T HIS foundry, first known as Fry and Pine’s, had its origin in Bristol in the year 1764.
Mr. Joseph Fry, a prominent and enterprising Bristolian, was the son of Mr. John Fry, and was born in the year 1728. He entered the medical profession, where, says a biographer,611 “his affable, courteous manners and sound Christian principles soon secured to him a large practice amongst the highest class of his fellow citizens. Possessing uncommon energy and activity of mind, he was led to take a part in many new scientific undertakings, actuated more by the desire to be useful to society and advance the arts than by any hope of individual profit.”
This spirit of enterprise induced him, in the year 1764, to turn his attention to letter-founding, which, though hardly to be called a new scientific undertaking, was at least a novel industry for a provincial city. The success of Baskerville’s foundry at Birmingham, at that time in the height of its celebrity, was undoubtedly an incentive to the adventurers of Bristol, whose first founts were avowedly cut in close imitation of those famous models.
William Pine, Mr. Fry’s partner, was a practical printer of some note in his native city. He was the first printer of the Bristol Gazette, and carried on a considerable business at his premises in Wine Street. The new foundry was {299} attached to his office, and its productions may be traced in several works which issued from his press between the years 1764 and 1770.612 Messrs. Fry and Pine’s manager was one Isaac Moore, who (Rowe Mores informs us) was originally an ingenious whitesmith of Birmingham before he removed to Bristol. The practical superintendence of the foundry, if not the actual cutting of its punches, devolved on him; and his services appear to have been acknowledged by his admission into the partnership at an early stage of the undertaking, the business being carried on in his name.
Renouard mentions a Specimen by Isaac Moore, Bristol, in 1768, of which he possessed a copy mounted on linen,613 and which he describes as displaying “caractères assez bien gravés, et imitant ceux de Baskerville.” If this was, as it would appear from the title, issued at Bristol, we must conclude that the removal of the foundry to the metropolis took place in the same year, as there exists in the Sohmian Collection at Stockholm, where it was recently discovered by Mr. W. Blades, a broadside Specimen by Isaac Moore and Co. in Queen Street, near Upper Moorfields, London, showing the Roman series from five-line to Brevier, bearing the same date. Whether the two specimens are the same or not, it is hardly likely that their contents could have varied much during the brief interval. Two years later, however, the progress of the undertaking was announced by the issue of a fresh broadside sheet containing the complete series of Romans, cut after the Baskerville models, from eight-line to Pearl, with Italics to most of the founts, besides a fair display of flowers. The general appearance of the letters is elegant, especially in the larger sizes.
Appended to the specimen, in the form of a postscript, is the following address to the public (the first of a series of florid effusions which characterised the specimens of this foundry), in which the proprietors announce the principles on which their venture is to be conducted, and refer with satisfaction to the success already achieved by their productions:—
“The Proprietors of the above Foundery having nearly compleated all the Roman and Italic Founts, desire with great Deference, to lay this Specimen before the Trade; and intreat the Curious and critical, before any decisive Judgement be passed, on the Merits or Demerits of the Performance, to make a minute Examination and Comparison of the respective letters and founts of each Size, with the same Letters and Founts of the most respectable Founders in the Kingdom; For as all Letters, whether Roman or Italic, bear a great Similitude to each other, to apprehend the peculiar Beauty or Deformity of them are only to be discovered by such a Comparison. In making {300} which they hope the Candid and Judicious will set aside the Influence of Custom and Prejudice (those Great Barriers against Improvement) and attend to Propriety, Elegance and Mathematical Proportion. And as these have been objects particularly attended to in the Course of the Work, they apprehend it will appear on such a Disquisition, that all the above sizes bear a greater Likeness to each other, than those of any other Founder. They have been already favoured with the Encouragement and Approbation of several very respectable printers, who have wrought off many large Editions on their Founts, which have been Experienced to wear extremely well; owing to the Letter being clearly and deeply cut and to the Goodness of the Metal, which they make of an Extraordinary Composition; the Singular Advantage of which cannot but be obvious. Therefore hope that others will likewise make Trial of them, as they doubt not but they also will find it greatly to their Satisfaction.”614
It is doubtful whether the encouragement accorded to the new foundry on its first establishment in the metropolis came up to the expectations of the proprietors; and a circular issued shortly afterwards by two of the partners, suggests that some fillip was deemed necessary to awaken a more extended patronage of the concern. This curious document is entitled Proposals for discovering a very great Improvement which William Pine, printer of Bristol, and Isaac Moore, Letter Founder, in Queen Street, Upper Moorfields, London, have made in the Art of Printing, both in the Construction of the Press and in the Manner of Beating and Pulling, and publicly offers the secret of the invention (the precise nature of which is not apparent) to any customer of the new foundry ordering type to the value of ten pounds and upwards.615 {301}
How far this ingenuous offer had the effect of stimulating the type business is not recorded; but the proprietors were forced before long to recognise the desirability of adopting other and surer methods for gaining the popular favour.
Although Luckombe, writing in 1770,616 mentions Moore along with Caslon and Jackson, as one of the three London founders, the same authority makes a decidedly disparaging reference to his types617; a circumstance which may be accounted for by the then growing prejudice amongst metropolitan printers against the Baskerville form of letter adopted by the new foundry.
Representations of a similar nature having been made from several influential quarters, it became evident to the proprietors that if they were to retain public favour at all, it must be by adapting themselves to public taste, and abandoning the formal, delicate models of Baskerville for the more serviceable, dashing characters of Caslon.
This laborious task occupied several years in completion. Meanwhile the original founts were not discarded.
The printing office connected with the foundry distinguished itself in the interval by the production of two highly interesting Bibles, the one a folio, published in 1774, and the other an 8vo, in five volumes, published 1774–6.618 Both are elegantly printed in the clear Great Primer letter shown in the 1770 Specimen; the latter being in long lines specially for the use of the aged. The general appearance of the folio edition compares not unfavourably with the Baskerville Bible of 1772.
In 1774, Pine printed at Bristol a very neat Bible in the Pearl type of the foundry, “being”, says the preface, “the smallest a Bible was ever printed with, and made on purpose for this work.”619 {302}
Moore’s connection with the business appears to have terminated in 1776, after which the style of the firm became J. Fry and Co., who in the following year issued, in their own name, reprints of the folio and octavo Bibles above referred to.620 No specimen-sheet of their types appeared till seven years later, by which time Mr. Pine had also withdrawn from the business.621 He continued to print the Bristol Gazette in Wine Street, Bristol, till the time of his death, which occurred in 1803, at the age of sixty-four years.
Left to himself, Mr. Fry, in the year 1782, admitted his sons Edmund and Henry into partnership, under whose supervision the work of re-cutting the Romans of the foundry made active progress.
Edmund Fry, probably the most learned letter-founder of his day, had, like his father, been educated for the medical profession, and had taken his doctor’s degree. But the infirmity of deafness prevented him from following that walk in life, and he abandoned it for typefounding, applying himself to that pursuit, not only with the enthusiasm of an ardent philologist, but also with considerable natural ability for conducting the practical operations of the art.
The year of his entry into the business (1782) was signalised by an important event in the typefounding world—the sale of James’s foundry. This event has been fully alluded to elsewhere,622 but it is interesting to note that the Frys were considerable purchasers on the occasion, securing amongst other items the chief part of the “learned” and foreign matrices, for which that collection was noted.