Place    From 1893  To 1917

Doves Bindery

Categories: Commerce, Literature

The Doves Press in Hammersmith was founded in 1900 by Thomas Cobden-Sanderson in partnership with Emery Walker and was named after the nearby pub. Sanderson had already set up The Doves Bindery in 1893 and it bound all the books that Doves printed as well as many of the Kelmscott books. The enterprise was an examplar of the Arts and Crafts movement. They used their own type, The Doves Type, based on types from the middle ages. Emery and Sanderson fell out and the partnership was dissolved in 1908. Regarding the typeface they agreed that Sanderson could continue to use it and that eventual ownership would rest with whoever outlived the other. Sanderson (the older man) was not happy with this and by 1917 he had thrown all of the type into the Thames from Hammersmith Bridge (piece by piece, at night), all but one piece which is preserved in the Emery Walker Library, housed at the Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum. Sanderson had already ceased printing during the war but the destruction of the type saw the end of the Press. He moved into the building and died there a few years later.

2015 - amazing, someone has retrieved the type from the river!

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This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Doves Bindery

Commemorated ati

Doves Bindery and Press

Initially (ha-ha) we were puzzled by the letters at the bottom of this plaque...

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Thomas Cobden-Sanderson

Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson, 1840-1922, founded the Doves Bindery and Doves...

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Other Subjects

The Establishment Club

The Establishment Club

Peter Cook said this was modelled on "those wonderful Berlin cabarets which did so much to stop the rise of Hitler and prevent the outbreak of the Second World War". Lenny Bruce, Barry Humphries, ...

Group, Commerce, Community / Clubs, Humour

1 memorial
Isaac le Gooch

Isaac le Gooch

Dutch merchant and jeweller to the king. Benefactor of Latymer School. Edith Streets, discussing Linden House in Upper Mall, writes: "This is used as a sailing and rowing clubhouse, owned by the L...

Person, Benefactor, Commerce, Netherlands

1 memorial
Lord Levene

Lord Levene

Chariman of Lloyd's of London in 2008.

Person, Commerce

1 memorial
Fakeblueplaques / Society for the Promotion of Historic Buildings

Fakeblueplaques / Society for the Promotion of Historic Buildings

Londonist informs that the registered address of the website, where you can order a plaque, is 118 Hillfield Avenue N8, the site of plaque no 4. We have 3 of these non-plaques still to publish, no ...

Group, Commerce

3 memorials
Longman's Ship Binding Works

Longman's Ship Binding Works

Thomas Longman (1699-1755) through an inheritance acquired a publishing house, The Ship, in Paternoster Row (the street of book publishers) and shortly after, The Black Swan, next door. Daniel Defo...

Group, Commerce, Craft / Design

1 memorial