Hubert Seymour Garland Darke was a teacher and scholar of Persian and Lecturer in Persian at Cambridge University’s Faculty of Oriental Studies from 1961 to 1982.
Henry Creswicke Rawlinson was born in 1810 in Oxfordshire. He sailed to India 1827, to take up a cadetship in the East India Company's army. In 1833 he was sent to Persia with other British officers to organise and train the Persian army. It was during his duty in Persia that he first saw the great trilingual cuneiform inscription at Behistun (Bisitun) and began his work on cuneiform decipherment. In 1839 the British military officers were withdrawn as a result of a change in Persian foreign policy.
In 1841, Rawlinson joined the British military contingent in Afghanistan, where he was stationed at Kandahar as political agent (consul). When the Afghans rose against the British, he was required to organise the defence of Kandahar, which he did successfully. In 1842, on his return from Afghanistan, much of his property, including most of his papers, was lost when a river boat caught fire on the river Sutlej. In 1843, Rawlinson was posted to Baghdad as political agent, where he spent the rest of his East India Company career, and resumed work on cuneiform inscriptions. He returned to England from 1849-1851 on sick leave. But in 1851 he was entrusted by the Trustees of the British Museum with supervision of the archaeological excavations at Nimrud after A H Layard abandoned archaeology for a career in politics and diplomacy. He also conducted excavations on his own account in other places.
In 1855 he was relieved of his post at Baghdad and returned to England permanently. Almost immediately the Trustees of the British Museum applied to the Government for a special grant to fund the publication of lithographic reproductions of the cuneiform inscriptions in their collections under Rawlinson's editorship. In 1856 he was appointed a Crown Director of the East India Company. he also received a baronetcy. In 1858 he became MP for Reigate, but resigned after a few months to take up a seat on the newly-formed Council for India.
In 1859 Rawlinson was appointed Ambassador to Tehran, which involved his resigning his seat on the Council for India. He resigned from this position in 1860. in September 1862 he married Louisa Caroline Harcourt Seymour and in 1865 became MP for Frome. He held the seat until 1868 when he rejoined the Council for India, a post which he held to the end of his life.
His wife Louisa died in 1889 which seemed to have deeply affected Rawlinson. Concern for his father's well-being led to their son, Henry Seymour, resigning his post in India to continue his military career in England. Rawlinson died at the beginning of 1895.
Graeme Gardiner is a conservator who trained at Camberwell College. After qualifying he worked first at the Royal Asiatic Society before setting up Preservation Solutions and working with other heritage organisations.
Green Street Bindery is part of the bindery of Alfred Maltby & Son Ltd. which was founded in 1834 by Henry Maltby and Charles Bloxham, and the first workshop was based in St Helen’s (Hell) Passage, New College Lane, Oxford.
Since then, three generations of Maltbys have passed through the business: Alfred Maltby, Alfred Henry Maltby and Raymond Maltby. In 1944 Maltby’s acquired the business of J. H. Fensham, Law Bookbinders, of Featherstone Buildings, Holborn, London, who bound for the Inns of Court. This is still a valuable part of the Company’s business.
Ronald Clargo MBE joined the firm in 1952 and was Managing Director when he retired in 2002. The present Managing Director, Tony Tanner, formed Green Street Bindery in 1982, and Green Street and Maltby’s became sister companies in 2002. The two companies trade under the umbrella of the Kemp Hall Bindery Group.
Whereas Maltby’s is a hand bindery specializing in single copies or a small number of copies, Green Street is a mechanical bindery producing hundreds or thousands of hardback books. The two binderies often combine when a client requires, say, 500 cloth bound copies plus 5 specially bound in leather. These leather bound editions are often for Royal Libraries.
The Wyvern Bindery is a small bindery situated on Hoxton Street, London, dedicated to preserving high standards of craftsmanship. Using traditional skills, they aim to produce quality work tailor made to our client's specific requirements for design, budget and deadline. It moved to the Hoxton Street premises in 2020 having previously been situated on Clerkenwell Road.