Beginnings

Miller and Richard were once such a force in UK type­found­ing that Stephen­son, Blake were con­cerned that they could become a sig­nif­i­cant threat to them should they merge with Caslon. Whether it’s their clo­sure more than sev­en­ty years ago, or their size, M&R are not quite as well rep­re­sent­ed on the web as oth­er UK founders.

The firm was found­ed in 1809 by William Miller, for­mer­ly works man­ag­er of Alexan­der Wil­son​’s foundry. The first spec­i­men of types was issued in 1809 with a fur­ther spec­i­men of 28 pages being issued in 1813. When Miller’s son-in-law, joined the firm as a part­ner in 1832 the firm became ​‘William Miller & Co.’ for a peri­od, but reflect­ing Mr Richard’s role, it became ​‘Miller & Richard’ in 1838.

The firm was based in Reikie’s Court, a col­lec­tion of build­ings off 65 Nichol­son Street, Edin­burgh. As the firm grew their foot­print grew, and took in oth­er build­ings adjoin­ing the court.

M&R adopt­ed the 1838-invent­ed Bruce Piv­otal Type Cast­er in 1849¹. They also sup­plied a por­tion of the mas­sive amount of type need­ed for the Offi­cial Cat­a­logue of the Great Exhi­bi­tion of 1851. This type was the small­est cut in Eng­land at the time being ​‘Bril­liant’, or 4pt.

Three-hun­dred and thir­ty-eight tons of paper sup­plied by Spicer Bros near­ly forty-eight tons of new type cast by Besley, Caslon, Clowes, Fig­gins and Miller & Richard in six weeks and near­ly three tons of Shack­ell and Edwards’ print­ing inks were con­sumed in the pro­duc­tion of what must have been the largest print­ing job of the cen­tu­ry, the thir­ty or so offi­cial pub­li­ca­tions on the Great Exhi­bi­tion.

Hasler, Charles, Pen­rose Annu­al, No. 45, 1951, The Offi­cial Cat­a­logues of the Great Exhi­bi­tion of 1851.

Inci­den­tal­ly, Miller and Richard’s Egypt­ian was one of the res­ur­rect­ed block faces used for the Fes­ti­val of Britain in 1951.

Typographical Influence

Modern or Scotch Roman

Richard Austin cut ear­ly and dis­tinc­tive types first shown in William Miller’s spec­i­men books from 1813. These typ­i­cal­ly had a strong ver­ti­cal axis, and a con­trast between strokes. Unlike Bodoni, for exam­ple, they also had brack­et­ed ser­ifs, rather than sharp lines.

This style of type was the dom­i­nant look for news­pa­per and book com­po­si­tion for a long peri­od, with M&R them­selves pro­vid­ing the relief from these Scotch Romans with their ​‘Old Styles’ from about 1860.

Such was their dom­i­na­tion in news­pa­per types, that it was 1929 before The Times looked to refresh the face they used.  This was an 1850 Miller and Richard face that had been re-cut by Mono­type (as Mono­type Series No. 7) in 1908.  The lead for this re-work, Stan­ley Mori­son, was deter­mined to keep the retain the pro­por­tions of this M&R design².

Old Style

In 1860 Miller and Richard issued Old Style. It had been cut by Alexan­der Phemis­ter and was shown in eight sizes from pearl (5pt) to great primer (18pt). The Miller and Richard Old Style was a great suc­cess. As oth­er founders saw the demand this was dri­ving, they each cut their own par­tic­u­lar ver­sions.

“they [Miller & Richard] have endeav­oured to avoid the objec­tion­able pecu­liar­i­ties, whilst retain­ing the dis­tinc­tive char­ac­ter­is­tics of the mediæ­val let­ters”

Quot­ed in Mono­type Recorder, Sep­tem­ber — Decem­ber 1931

Recent/20th Century

Hav­ing made a sig­nif­i­cant typo­graph­ic impact on the face of Britain’s print­ing, M&R, in com­mon with oth­er British type­founders, strug­gled with com­pe­ti­tion from increas­ing mech­a­ni­sa­tion as the linecast­ing and Mono­type machines took the place of met­al types cast indi­vid­u­al­ly and assem­bled by hand.

The firm changed shape in 1926 when they approached Stephen­son, Blake of Sheffield to ask them to cut woodlet­ter in their Sheffield wood­work­ing shop that had been estab­lished in 1907. Just over ten years lat­er, Miller and Richard closed their Lon­don ware­house in Water Lane, Ludgate Hill. This had been their Lon­don base since 1885.

Roy Milling­ton sug­gests³ that “[M&R] grad­u­al­ly trans­ferred their cast­ing oper­a­tions to Sheffield” from 1938, so I am unsure as to what specif­i­cal­ly was being made in Edin­burgh in these 14 years between 1938 and final clo­sure.

On Sun­day 9th of Decem­ber, 1951, Alan Richard Miller, the sole remain­ing part­ner of the Miller & Richard busi­ness passed away at a nurs­ing home in Edin­burgh. Miller had served with the 10th Roy­al Scots in the first World War with whom he had been gassed, and he was not­ed as a pro­fi­cient farmer, fish­er and shot.

The small wood­work­ing items, reglet and fur­ni­ture remained with a local firm, but Stephen­son, Blake took deliv­ery of most of the M&R matri­ces in 1952. Only a few of Miller and Richard’s faces were issued by Stephen­son, Blake and it is report­ed that most of the mats were unus­able⁴.

References

1. Wal­lis, L W, (1999) Jour­nal of the Print­ing His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety: Legros and Grant: The Typo­graph­i­cal Con­nec­tion
2. Mono­type Recorder, (Spring 1936)
3. Milling­ton, Roy, Stephen­son Blake, Last of the Old Eng­lish Type­founders
4. Jones Holt, Nicholas, (1973) Let­ter in Small Print­er

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Location

Reikie’s Court off Nicol­son Street, Edin­burgh

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Head­er Image: ​“Miller & Richard” flickr pho­to by LarsS­chwarz https://flickr.com/photos/bitrocker/9506458645 shared under a Cre­ative Com­mons (BY-NC-SA) license