Lost Trades Nᵒ.9: Robert Hancock (c. 1731-1817), Birmingham, Transfer Printing, & the Worcestershire Potteries

1: Mezzotint print of Robert Hancock by Hancock, c. 1770.
British Museum Collection.

Robert Hancock worked as an engraver throughout his life, and produced engravings for paper prints, as well as those for transfer printing onto enamel and porcelain. He moved all over the Midlands and was important to many areas printing history, mainly in this contribution to transfer printing. Birmingham, for example, was highly influential in the innovation of transfer printing onto enamel in the early 1750s and Hancock was significant in this. He then moved to the Worcestershire potteries and innovated the process further on porcelain.

Engravers: Thomas Hancock (fl. 1796-1830s)

Trade Card with pencil inscription in the shield.
Held at Birmingham Archive.

Thomas Hancock (1774-after 1830s) was an engraver, and the son of another well-known engraver, Robert Hancock.*1* His business was at 14 Congreve Street (just off from what is now Victoria Square) from about 1796, and he worked till the 1830s. 

Lost Trades: The Engraved Work of Thomas Rothwell (1740-1807)

Thomas Rothwell (1740-1807) was a British engraver working in England and Wales in the late eighteenth century, whose skills were utilised in both the book trade and in the making of enameled and pottery goods. He was born in Liverpool, and began working as an enamel painter,* later, in the early 1760s, working for Humphrey Palmer in Hanley, Staffordshire, (a rival of Josiah Wedgwood) painting enamel as well as engraving designs for the printed creamware being produced by Palmer.

Teapot with design by T. Rothwell "Delin & Sculp.",
meaning that he drew the design and engraved it.
Produced in the mid 1760s, maker unknown.
A detail of the lid is at the top of the post.

In 1769 Rothwell produced the copper plate engravings for a publication of A Pilgrim's Progress published in Wolverhampton by Thomas Smith, and by 1770 was in Birmingham; this time engraving plates for printer Christopher Earl. The work printed in Birmingham was The Genuine Works of Flavius Josephus, and Rothwell produced engravings taken from drawings produced by Birmingham born painter James Millar.

In 1774 Rothwell had set up a partnership with a Mr. Hick's on Birmingham's Church Street, but the next reference to him is not till 1782 where he takes on an apprentice engraver called Henry Allden in Birmingham;** he appears in Birmingham trade directories throughout the 1780s till 1788.

By 1790 he was in Swansea, producing topographical views of the city, as well as working within the Swansea ceramics trade, especially producing commemorative items.

Swansea commemorative ceramics.
Attributed to Rothwell. 

In 1794 he was in London (or possibly his son, Peter, was), producing engraved plated for books, including portraits of famous people and notable London buildings. It seems that he spent the next few years between London and Birmingham; in 1798 he took on an apprentice engraver (Horace W. Fell) in Birmingham and in 1799 his copper plate engravings were published in London in The Cabinet of Arts. He was now nearly 60 years of age.

The Admiralty, from The Cabinet of Arts, 1799.

Rothwell was back in Birmingham in about 1803, and died in the town in 1807, being buried in St. Mary's Church on January 19th.

Engravers: George Anderton (c. 1724-1775)

'Plan of the University and City of Oxford', surveyed by Isaac Taylor, engraved by George Anderton, this copy published by William Jackson, 1751.
Held by the Bodleian Library and digitised on Cabinet.

On 3rd February 1750 the following advertisement appeared in Aris's Birmingham Gazette:

This day is published, Price Five Shillings-- on two sheets of Imperial paper, A new plan of Oxford, from an accurate Survey taken in 1750 [...].*1*

George Anderton was a Birmingham engraver. Between about 1740 and 1750 he resided on a premises on Temple Street, not far from the junction with Temple Row.*1* 

It is also noted (without a source) that Anderton attempted type founding and, with the employment of Samuel Caslon (brother of the Cradley-born typefounder William Caslon), that he produced 'a little specimen of Great Primer - Roman and Italic - in 1753.*1a* 

Anderton apprenticed Robert Hancock in 1745 for £30,*2* Thomas Broomhall in 1756 for £21, and Matthew Darby in 1757 for £40.*3*

Notes

*1* Joseph Hill, The Book Makers of Old Birmingham (Birmingham: Cornish Brothers, 1907), p. 27.

*1a* Joseph Hill, The Book Makers of Old Birmingham (Birmingham: Cornish Brothers, 1907), p. 28.

*2* Apprenticeship of Robert son of John Hancock to George Anderton engraver of Birmingham £30, 28 January1745, National Archives, IR/1/17 fol. 184. 

*3* Birmingham print apprenticeships: https://bookhistory.blogspot.com/2013/01/warwickshire.html.