Baskerville, John (1706–1775), printer and typefounder, was born at Sion Hill, Wolverley, near Kidderminster, Worcestershire, the son of John Baskervile (d. 1738) and his wife, Sara or Sarah; he was baptized at Wolverley on 28 January 1707. It is likely that the family were landowners and farmers in a small way. In later life ...
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Maker: James Millar
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Caslon [née Cartlich], Elizabeth (1730–1795), typefounder, was born in Foster Lane, London, on 31 May 1730, the daughter of William Cartlich, refiner, of Foster Lane, and his wife, Elizabeth. She was baptized on 4 June at St John Zachary, London. On 25 June 1751 she married ...
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See Caslon [née Cartlich], Elizabeth
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James Mosley
Caslon, William, the elder (1692–1766), typefounder, was born at Cradley, Worcestershire, the son of George Caslon (d. 1709), shoemaker, of nearby Halesowen, and Mary Steven. George was the son of William Castledowne, also a shoemaker of Halesowen, and an earlier form of the family surname, recorded in ...
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Fry, Edmund (1757–1835), typefounder, was born in Small Street, Bristol, on 2 February 1757, the second of the three sons of Joseph Fry (1728–1787), chocolate manufacturer and typefounder, and his wife, Anna, née Portsmouth (1719/20–1803), daughter of Henry Portsmouth MD of Basingstoke, Hampshire...
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Fry, Joseph (1728–1787), chocolate manufacturer and typefounder, was born into a devout Quaker family in 1728, the eldest son of John Fry (d. 1775), a shopkeeper of Sutton Benger, Wiltshire. He was educated at a Quaker boarding-school in the north of England...
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James Mosley
Jackson, Joseph (1733–1792), typefounder, was born in Old Street, Shoreditch, London, on 4 September 1733, the son of James Jackson, feltmaker; he may have been the child baptized the following day at St Giles Cripplegate as the son of James and Alice Jackson...
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Vivienne W. Painting
Martin, William (d. 1815), typefounder, was probably born in Birmingham, the son of a local printer whose family originally came from Scotland. It is likely that William began work at John Baskerville's type foundry at Easy Hill, Birmingham, where his brother, Robert, was ...
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George Stronach
revised by Roger Hutchins
Wilson, Alexander (1714–1786), astronomer and type founder, son of Patrick Wilson, town clerk of St Andrews, and Clara Fairfoul, his wife, was born at St Andrews, Fife. His father died when he was very young. He studied at the university there, and graduated MA on 8 May 1733. He was then apprenticed to a surgeon and apothecary, first in ...