Established in 1954 from a gift of several hundred titles of typographical interest, the William Colgate Collection has prospered over more than half a century from new acquisitions and collection development policies and has become one of the most comprehensive collections of its kind in Canada.

Read more on the founder and donor William G. Colgate

Today, the Colgate Collection covers the full spectrum of the history of printing: typography, the presses, papermaking, book design, illustration, and binding, amounting to more than 12, 000 books, supplemented by sample books and specimens related to book history.  A large part of the collection is focussed on fine and small press publications from Europe and North America, dating from the late 19th century, including the Kelmscott Press of William Morris. 

To find out more about the donor and the collection, we invite you to consult the Spring 2014 issue of Amphora, a journal specialized in a wide range of topics related to the book published by the Alcuin Society, available on our newsstand in Rare Books and Special Collections.

We hope that this initial profile will attract additional researchers and help further define McGill Library’s history of the book collections.

The McGill Library has made a substantial contribution to a brand new show  to be held at The National Gallery of Canada starting November 8th, 2013.

Artists, Architects & Artisans: Canadian Art 1890-1918 

This major national exhibition “looks at the interaction among artists, architects and artisans, as well as critics and collectors at the turn of the 20^th century”.

Full-scale drawing, over 4 metres in length, for iron work, by Percy Nobbs

Since 2009, the Chief Curator of the Exhibition, Charles C. Hill, investigated the holdings of many archival and architectural repositories, including McGill’s John Bland Canadian Architecture Collection (CAC), looking for architectural projects that illustrated “the aesthetic of the Beaux-Arts tradition and the Arts and Craft movement, enhanced by many international currents of art.“  In particular, the Exhibition draws extensively from the archives of the Maxwell Brothers and Percy Nobbs, housed in the John Bland Canadian Architecture Collection.

Charles Hill,  the distinguished Curator of Canadian Art at the National Gallery of Canada, together with a contributing associate, Rosalind Pepall, former Senior Curator of Decorative Arts at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, examined in minute detail, archival material such as: logbooks, diaries, supply catalogues, project cost ledgers, and signatures of all kinds appearing on documents and drawings.  They were looking to verify names connected to a project and further understand the relationships between artists, architects, artisans, landscape designers, urban planners and so on.

McGill contributed about  80 pieces for loan:  rough sketches, presentation watercolours, hand-drawn scale drawings of exteriors, photographs of the interiors, and even pieces of furniture – the latter of which shows the craftsmanship of dedicated artisans.

One of the pieces loaned to the Exhibition is this exceptional, full-scale drawing of the iron work intended for the font cover bracket and counterweight for the Saint James Church in Trois-Rivières, Québec. It was executed by Percy Nobbs in graphite, ink and watercolour on thin opaque paper. Measuring 4.30 metres long by 1.06 metres wide, it is one of the longest drawings ever discovered in the John Bland Canadian Architecture Collection. It was quite a feat for the McGill Digitization Team to scan, since it fell well beyond the dimensions of the scanning platform.

In fact, it needed to be captured in 6 phases, and then stitched together to form one composite image.

Over a two-year period, more than 100 photographs were selected for the digital component to made available for visitors on e-viewers. Thanks to the sustained and brilliant work of the Digitization Team, with special mention to Coordinator Jennifer Innes, and Digitization Administrator (and photographer), Greg Houston, this material will come alive in a new way.

A printed exhibition catalogue highlights and discusses all of the loaned and digitized material from McGill University, and from many other lenders across the country.

It was a pleasure to assist the Curators over this long haul of research and preparation. It promises to be a most enlightening show. We invite you to attend the exhibition, which is on from November 8^th 2013 to February 2^nd 2014, in Ottawa.

Ann Marie Holland, Liaison Librarian, Rare Books and Special Collections.

Update: see also the McGill Reporter article, February 2014

It is a rare event when an assiduous researcher from a different corner of the world makes contact with a rare book librarian, and that the two benefit equally regarding their work in progress. A recent exchange with Mr. Bob Oldham of Ad Lib Press, who is currently conducting a worldwide census of Columbian hand presses in observance of this year’s 200th anniversary of their invention by George Clymer, is clearly an expert on the subject matter and offered some new facts about its manufacture. At this stage of our contact, Mr. Oldham is investigating our Columbian Press which will be recorded in his detailed census as well as in the North American Hand Press Database.

Columbian Press in
William Savage’s, Practical Hints on Decorative Printing, 1822.

Our Columbian Press is one of five presses that the McGill University Library owns. It is without a doubt the most alluring of all the presses. It stands proudly on the fourth floor of the McLennan Library Building, in the corridor off the stairway.

This press was invented by the American engineer George Clymer of Philadelphia in 1813.  According to Mr. Oldham, “Clymer manufactured and sold about 20 of them in the USA until about May 1817, when he sailed for England to try the more stable printing press market there. He obtained a patent in England in November 1817 and built at least 415 presses in England under his own name until 1830. Clymer died in 1834, and his patent expired either just before or shortly after his death. At this point, there were many companies which began offering their version of the Columbian in England.  By the 1850s there were many competing companies selling Columbians. It was a very popular press for about 80 years.”

As for the design of the press, Clymer incorporated iron-casting techniques for its manufacture. It is lavishly ornamented with symbolic pieces in bronze and gilt such as the serpents on the levers which emblematize the virtue of wisdom, and the imperial eagle atop with extended wings representing might and power, clutching an olive tree branch and a horn of plenty, representing peace and abundance.  Former University Librarian of McGill University, Richard Pennington called it “phantasmagoria in cast iron” in his Account of the Redpath Press, 1977.

In this same account by Richard Pennington, we learn about the provenance of our Columbian Press. It was reportedly discovered in a basement in Fetter Lane, London, which had been “opened up by WWII bombardments” and re-located from London, England to Montreal Canada in 1957. It was determined to be a pre-1824 model and therefore probably manufactured by Clymer when he was in England due to the fact that the first type of these presses had the bar pivoted on the off or far side of the frame. In the post- 1824 model, sources say that this flaw was remedied so that “ the bar was placed nearer the hand of the pressman.” It occurred in both locations in 1820 and 1828, according to Mr. Oldham, so dating can be problematic.

An inauguration of the presses took place  on the 6^th of December, 1957 in the presence of an illustrious crowd. An introduction was pronounced by Dr. Cyril James, former Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University, who praised the utility of presses for instruction to Library School students. In attendance was an astounding array of academics and donors to McGill which is a testimony to Pennington’s professional credibility. From the Account of the Redpath Press we cite: ” John Bland of the School of Architecture; William Colgate, the donor of the Printing Collection [and who helped the University acquire much of the machinery and set up the printing office that would become the Redpath Press]; Peter Collins, the writer on the aesthetics of architecture; Sidney T. Fisher, the electronics engineer and Shakespeare collector; Raymond Klibanksy, the philosopher and mediaevalist [and now the donor of a major collection on philosophy and the history of ideas]; Dr. Wilder Penfield; and Lawrence Lande, the donor of the Lande Library of Canadiana.”

We are most proud to house this historic monument to typography and scholarship.

Ski Fun.  Lithograph. Issued by the Province of Quebec Tourist Bureau.

This ski poster represents just one of more than a hundred posters promoting Canadian tourism dating back to the early 20^th century. Posters such as these were issued by various provincial agencies or by shipping and railroad companies; all are undoubtedly vibrant works of graphic design.

Thanks to a recent project initiated by the BAnQ, we now know more about the poster holdings in Rare Books and Special Collections. In fact, McGill Library reported 1,600 Canadian posters in total, 900 of which have Quebec content. McGill Library was just one of eighty-three institutional repositories that participated in this collaborative project to record posters printed and published in Quebec or having content relating to Quebec. The result was an online inventory launched in October 2012, produced by the BANQ : Répertoire des collections institutionnelles d’affiches d’intérêt québécois. 

If you are interested in learning more, Professor Marc H. Choko of the Ecole de Design de l’UQAM, is the principal scholar dealing with the content and design of the Canadian poster and author of several publications, two of which are : L’affiche au Québec (2002); Posters of the Canadian Pacific (2004 with David L. Jones).