The Art of Ephemera: Typographic Innovations of Nineteenth-Century Midland Jobbing Printers

During the nineteenth century jobbing printers in Britain played an important role in the history of printing. In the skilled hands of the provincial printer, new display types were composed into new forms of advertising, contributing to the education and societal orientation of the emergent middle classes. Jobbing printers of the Midlands contributed to the advancement of British typography, working with new foundry types—sometimes before their appearance in foundry specimen books—and by making significant innovations in the composition of printed ephemera. This article considers the craft and invention of three influential nineteenth-century jobbing printers in the region: William Joesbury (1838–1919) of Birmingham, and the two members of the Gitton family, George (1746–1825) and George Robert (1801–85) of Bridgnorth. Joesbury printed Timothy Worsey Watton’s Outline Charts of General History (1848), an early example of progressive visual education for grammar schools; and the Gittons printed ephemera of Bridgnorth is a valuable record of the town’s importance as centre of industry and of its social culture