 similar style.
Bent was dismissed from his position of Government Printer in June 1825, but may have continued to do binding work for government for a while thereafter. He was paid for some in 1825.
Given the substantial amount of printing work Bent did for the Wesleyan community in Hobart, it is likely he also did binding and book repairs for the Wesleyan Library, established in 1827. Some volumes from that library, subsequently part of the Wesleyan Sunday School library, survive in the Crowther Collection at Libraries Tasmania. The two volumes shown here – James Thomson, Theological Discourses on Important Subjects, Doctrinal and Practical (1808-9) – while probably still in the plain bindings as issued by the publisher, have book plates printed by Bent. The 1827 catalogue of the library indicates that Thomson’s Sermons were in its collection at that time.
James Ross and Henry Melville
After spending a couple of trouble free years in the Surveyor General’s office Drysdale returned to his position as government bookbinder, his services being regarded as ‘indispensable’ by the Colonial Secretary, and was granted a ticket of leave. Government Printer James Ross received new printing equipment in 1827 and was obviously offering a bookbinding service in 1828. He published his first almanac, the Hobart Town Almanack, at the beginning of 1829. This was issued in cloth covered boards, a fairly recent innovation even in England. Copies were possibly bound by Drysdale, although Ross may have had more than one bookbinder at this time.
Early in 1830 Bent sold his printing business to Henry Melville who continued to advertise bookbinding. In late 1830 and early 1831 Melville’s assigned bookbinder was the ubiquitous Drysdale who in 1829 had lost his ticket of leave (and with it his position with Ross) for repeated drunkenness. In between frequent stints on the tread wheel, Drysdale probably bound Melville’s first almanac, the 1831 Van Diemen’s Land Almanack, issued in both a cloth binding and printed paper wrappers.
Part 2 will examine the expansion of book binding activity in Van Diemen’s Land in the eighteen thirties and beyond.