This account of Tasmanian colonial bookbinding, in two parts, examines Andrew Bent’s involvement, but also touches on others who offered bookbinding services either as entrepreneurs or practical binders. Although I include a few photographs, what follows is basically a narrative account rather than a detailed technical description. It is inevitably incomplete. Bent was a printer rather than a bookbinder, although like his contemporary in Hobart, James Ross, he had at times to be a jack of all trades. While he probably picked up a bit of knowledge about bookbinding, the binding work which emanated from his printing office would have been done by his workmen.
Most of Bent’s own monographs were fairly slender pamphlets. The gatherings were held together by a simple stab stitching (as in E. F. Bromley’s Address of 1823). They were frequently, although not always, issued in blue paper covers.
The almanacs, being more substantial, came out in a range of covers using blue, yellow, or marbled paper, sometimes stiffened, and usually with a paper back strip. Some years exhibit more than one binding style, and a few special bindings with interleaved blank pages survive. A more detailed description of some of the almanac bindings can be found in Ian Wilson’s Collecting Old Tasmanian Books and in the Imprints section of this website.
This charming binding of the 1824 Van Diemen’s Land Pocket Almanack was done for solicitor Robert Pitcairn, by an unidentified binder, probably in the latter part of 1824. Pitcairn arrived in Hobart in September of that year. Cream paper covers the boards and marbled paper has been pasted on top, with the corners trimmed to imitate a half binding. Imitation raised bands are marked on the spine. The marbled paper may have come from a quantity advertised for sale at the premises of Mrs. Birch in 1822.
Binding of annual newspaper volumes – government copies of the Gazette, Bent’s personal file copies of his own and other newspapers and annual volumes bound up for customers – was also an important activity. Tasmanian collector Crowther, who just happened to drop by the Government Printing Office during a rebinding exercise, salvaged some of these early newspaper bindings and described them in Biblionews (September 1956). They are typically half calf (or possibly kangaroo skin) with boards covered in light blue or, occasionally, marbled paper.
Some volumes use a dark blue paper and have the title stamped in black alongside the spine (example from 1822 shown). A bound volume for 1819 in the Dixson Library, Sydney, is very similar. These may have been the official government set as opposed to Bent’s personal copies, which were added to the Chief Secretary’s newspaper collection in 1849. Other bound newspaper volumes survive elsewhere, although many are in poor condition. Most are similar to the half bound light blue volumes described by Crowther and to the James Kelly volume shown below. Some have blind tool decoration and/or a paper label on the front.
Early Period (to 1824)
In 1823 Bent received new printing presses and type from England and by the end of that year had moved into a new printing office in Elizabeth Street. As a logical extension to his business, he also imported a ‘complete Set of Book-binder’s Tools and Presses’ and advertised the neat and expeditious performance of ‘book-binding, in all its various branches.’ This equipment was not included in the 1821 requisition for press and types which went to Governor Sorell, so was probably imported entirely on Bent’s own initiative. In 1830, when his printing business was sold, the equipment comprised ‘one large excellent Standing Press, Cutting Presses, Sewing Presses, Plough, Brass Marking Letters, Ornaments, Rolls, and every other Requisite for carrying on the Business to any extent.’
This advertisement indicates the sort of stationery binding undertaken at Bent’s printing office during 1824. Also on offer was ‘The HOBART TOWN GAZETTE, for 1823, neatly bound, and as clean as when they came from the press.’
Government ledgers and other volumes were,