Commentary

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Notes

¹ See Phil Baines, “Changing the World,” in Ewan Clayton Edward Johnston: Lettering and Life (Ditchling: Ditchling Museum, 2007).

² See Frances Spalding, Gwen Raverat: Friends, Families and Affections (London: Pimlico, 2004), pp. 383–2.

³ The book is a “reporters” notebook of 269 pages, divided into four sections; the first three have indexes, but the last does not. The pages measure 7ʹʹ × 3 ½ʹʹ. A microfilm can be consulted in the National Art Library. My transcriptions follow Johnston’s punctuation, capitalization, underlining and abbreviations.

⁴ Posthumously published as Edward Johnston, Formal Penmanship and other Papers, Heather Child (ed.) (London: Lund Humphries, 1971).

⁵ Now in the Crafts Study Centre, University for the Creative Arts (UCA), Farnham. See digital copy at http://www.vads.ac.uk/large.php?uid=64450&sos=0 (accessed September 23, 2015).

⁶ Johnston’s health deteriorated following his wife’s death in 1936 and his attendance at the College became erratic. His student Dorothy Mahoney took over the post in 1939.

⁷ Now mislaid, but colour photocopies exist in The Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, 1995.2182.5.

⁸ From Johnston’s notes in his class book held in the Crafts Study Centre, UCA, Farnham, p. 1.

⁹ Noel Rooke (1881–1953), student in Johnston’s first class, influential wood engraver, eventually head of the school of Book Production at the Central School. President of The Double Crown Club.

¹⁰ See Heather Child and Justin Howes (eds.), Lessons in Formal Writing (London: Lund Humphries, 1986), pp. 148–92; Ewan Clayton “Eight Photographs of Blackboard Demonstrations by Edward Johnston, 1926”, Matrix 25 (2005): 29–40.

¹¹ Rooke mentions a second result “that some knowledge of calligraphy was spread by his outgoing students into the Provincial Schools of Art and into Secondary Schools.” Unpublished lecture to the Double Crown Club May 1945, a copy of the typescript is among the papers of Justin Howes at The Crafts Study Centre, UCA, Farnham.

¹² Ibid.

¹³ Alfred Fairbank (1895–1982) author of A Handwriting Manual (London and Leicester: Dryad, 1932), and A Book of Scripts (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1949).

¹⁴ Johnston’s vellum-bound notebook, 6/4/36 p.102. Archive of the Crafts Study Centre, UCA, Farnham.

¹⁵ Johnston updated Writing and Illuminating, and Lettering, originally published by Pitman in London, with substantial corrections until 1944, the year of his death.

¹⁶ Johnston’s vellum-bound notebook, c7, 7/8/35, p. 42.

¹⁷ Ibid.

¹⁸ Ibid., c7, 7/8/35, p. 42.

¹⁹ Ibid., c.7.40, 24/11/35, p. 90.

²⁰ Ibid., 1.05 am, 21/2/36, p. 98. This phase dates to the time Johnston came out from what today might be described as a period of depression (no energy, little work) whose onset coincided with the months following Gill’s departure from Ditchling in 1924.

²¹ Sydney Cockerell in Charles L. Pickering (ed.), Tributes to Edward Johnston, Calligrapher (Maidstone: Maidstone College of Art, 1948), p. 6.

²² Sydney Cockerell (1867–1962), one of Johnston’s early mentors, secretary to William Morris, and later Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

²³ Johnston’s vellum-bound notebook, c.2/10 29/7/35, p. 83.

²⁴ Ibid., c.2.20 ab. 3/7/36, p. 138.

²⁵ Ibid., c.2.30ab, 26/5/36, p. 126.

²⁶ Ibid., 11.30 ab. 6?7.v.34, p. 108.

²⁷ These notes are incorporated within Margaret Alexander’s text. Alexander’s complete text comes to nine pages of typescript. I have presented edited highlights only as my primary text.

²⁸ Euclid’s proposition is a version of Pythagorus’ theorem that the sum of the square on the hypotenuse equals the sum of the squares on the other two sides.

²⁹ Johnston’s vellum-bound notebook, 1.10ab, 24/10/37. Copied in this instance from the original notecard which is in my possession.

³⁰ Ibid., 12.50 p. Mon. 9/7/34, p. 35. And below this Johnston adds “S = s. in all things, s. knife, pen, vellum, ruling and MS [meaning hand writing], in fact sharp technique. Similarly with U. All things in keeping. Similarly with F. all things free & the scribe set free by habit.”

³¹ Mary Midgley, Beast and Man: The Roots of Human Nature (London: Methuen, 1980), pp. 110–1.

³² Johnston’s vellum-bound notebook, c11.45 ab. 11/7/36, p. 139.

³³ Ibid., 2.35 ab. 1/2/37, p. 200.

³⁴ Ibid., 2.25 ab, 23/1/37, p. 199.

³⁵ Ibid., 10.45, 1/8/34, p. 37.

³⁶ Ibid., 11.45 (bft), 14/7/34, p. 37.

³⁷ Ibid., 4/1/37, p. 85.

³⁸ Ibid., c. 3.30 ab, 8/3/36, p. 100.

³⁹ Ibid., 11.30, in train, 25/7/34, p. 32.

⁴⁰ Ibid., in notes for preface, c.12, 28/8/35, p. 82.

⁴¹ Ibid., 1.25p, ab. 6/5/34, p. 23.

⁴² Ibid., 3.30p, 8/5/34, p. 23.

⁴³ Ibid., c.9.45, 3/1/35, p. 57.

⁴⁴ Ibid., c.9.45, 3/1/35, p. 51.

⁴⁵ Ibid., c.9.45, 3/1/35, p. 57.

⁴⁶ 1st Cor. Ch 23, v. 13.

⁴⁷ Priscilla Johnston, Edward Johnston (London: Faber & Faber, 1959).

⁴⁸ Philip Hagreen (1890–1988), engraver, member of the Guild of St. Joseph and St. Dominic, book review in Good Work 23(1) (1959): 31–2.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ewan Clayton

Ewan Clayton is a calligrapher and teacher. He grew up near the village of Ditchling, Sussex, home to the calligrapher Edward Johnston. His family worked as weavers in the Guild of Craftsmen on Ditchling Common founded by Eric Gill in 1921. Ewan is Professor in Design at the University of Sunderland where he co-directs their International Calligraphy Research Centre. In 2006 he curated the exhibition Edward Johnston: Lettering and Life for Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft. In 2013 he was named Craft Champion of the year for his contribution to educating others in the crafts in the first National Craft Skills Awards. He is a Trustee of the Crafts Study Centre and of the Pakistan Islamic Arts Institute, Lahore. He was awarded an MBE in the 2014 New Year’s Honours List.