When Baskerville died in 1775 his apparatus for type-founding was sold by his widow, Sarah, to Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais (1732–99) for £3,700. Beaumarchais regarded Baskerville’s type as the most beautiful printing types known and used them in the production of his Kehl editions of Voltaire’s works. Subsequently Beaumarchais took the punches to Paris where they remained until 1953. In the course of a century-and-a-half the punches changed hands four times and their origin was forgotten. In 1818 Beaumarchais’s daughter sold the Baskerville material, inherited from her father, to Pierre Didot the elder (1761–1853), who passed them to his son, Jules Didot (1794–1871). In 1842 the punches were handed to the brothers Plon, whose firm later became E. Plon, Nourrit et Cie. In 1893, Plon sold the unrecognised Baskerville punches to Fonderie Bertrand, who cast Baskerville’s founts under the name of Elzevirs ancient and advertised them in its 1917 prospectus. It was the American typographer, Bruce Rogers (1870–1957) who, having seen the prospectus, first suspected their true identity. In November 1936, Fonderie Bertrand was bought by Fonderies Deberny et Peignot, who acquired Baskerville’s punches along with his matrices. Its director, Charles Peginot (1897–1983), generously offered to return them to Britain and presented them to the University of Cambridge on 12 March 1953, after they had spent nearly 180 years in France.
The event was of considerable moment to all those interested in typography and their return was reported in both the national and local press. The ceremony took place in the gallery of Emmanuel College, Cambridge where, in the presence of the French Ambassador, René Massigili (1888–1988), the Vice-Chancellor, Sir Lionel Whitby (1895–1956), received on behalf of the University the original Baskerville punches from Charles Peignot. Sir Lionel expressed the gratitude of the University and declared that the return of the punches was not only a tribute to the University Press but also a gesture of the larger significance of Anglo-French co-operation in the sphere of learning and culture. Guests included Sydney Castle Roberts (1887–1966), Master of Pembroke and former Secretary to Cambridge University Press (CUP); Edward Welbourne (1894–1966), the historian and Master of Emmanuel, H. S. Bennett (1889–1972), Fellow of the British Academy and Chairman of the Syndics of the Press; Stanley Morison (1889–1967), the typographer and printing historian ; R. J. L. Kingsford (1900–78) author and secretary of the University Press; and Brooke Crutchley (1907–2003) the then University Printer.
That Baskerville’s punches should be donated to Cambridge rather than Birmingham is, perhaps, curious. Peignot was convinced of the suitability of returning the punches to what he called their ‘ancestral home’ and The Times declared the gift ‘as appropriate as it is generous’. Baskerville’s Cambridge Bible is undoubtedly a masterpiece of printing; however, the punches with which it was created were made by Baskerville in Birmingham where he was assisted by skilled Midlands craftsmen. While the Syndics of the University Press had, in 1758, unanimously elected Baskerville to be its printer for the term of ten years, the relationship was not a happy one. Baskerville complained that he worked ‘under such shackles as greatly hurt him’ and the enterprise cost him dearly.[6] It may be hoped that Baskerville, as The Times suggested, would have felt ‘the University had made amends’ by accepting and archiving his punches.