Photographs of chalk lettering on blackboard by Edward Johnston © Central Saint Martins Museum & Study Collection

In 1899 Edward Johnston was invited by William Lethaby, the first principal of the Central School of Arts and Crafts, to start a class on Writing and Illumination. He was described by those he taught as an influential and inspirational teacher – high praise from such noteworthy students as Eric Gill, Noel Rooke and Graily Hewitt (and it would be Hewitt who took over the class when Johnston moved to the RCA in 1912). Johnston is probably best remembered for the work he did for the London Underground. His typeface Railway remains in use and his bar and circle symbol, an early experiment in corporate identity, is still a familiar sight in London today. However, his book Writing and Illumination & Lettering was recognised as a seminal work when it was published in 1906 and his classes were almost singlehandedly responsible for the revival of calligraphy in this country.

These photographs were taken by Violet Hawkins, one of Johnston’s students, and show some of the blackboards created by him for his classes at the Royal College of Art and Central School of Arts and Crafts. A close look at the photographs reveals no trace of ruled guidelines, suggesting that Johnston created these amazing letters entirely freehand. Sets of these photographs can be seen at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, the National Art Library and the Crafts Study Centre.

Text by Judy Lindsay, Head of Museum & Contemporary Collections, Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design

Song of the perfect cure, music cover by Concanen & Lee, showing performer J H Stead, 1861 © Reading University Library

This Victorian music cover portrays the performer James Henry Stead in the song which he made famous. Stead’s performance of the song with its accompanying dance was extraordinary. He was really a dancer, and after singing the verse and chorus, he would leap up and down over 400 times with both feet at once. According to ‘Household Words’, a contemporary magazine, Stead could actually perform this jump an astonishing 1,600 times in succession.

The original lithographic music cover was printed in three colours. The costume consisted of plain red and white vertical stripes with the usual brownish lithotint background. The design was very simple, and yet very striking. The stark figure of Stead suspended in mid-air rivets the attention of the viewer, and the conical hat makes Stead appear ten feet tall.

During his short career Stead, like so many music-hall artistes, appeared at three or four theatres in one evening, performing the same act at each. This must have required superhuman physical endurance for Stead. The song was advertised as ‘sung for upwards of nine hundred nights with unbounded success’ at Weston’s Music Hall in Holborn, London. For a short time Stead achieved great fame with his performance of ‘Song of the Perfect Cure’, but his reputation dwindled into obscurity soon afterwards, and in 1886 he died in an attic a poor man.

This music cover was produced in 1861 by the prolific lithographer Alfred Concanen (1835-1886) who portrayed many figures of the Victorian theatre and the London streets in his music cover work, capturing the liveliness and eccentricity of the mid-Victorian theatre and music-hall scene for posterity.

Text by Fiona Melhuish, Rare Books Librarian, Special Collections Services, University of Reading.

View the Spellman Collection of Victorian Music Covers

The VADS image collections have been contributed to the service by a number of expert curators, museum managers, librarians, and archivists based at universities and arts institutions across the UK. These expert curators have begun sharing some of the fruits of their research on the VADS blog. Curators’ Choice is a new feature on the blog which will provide fascinating insights into the history and context of items from the VADS collections.

In conjunction with the Curators’ Choice, VADS will be launching ‘Your Pick’, which will showcase images that you are using in research, publications, exhibitions, or other projects.   We would like to hear from you about the ways in which you are using the VADS site – tell us at info@vads.ac.uk or 01252 892723.