William Monk's Calendar – Time to say goodbye, by Ralph Hyde

What has always made Monk's Calendar of such interest to collectors has been its headpiece – each year an original etching of a London scene. The Calendar was invented by William Monk but the idea was neither new nor his. From 1683 until 1895 the Stationers' Company had published a small, single-sheet London Almanack which consisted of calendar text set out beneath an engraved headpiece. From 1736 those headpieces were of London landmarks. Though the London Almanack was almost certainly Monk's model, there were two other illustrated almanacs Monk would have known well - the Stationers' Almanack, published by the Stationers' Company since 1747, and the Oxford Almanack, published by Oxford University Press since 1674. Monk himself supplied etchings for the Oxford Almanack in 1902, 1903, 1904, and 1905.

Monk was born in Chester in 1863, the son of a gunmaker. In 1887 he went to Antwerp and apparently it was there that he began to etch. On his return to Chester in the following year he worked from a studio on the River Dee producing etchings of Chester and also of Westminster Abbey in London. He moved to London in 1892, establishing himself at the Hogarth Studios in Charlotte Street off Fitzroy Square. In 1894 he became an Associate of the Society of Painter Etchers (today's Royal Society of Painter Printmakers – for short R.E.).

The Society of Painter Etchers, founded by Seymour Haden in 1880, set out to demonstrate that etching was as much art as painting. The public were persuaded, and the British Etching British Etching Revival happened in consequence. Before long prices would soar, and artists such as Stanley Anderson, Ian and William Strang, Edward Blampied, Sir David Muirhead Bone, Sir Henry Rushbury, Francis Dodd, and William Washington would thrive and flourish. It was into this scene that Monk launched his Calendar.

Monk's Calendar consisted of a sheet of rag paper measuring 430 by 330mm upon which was printed the etched headpiece, and below this the normal calendar text, its type artistically set by Monk himself. Monk made it clear from the start that his Calendar was not something to be thrown away at the end of the year. Previous years' Calendars were marketed with the current Calendar simultaneously, at the uniform price of two-shillings-and-six-pence. Thirty-five signed proofs were issued, printed on special paper, and these were priced at one guinea (one-pound-one- shilling). The Morning Post reviewed the 1906 Calendar enthusiastically: '… It depicts Ludgate Hill from Fleet-street, with the dome of St. Paul's towering in placid grandeur above the disorder of modern architecture, the steam and smoke and the nerve-racking traffic below. Light and air soften rigid lines and beautify commonplace buildings, and the whole scene suggests the spirit of unrest of this great centre of our Metropolis.' The subject of the etching in the next year was Hyde Park Corner. Marchers in a demonstration carry banners with unlikely slogans, 'Churchmen Demand Respect', 'No Country Creeds', and 'Down with Education Bill.'

Monk etched and printed his Calendar in his studio at The Gables, Amersham in Buckinghamshire. Later his studio addresses would be given successively as 72 New Bond Street, 118 New Bond Street, and eventually Barrel Well, Chester. From the first Calendar in 1903 right up to 1922 the Calendar was published jointly by Monk and a friend, Elkin Mathews, a fine art publisher initially at 6a Vigo Street, the short street that links Burlington Gardens and Regent Street. The style of the Calendar's text evolved. For a number of years there was a thought for the year, usually related to the theme of time. In 1914, for example, subscribers were reminded:

From 1912 the Calendar carried details of bank holidays and quarter days and a 'perpetual calendar.'

The images on the Calendars issued during the First World War inevitably carry hints of the titanic struggle being waged on the Continent. 'Buckingham Palace' in 1915 shows Red Cross vehicles, and the staffage on 'The Admiralty' in 1918 consists almost entirely of soldiers and sailors. The headpiece for the 1919 Calendar is forthright. It features the War Office at night with search lights raking the clouds behind it. A gun-carriage progresses from right to left across the image. A verse for the first time replaces the thought for the year.

Verses continued to appear on the Calendar until 1933. They were generally unworthy of the publication. That for 1926 is typical:

In 1933 Monk moved back to Chester but he continued to supply etchings for the Calendar until his death on 8 April 1937. A note on the 1938 Calendar explains that it had been 'Drawn & Etched in 1932 by the late W. Monk R.E., founder (1902).' The artist who took over was the East Anglian watercolourist and etcher, Leonard Squirrell (1893-1979). Walker's Galleries Ltd, fine art publishers of 118 New Bond Street (the same address as Monk's) continued to publish the Calendar until 1962.

William Monk had supplied the Calendar with etchings for thirty-five years; Leonard Squirrell supplied it with London etchings for twenty-nine. In 1942 the Calendar carried one of its most evocative headpieces - 'St Paul's Cathedral', showing the edifice surrounded by buildings destroyed by enemy action. It was etched by Squirrell after a drawing made on the spot by Frank Emmanuel (1865-1948), the author of Etching and Etchers: A Guide to Technique and Print Collecting (London: Pitman 1930). Four other headpieces were etched after drawings by Emmanuel, but in all other cases Squirrell was responsible both for the drawing and the etching. Squirrell's headpiece for 1954 consists of Westminster Abbey as it appeared at the time of the 1953 Coronation, with Eric Bedford's Temporary Annexe and Jones Woodford's Queen's Beasts. In 1964 the subject of the headpiece is the Tate Gallery. Looming up behind it is the new Millbank Tower. The contrast between the two buildings, the one classical, the other modern, is not regretted. The tower, the note suggests, is 'in sympathy with the Tate's role as a national gallery of the future.' Like Monk, Squirrell provided designs for the Oxford Almanack – 'Oxford from Wytham' in 1945, and 'Wolvercote Paper Mill' in 1949.

When Squirrell in 1966 announced that he wished to retire, his place was taken by another R.E. - Harry Eccleston (b.1923), the Society's President. Eccleston was told to produce 'something like the Squirrells', and this he did. He was responsible for four Calendars, those for 1967, 1968, 1969, and 1970. For 1967 his subject was the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. When reminiscencing with me recently he recalled that he had drawn the theatre at half past eleven at night, sitting in the still crowded street, fearing he would miss the last train home.

In 1971 Eccleston was succeeded in turn by yet another enthusiastic R.E. - Lawrence Josset (1910-1995), who would supply the etched headpieces for seventeen years, in other words until 1988. Josset had received his training in the School of Engraving at the Royal College of Art, where he had been taught by Robert Austin and Malcolm Osborne. He etched his plates on a table in the living room of his cottage at Detling in Kent, pulling proofs on an iron rolling press housed in a lean-to, and then taking the etched copper plates to Thomas Ross & Son at Hampstead and, when they moved there, Putney for printing. Since 1963 the Calendar had been published by Stevens & Brown Ltd., booksellers and subscription agents to a host of American libraries, who sent out the Calendar to their mainly American clients as a Christmas gift. At this stage 106 copies of the Calendar were being printed, 100 for clients, and six for the artist.

In 1987 Thomas Ross & Son took over from Stevens & Brown as printers and publishers of the Calendar. Ross were a long-established firm, and by this time located in Putney. No PQ readers who visited Thomas Ross on open days will ever forget the experience. We watched girl colourists at work licking their brushes in obedience to tradition, Lawrence Josset engraving a mezzotint, and two elderly printers actually printing from mezzotint plates in colour, an art now virtually lost. We were even allowed to explore the strong room. The walls of this room were lined with shelves carrying thousands of original copper plates dating back to the beginning of the seventeenth century. The firm's Managing Director, Beryl Pomeroy, had been with the firm since 1945.

Thomas Ross were taken over in 1989 by Gordon and Wallace Nutbrown who would move the firm out to Binfield in Berkshire where it still flourishes. Under the previous management the firm's historian had been Anthony Dyson (b.1931), author of Thomas Ross & Son, Fine art Printers: The Nineteenth Century Heritage (London: Thomas Ross & Son 1983); and Pictures to Print: the Nineteenth Century Engraving Trade (London: Farrand Press 1984). The Nutbrowns were realists. There was no hope of Monk's Calendar ever being a profit-making venture, and the new proprietors were content to assign responsibility for its future production to Anthony Dyson. Dyson has drawn, etched and printed the Calendar since 1990, and since 1995 he has also been its publisher.

Dyson's Black Star Press is located at his house in Teddington. The premises are modest - a small workshop extending from the kitchen into Mr and Mrs Dyson's back garden. Much of the space is occupied by two presses. The first of these is the early iron rolling press which formerly belonged to Lawrence Josset, the other is a modern reproduction of a Victorian rolling press, made by Harry Rochat of Barnet.

Dyson's files bulge with preliminary sketches, photographs, final working drawings, and progressive proofs for past 'Monk's Calendars'. He has kept discarded designs – a drawing of the English National Opera for the 1998 Calendar, for instance, and one of the Royal Naval College for 1999. Dyson's original idea for 2000 was to represent the New Year's Day revelry in Trafalgar Square. In the event the headpiece for the last Monk's Calendar is a composite image consisting of representative London landmarks erected over the last 1000 years. It will be treasured by those who acquire it.

Anthony Dyson introduced two new features. First, the etching for the headpieces was supplemented by aquatint. In other words the headpieces were no longer pure etchings as they had been previously. Second, in order to emphasise that the subscribers would be getting original prints, not reproductions, he signed and numbered the impressions. The editions have been small – 'St Pancras Hotel' in 1990 was the smallest, being limited to 75. In practice he has printed far fewer copies. The Calendar in its final years had 46 regular subscribers, and about 70 impressions were printed off. The price of this year's Calendar is £15.00, expensive for a normal calendar, absurdly cheap for an original aquatint.

Except perhaps when it first appeared, it seems improbable that Monk's Calendar was ever an economically viable venture. Now it is no more. Unless, that is, someone steps forward to rescue and re-launch it. If that happens, be sure I will tell you in a future issue.