With the proceeds, it is said, of a fortunate draw in one of the State Lotteries,[608] he became possessor of the Fann Street Foundry, and proceeded at once to throw himself into the new business with great energy and no small success.

His first specimen book, issued in January 1821, a few months after the purchase, may be taken as representing the contents of the Foundry pretty much as Thorne left it; although even in this short space of time some additions are apparent, which formed no part of his predecessor’s stock.[609] {296}

In the following year Mr. Thorowgood was sworn Letter-Founder to His Majesty, and put forth a specimen of a Greek fount of good cut, which, at the time, was the sole representative of the “learned” languages in his Foundry. Further progress was, however, made in this direction during the next few years; as Hansard, writing in 1825, mentions three sizes of German, two of Greek, one of Hebrew, and four of Russian, as forming part of his stock. The Germans, and the Pica and Bourgeois Russian, were procured from the Foundry of Breitkopf and Härtel of Leipzig.[610]

A new specimen book was issued in 1828. In the same year, the retirement of Dr. Fry presented Mr. Thorowgood with the opportunity of making a most important addition to his business by the acquisition of the Type Street Foundry. This purchase transferred to the Fann Street Foundry not only the whole of Dr. Fry’s interesting collection of oriental and “learned” founts, which included many relics of the old foundries, but augmented his stock of book founts, Blacks, Titlings, and Flowers, to almost double their former extent.

The transfer was completed in 1829, and early in the following year a specimen of additions to the Foundry contained an announcement that “a new edition of the Greeks, Hebrews, and foreign characters of the Polyglot Foundry, late the property of Dr. Fry, is in preparation.”

This promised specimen duly appeared in 1830, the sheets still bearing Dr. Fry’s imprint; and after this date frequent supplementary specimens marked the development of the business of this now extensive foundry.

As the scope of this history does not extend beyond the period now reached, it will suffice to state that about 1838, Mr. Thorowgood admitted into partnership Mr. Robert Besley, who, since the year 1826, had been in the service of the Foundry as traveller and in other capacities. The firm then became known as Thorowgood and Co., or more commonly Thorowgood and Besley. This partnership ceasing by the withdrawal of Mr. Thorowgood in 1849, Mr. Benjamin Fox, a practical punch cutter of much talent, joined Mr. Besley as Robert Besley and Co. On the retirement of Alderman Besley in 1861, Mr. (afterwards, Sir) Charles Reed, a printer, entered the business, which took the style of Reed and Fox. Mr. Fox died in 1877, when the firm became Sir {297} Charles Reed and Sons. Sir Charles Reed died in 1881, and the business is now in the hands of his two sons.

LIST OF SPECIMENS, 1760–1830.