While browsing some old editions of Home and Building via the NZETC, I came across a wonderful article about the Caxton Press.

This is relevant to the project for a couple of reasons: the project on named flats has it genesis in a print culture study, and therefore owes a great deal to the history and culture of print in New Zealand. Secondly, Baxter’s poem “A Small Ode on Mixed Flatting” was published at Caxton.

A Small Ode On Mixed Flatting. Christchurch: The Caxton Press, [1967]. Brasch PR 9641 B3 S5.

Of additional interest to me is mention of Caxton and other NZ presses preserving the craft of printing by continuing the work begun by William Morris at a time where in the UK, industrialisation of the printing industry was subsuming it’s craft history. ‘“I began printing books,” said Morris, “with the hope of producing something which would have a definite claim to beauty, while at the same time they should be easy to read and should not dazzle the eye or trouble the intellect …”

View the article here: The Caxton Press / Brian Bell, Home and Building, Vol 18 No.1 1955, p15f