[UK] Grover

1. Overview

1674 - 1728. "Supposed" to include founts (of matrices, I presume) from Wynkyn de Worde. Acquired 1758 by Thomas James.

Reed calls the Grovers' foundry "the most extensive, and in many respects the most interesting of the later seventeenth century foundries." (197)

According to Reed (p. 197), James Grover was the father and Thomas Grover the son, but they set up in 1674 in partnership.

Davis & Carter (p. 358) indicate that Thomas (not James) was a former "servant" (= apprentice?) of Nicholas Nicholls.

In his Appendix VI, Millington gives the dates 1674-1700 for James and Thomas Grover, succeeded from 1700-1728 by Thomas Grover. Both Millington, Reed, and Moseley et. al. ( Founder's London A-Z) indicate that the Grover foundry had ceased operation by the time its materials were acquired the James foundry. (Moseley et. al. say Thomas James, but it must have been John James.)

Reed offers more detail. He says the foundry ceased operation on the death of Thomas Grover in 1728, at which time it passed to his daughters. He says that William Caslon I appraised it and offered too little. That sale failing, the materials were stored by a printer, Mr. Nutt, who (Reed says) cast from them for his own use.

Moxon, Joseph. Mechanick Exercises on the Whole Art of Printing. Ed. Herbert Davis and Harry Carter. Second edition (1962). NY: Dover Publications, 1978.

Millington, Roy. Stephenson Blake: The Last of the Old English Typefounders. New Castle, DE and London: Oak Knoll Books and The British Library, 2002.

Moseley, James, Justin Howes, and Nigel Roche. Founder's London A-Z. London: The [European] Friends of the St. Bride's Printing Library, 1998.)

Reed, Talbot Baines. A History of the Old English Letter Foundries. London: Elliot Stock, 1887.