,1670-1) for Dr. Moseley,^^ his physician. Payne's original bill of 19 August 1795, in whichhe set out in great detail the trouble he took to wash, mend, and bind the book and whichamounts to 175. bd. 'as per Agreement', is preserved with the book. Another well-knownname in eighteenth-century bookbinding is that of Edwards of Halifax. This firm bounda 1762 Baskerville Prayer Book and Psalter in the early 1780s which shows the Resurrectionand the Crucifixion painted on the underside of the transparent vellum." The fore-edgehas a landscape painted underneath the gold. Thomas Littleton's Tenures, [c. 1599] wasbound in 1793 for the Chadwick family.

The German immigrant binders who flourished in London in the second half of theeighteenth century are well represented. Baumgarten bound c. 1775-80 a collection ofengravings with a manuscript index in gold-tooled blue goatskin ;3'̂ Kalthoeber boundJ. Diettenhofer, Sonatas for the Pianoforte with ... Violin (London, 1781), in red goatskin,tooled in gold with decorative borders and a pair of mermaids ;̂ 5̂ Henry Walther boundin 1791 Novelle Otto (London, 1790) in citron goatskin, onlaid in dark blue and red andtooled in gold to a pattern reminiscent of Moorish tiles ;3^ and Staggemeier and Welcherare responsible for a dignified Neo-classical binding in green goatskin, onlaid in blue,citron, and red and tooled in gold, made in the 1790s to cover Birch's Heads... of IllustriousPersons . . . Engraven by Houbraken and Vertue (London, 1756).̂ ^ Charles Hering whoworked in London from 1799 and who died in 1815 bound [T. Malory], Most Ancient... History of. . .Arthur King ofBritaine (London, 1634) and decorated it with small toolsreminiscent of those used by Roger Payne, and another member of the Hering familyused a rococo design c. 1840 on a red goatskin binding with the arms of Hope. A nicemasonic binding off. 1812 by John Lovejoy covers W. Preston, Illustrations of Masonry(London, 1812) and there are two bindings by Thomas Gosden, one on the 1810 Londonedition of Izaak Walton's Compleat Angler,^^ the other on Zouch's Life of Izaac Walton(London, 1823), which is signed: 'Bound by T. Gosden, 107 St. Martins lane'. A bindingdecorated with the well-known 'sportsman's buttons', commissioned by Gosden fromdesigns by Abraham Cooper, covers the engravings of the buttons by John Scott issuedin 1821. It has the ticket of Lloyd, Bookseller and Binder, 36 Chandos Street, Strand, andis illustrated here (fig. 6).

Signed bindings of the nineteenth century include work by C. Smith, Dawson and Lewis,Westley, Hayday, and Zaehnsdorf. The founder member of this last firm left Vienna in1836, travelled in Switzerland and France, and reached London in 1837. He started

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Fig. 6. Impressions from a Set of Silver Buttons^ drawn by A. Cooper(London, 1821). 242 X 162 X 12 mm. Bound by Lloyd

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business on his own in 1842 and bound an 1836 Bible in German in black calf blocked inblind with an engraving of York Minster.-^^ There are four gay-looking bindings of the1890S decorated by Sir Edward Sullivan, in elaborately tooled and onlaid goatskin, andfive bindings designed by Cobden Sanderson. The earliest of these, signed and dated1890, he bound himself"*^ but the other four were bound at the Doves bindery, which heestablished in 1893. Charles Ricketts designed the binding for M. Field, Fair Rosamund(London, 1897), which was executed by Riviere and Son.

In a recent article in the Designer Bookbinders Review (1977), I described the twentieth-century bindings of this collection and it should suffice to mention here that these includework from the Hampstead bindery; three bindings by Katherine Adams, one of which,a large heavy two-volume Don Quixote which she bound at the age of eighty-five, was herlast work; two bindings by Sybil Pye and a so-called Cosway binding by Bayntun of Bathin brown goatskin with onlaid purple violets and with a miniature of Charles Dickenspainted under mica in a sunk medallion in the centre. Post-war years brought work byTrevor Jones, Arthur Last, E. P. Womersley, Jeff Clements, Philip Smith, Arthur Johnson,Elizabeth Greenhill, and William Anthony. The last binding Henry Davis acquired wasa copy of the Spring number of The Book Collector, for 1975, dedicated to Howard M.Nixon, bound by Bernard Middleton in blind-tooled black goatskin with green and redonlays and gold tooling.

The Irish and Scottish bindings in the Gift date from the eighteenth and nineteenthcenturies. As well as some characteristic Scottish fan and herringbone bindings there isa copy of Robert Douglas, Peerage of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1764) in a very nice gold-tooledblue goatskin binding,'^^ which was given to John Alexander, Episcopal Bishop of Dunkeld,by the grateful family of Clackmanan 'for his discoveries in councehng the family aschieftains of the name'. Two books were bound by Scott of Edinburgh: Robert Fergusson'sPoems (Edinburgh, 1773) in gold-tooled marbled calf and a two-volume Holy Bible(Cambridge, 1775) [and] The Psalms of David (Edinburgh, 1758) in red goatskin showingJohn the Baptist amidst curving tools."*^ R. Forsyth's juridical thesis of 1792 in a gold-tooledred goatskin presentation binding is illustrated here (fig. 7).

From Dublin come a 1745 Dublin edition of Virgil, bound by the Parliamentary binderA; three volumes of C. Smith, The ... State of the County and City of Cork (Dublin, 1750)[and] The . . . State of the County and City ofWaterford (Dublin, 1746), uniformly boundin gold-tooled red goatskin \'^^ and M. H. Vida, The Silkworm [and] Scacchia Ludus (Dublin,1750)^ bound by the College binder. The ten-volume set of Irish Statutes printed inDublin between 1765 and 1782 in gold-tooled red goatskin bindings for William HenryCavendish Bentinck, third Duke of Portland, now belongs to Henry Davis's other mainbeneficiary, the New University of Ulster at Coleraine. The same binder, however, boundother sets of Irish Statutes and two odd volumes, belonging to different sets, were boundby him and are now in the British Library. Volume X (Dublin, 1782), in gold-tooled redgoatskin with a white paper onlay in the centre, is illustrated here (fig. 8).

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Fig. 7- R. Forsyth, [Juridical thesis] (Edinburgh, 1792). 245X184X10 mm. Con-temporary Scottish binding

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Fig. 8. Irish Statutes^ vol. X (Dublin, 1782). 368x233x85 mm. ContemporaryIrish binding

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1 M. M. Romme, 'Contemporary Collectors XLIV,The Henry Davis Collection 1', The Book Col-lector (Spring, 1969), pi, VII,

2 G. D. Hobson, English Bindings . .. in lhe Libraryofj. R. Abbey (London, 1940), pi. i. (Quoted as:Hobson, Abbey.)

3 William Caxton, An Exhibition ... British Library(London, 1976), n. 109 (pi.)-

4 E. P. Goldschmidt, Gothic and Renaissance Book-bindings (London, 1928), pi. XLI.

5 H, M, Nixon, Twelve Books in Fine Bindings fromthe Library of J. W. Hely-Hutchinson (London,1953), pL I. (Quoted as: Nixon, Twelve Books.)

6 Sotheby's, 13,VI. 1955, 752 (pi.).7 Sotheby's, 19.VI.1967,1592 (pi.).8 W. E. Moss, Bindings from the Library of Robert

Dudley Earl of Leicester (Manor House Press,1934), pi, 14-

9 M. M. Romme, op. cit., pi. VIII.10 Sotheby's, 24.III.1942, 402 (pi.).11 Hobson, .4Mf^, pi, 34.12 Burlington Fine Arts Club, Exhibition of Book-

bindings (London, 1891), pi, CXIII.13 Sotheby's, 15.X.1945, 7927 (pi).14 M. M, Romme, op. cit., pi. IX.15 H. M. Nixon, English Restoration Bookbindings

(London, 1974), pi. 25, (Quoted as: Nixon,Restoration.)

16 Nixon, Restoration^ pi. 29.17 G. D. Hobson, Thirty Bindings (London, 1926),

pi. XXIII.18 Nixon, Restoration, pi. 34.

19 Ibid., pi. 78.20 Ibid., pi. 113.21 Ibid., pi. 76.22 Ibid., pi. 77.23 Ibid., pi. 80.24 Ibid., pi. 121.25 Ibid., pi. 105.26 Sotheby's, 17.VII.1944, 2/5 (pi.).27 Sotheby's, 21.VI.1965, 222 (pi.).28 A. R. A. Hobson and A. N. L. Munby, 'Con-

temporary Collectors XXVI, John RolandAbbey', The Book Collector (Spring, 1961),pi. XII.

29 Maggs Catalogue 830 (i955)> ^33 (pl-)-30 Sotheby's, 13.III.1956, ^oj (pi.).31 Sotheby's, 17.X.1960, 572 (pi).32 S. de Ricci, British Signed Bindings in the

M. L. Schiff Collection (New York, 1935), pi 10.33 Sotheby's, 17.X.i960, 759 (pi).34 Sotheby's, 23.VI. 1965, sHiV^)-35 C. J. Sawyer, Catalogue 242 (1957), 61 (pi).36 Nixon, Twelve Books., pi. XIV.37 Sotheby's, 22.VI.1965, 393 (pi.).38 Hobson, Abbey, pi 107.39 Sotheby's, 12.III.1956, 91 (pi).40 Hobson, Abbey, p i 117.41 Sotheby's, 12.III.1962, 529 (pi).42 Breslauer, Catalogue 92 (i960), 95 (pi).43 M. Craig, Irish Bookbindings 1600-1800 (London,

1954), Pl- 27-44 Sotheby's, 14.III.1956, 6/5 (pl).

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