Print History: Printing Museums in India - A clarion call printweek.in - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from printweek.in Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
With the commercial and publication business at an all time low, PS Rajan of St Francis Press is making moves that will help him stay relevant in the print business. Words: Noel D’Cunha
When I met PS Rajan, 63,
I had asked him to name one print innovator from history he wanted to meet. He replied, William Carey, the cobbler, who made fonts for more than 20 Indian languages for the first time in Calcutta, and printed the
Bible.
Rajan shares with me, The Baptist missionary William Carey appointed an East India Company employee Charles Wilkins and the ironsmith Panchanan Karmakar as well as his nephew Manohar. All of them were employed by Carey in order to develop a set of
Wilkins’ Letters, 1778. Source: http://blog.rarh.in/
Sir Charles Wilkins (1749 – 1836) was an English typographer and Orientalist. He is notable as the creator (assisted by engraver Panchanan Karmakar) of the first Bengali typeface., Source: British Library
While in London about the year 1770, William Bolts required some types for printing in Bengali. Such types were non-existent, and the type foundry of Joseph Jackson was engaged to prepare a font. In I773 or I774 he suddenly left for India, and the types remained behind. Some years later the font, still incomplete, found its way to the establishment of William Caslon III. They were museum pieces