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'''John Baskerville''' (
January 28,
1706 -
January 8,
1775) was a
printer in
Birmingham, and an associate of some of the members of the
Lunar Society. He directed his
punchcutter John Handy in the design of many
typefaces of broadly similar appearance.
His businesses included
japanning and
papier-mch, but he is best remembered as a printer. He printed works for
Cambridge University in
1758 and although an
atheist, printed a splendid
folio Bible in
1763.
His work was criticised by jealous competitors and soon fell out of favour, but since the
1920s many new
fonts have been released by
Linotype,
Monotype, and other
typefoundries - revivals of his work and mostly called 'Baskerville'.
It is thought that Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle, who once lived in Birmingham, may have borrowed his name for one of his
Sherlock Holmes stories, ''
The Hound of the Baskervilles''.
As an atheist, Baskerville was buried, at his own request, in
unconsecrated ground in his own garden. When a
canal was built through the land he was placed in storage in a
warehouse for several years before being secretly deposited in the
crypt of Christ Church, Birmingham. Later he was moved, with other bodies from the crypt, to
consecrated catacombs at
Warstone Lane Cemetery.
==Sculpture==
A
Portland Stone sculpture, ''Industry and Genius'', in his honour stands in
Centenary Square,
Birmingham. It is by local artist
David Patten [1].
==Related articles==
Typography
==External links==
*
Birmingham City Council page on Baskerville (includes picture of ''Industry and Genius'')
*
More about Baskervillede:John Baskerville
