Lot 285: GILL, ERIC (1882-1940, calligrapher, stone-cutter, typographer, sculptor, engraver and essayist)

HANDSOME AUTOGRAPH CALLIGRAPHIC MANUSCRIPT SIGNED ('A.E.R. Gill'), being minutes of 'The Society (Name at present unknown)' [but The Housemakers' Society] of which Gill was the secretary and other first members included his friend and mentor, the calligrapher Edward Johnston (1872-1944) and the wood-engraver Noel Rooke (1881-1953), the purposes of the Society being 'to be prepared to give advice whenever asked on questions of the building of houses and to compile a record of its experience and be prepared to publish', to 'discuss the needs of man in relation to the house which he inhabits and in relation to all things connected with the house however remotely' and 'To encourage by all possible and proper means the erection of houses designed in accordance with the ideas which the Society may arrive at'; the manuscript relates to the preliminary meeting on 25 February, the first meeting 11 March and the second meeting on 1 April 1906 in Gill's house at 20 Black Lion Lane, Hammersmith, the record of the second meeting (perhaps the last) ending imperfectly, 4 pages, large folio, filing holes, light browning, 25 February to 1 April 1906

A FINE EARLY EXAMPLE OF GILL'S CALLIGRAPHIC HAND. Nothing apart from this manuscript seems to have survived about the Society to which it relates. It is a further link between Gill and Edward Johnston, designer of the Doves Press type and revolutionary teacher and writer on calligraphy whose classes at the Central School of Art were attended by both Gill and Rooke. Gill's first sight of Johnston writing in script, using a quill pen, came as a revelation: 'I was struck by lightning, as by a sort of enlightenment. It was no mere dexterity that transported me; it was as though a secret of heaven was being revealed'. In 1902 Gill joined Johnston in his bachelor rooms at 16 Old Buildings, Lincoln's Inn, and in 1905 moved to 20 Black Lion Lane, Hammersmith, close to Johnston who then lived at no. 3 and to Kelmscott House. Rooke lived in nearby Bedford Park.

In the minutes of the second meeting Gill read a letter from H.G. Wells 'stating inability to attend'. In the preliminary meeting a reading had been made from Wells's A Modern Utopia. The present manuscript contains details of where meetings should be held, of the contributions that members should make, of thoughts on polishing of metals used in furniture, the purchase of relevant books, thoughts on current methods of work in the building trade and 'the extreme division of labour, and the consequent mechanical quality of the work done and the degrading and inhuman labour men were put to do.' Among opinions recorded is Johnston's that the best thing 'was to improve the quality of things.'

The first page of the manuscript is reproduced in line block by Robert Speaight, The Life of Eric Gill, 1966, p. 30. Speaight restricts himself to the statement: 'There was no lack, in these early days of the new century, of clever people putting the world to rights.' Fiona MacCarthy, Eric Gill, 1989, identifies the society as The Housemakers' Society, which originated in Lyons' Smoking Room and had the moral purpose of 'achieving four-square lives in four-square homesteads, a starting point towards Eric Gill's cell of good living.' With the manuscript is a manila envelope with labels disguising that it was formerly in the possession of the book dealer George Sims.