[Μ] 74. The Alexandrian Greek (formerly Grover’s), rejustified by Dr. Fry, 1786. (From the original matrices.)

[Μ] 74A. Two-line Great Primer Hebrew, cut by Dr. Fry, circa 1785. (From the original matrices.)

Another Specimen followed in 1786, showing several more of the new founts, and including seven pages of Orientals. This volume is dedicated to the Prince of Wales, and is prefaced by an address to the public of the usual self-laudatory character, with a somewhat aggressive reference to the rival foundry at Chiswell Street.[625]

In the following year Mr. Joseph Fry retired from the business. Besides founding a chocolate business in his native city, and becoming a considerable {305} partner in the new Bristol Porcelain Works, he had added to his other enterprises that of a Chemical Works at Battersea, and later still had established some important Soap Works in partnership with Mr. Alderman Fripp of Bristol.

He did not long survive his retirement, and died, after a few days’ illness, on March 29, 1787, aged fifty-nine, greatly respected. He was buried in the Friends’ burial-ground at the Friars, Bristol. A silhouette portrait of him is to be seen in Mr. Hugh Owen’s Two Centuries of Ceramic Art in Bristol, where also many interesting details of his life are to be found.[626]

In 1787 was issued a Specimen of Printing Types by Edmund Fry and Co.—the first mention of the firm under its new title. This was followed in the next year by a full specimen of the foundry, with a preface and dedication similar to those of the 1786 edition, but showing several fresh additions, particularly among the Orientals, which occupy twelve pages. Of the latter, several founts had been cut by Dr. Fry himself.

The specimen of 1787 was included in the Printer’s Grammar[627] published in that year—a work which makes considerable reference to the Frys’ foundry, whose specimens and standards are used in illustration of the various subjects dealt with. The introductory note to the specimen gives the following account of the then condition of the foundry. It “was begun in 1764 and has been continued with great perseverance and assiduity, at a very considerable expence. The plan on which they first sat out, was an improvement of the Types of the late Mr. Baskerville of Birmingham, eminent for his ingenuity in his line, as also for his curious Printing, many proofs of which are extant and much admired: But the shape of Mr. Caslon’s Type has since been copied by them with such accuracy as not to be distinguished from those of that celebrated Founder. They have at present Twenty-seven complete Founts in punches and matrices of Roman and Italic, besides many sizes of larger Letter cast in Sand; also an elegant assortment of Blacks, with Hebrews and Greeks, and many other Orientals: They have also a greater variety of Flowers than are to be met with in any other Foundery in this Kingdom.”

The premises at Worship Street becoming inadequate for the type and printing business combined, Dr. Fry took a plot of ground opposite Bunhill Fields in Chiswell Street—then open fields—and there built the foundry which gave its name to Type Street. To these premises the business was removed in 1788; and the Specimen of that year dates from the Type Street Foundry. {306}

Among many elegant works printed at this time in the types of this foundry was the Rev. Mr. Homer’s fine edition of the classics,[628] printed by Millar Ritchie,[629] in which the somewhat rare compliment was paid the founder, of adding his name to the list of typographers engaged on the work.