Some bookplates designed by Stephen Gooden
Stephen Gooden (1892-1955) was an artist and engaver, mainly on copper. I have proofs of 31 of the 42 bookplates that he designed, which are shown below in chronological order. I have also created a list of his bookplates, with a link to an image of each plate, if I don't have it and can find one.
Goodens' designs for bookplates issued before 1944 are reproduced in the book by Campbell Dodgson, The Iconography of the engravings of Stephen Gooden (Elkin Matthews, London). I know of no complete catalogue of his bookplate designs, but there may be one.
All bookplates shown below are in proportion to each other based on the dimensions of the plate if there is a plate mark, or the size of the image if there is no plate mark.
Update on 23/4/2023: Added plates for Ashwell Merchant Taylor's School, George Harrap and signed proofs of several other states and final plates.
Update on 21/10/2023: Added bookplate for Bertine Sutton.
(Last updated on 21/10/23)
SG B1: J.N. Hart
Date: 1923
Signed: SG at base of right column
Plate size: 99 x 67 mm
Paper size: 193 x 149 mm
Campbell Dodgson (1944): 129
Notes: This is Gooden's first bookplate design, done for a man named John Napthali Hart (1881-1963). J.N. Hart was awarded a CBE in 1955 for political and public services in Enfield. He wrote books on growing roses.
SG B5: S.L. Courtauld
Date: (1925)
Plate size: 110 x 83
Campbell Dodgson (1944): 133
Notes: This bookplate was for Sir Stephen Lewis Courtauld (1883-1967), a philanthropist.
SG B8: Geoffrey Keynes
Date: 1926
Plate size: 49 x 78 mm
Paper size: 59 x 89 mm
Campbell Dodgson (1944): 137
Notes: Sir Geoffrey Keynes was a surgeon and long-time supporter and friend of Stephen Gooden. Keynes commissioned the bookplates for the Royal College of Surgeons (see below).
SG B7: Mona Gooden
Date: 1926
Plate size: 50 x 63 mm
Paper size: 63 x 77 mm
Campbell Dodgson (1944): 138
Notes: Mona Steele Price (1894–1958) was a poet who married Stephen Gooden in 1925. She compiled a book of poems about cats called The Poet's Cat (1946), which Stephen Gooden illustrated. They lived at Chesham Bois, near Amersham. Stephen died aged 62 of bowel cancer; Mona died three years later aged 64 of lung cancer.
SG B9: Dorothy Moulton Mayer
Date: 1926
Plate size: 96 x 53 mm
Paper size: 153 x 95 mm
Notes: Lady Dorothy Moulton Mayer (1886-1974) was a contralto who, late in life, wrote biographies of Louis Spohr (Widenfeld & Nicholson, 1959), Louise of Savoy (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1966), Marie Antoinette (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1968) and (published posthumously) Angelica Kaufmann (Colin Smythe, 1978). In 1919 aged 33 y, she married Robert Mayer (1879-1985) a German musician and industrialist, who became a naturalised British citizen. Dorothy and Robert established concerts of classical music for children before the Second World War that proved very popular. They had two children, a son (b 1922) and a daughter. Dorothy died aged aged 88 y in 1974; Sir Robert married again aged 101 y and died aged 106 y. I found this bookplate in a limited edition of the Collected Poems of John Drinkwater (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1923), which he inscribed to Dorothy with lines of his verse.
SG B11: Bertine Entwisle Sutton
Date: 1927
Paper size: 96 x 77 mm
Plate size: 87 x 75 mm
Campbell Dodgson (1944): 139
Notes: This plate was for Air Marshall Sir Bertine Sutton.
SG B12: Harold Hartley
Date: 1927
Signed: S. Gooden, lower left
Plate size: 87 x 87 mm
Paper size: not known
Campbell Dodgson (1944): 140
Notes: The bookplate is for Harold Thomas Hartley (1851-1943), a businessman and bibliophile.
I can find only one citation of the phrase 'The Pursuing Conscience' (other than this bookplate), it is from The Peer and the Blacksmith (1845) by Richard Beddingfield: It is to fly the pursuing conscience that the wicked rush into sin
.
This is one of the few plates by Stephen Gooden that he signed in the engraving. The description on the British Museum website says that is based on two heads after Simeon Solomon, and it is initialled and dated 'SS 1894' in the image.
SG B13.1 & 13.2: Antoinette Brett/Esher
Date: 1927
Plate size: 95 x 65
Paper size: 104 x 77 mm
Campbell Dodgson (1944): 141
Notes: Antoinette Heckscher (1884–1967) was an American who married Oliver Sylvain Baliol Brett in 1912. When her husband's father died in 1930 he became the 3rd Viscount Esher so she changed the bookplate to give her new name. Lucky his name wasn't Northumberland or something long.
Antoinette, if I may be so familiar, is reported to have lost the original copper plate and the new one with her married name, Brett, was perhaps engraved by Kenneth Hobson, not by Stephen Gooden.
SG B15: Margaret Griselda Wedderburn
Date: 1928
Plate size: 83 x 62 mm
Campbell Dodgson (1944): 142
Notes: Margaret Griselda Wedderburn (1888-1987) was married secondly to Bertine Sutton, who also had a bookplate designed by Stephen Gooden. She had five children with her first husband, Stuart de la Rue, who died in 1927 aged 44. Two of her sons, Christopher and Patrick, died within 5 months of each other in 1939, aged 23 and 18, before the Second World War started.
SG B16: George Courtauld
Date: 1931
Plate size: 138 x 79 mm
Paper size: 160 x 100 mm
Campbell Dodgson (1944): 144
Notes: This bookplate is for George Courtauld V (1903-1980), great-great grandson of the founder of the company Courtaulds, a textile manufacturer, related to Stephen Courtauld (see SG B5).
SG B17: Imperial Defence College Library
Date: 1932
Paper size: 152 x 89 mm
Plate size: 125 x 61 mm
Campbell Dodgson (1944): 145
Notes: .
SG B18: The Lakeside Press Library
Date: 1932-33
Plate size: 83 x 79 mm
Paper size: 140 x 111 mm
Campbell Dodgson (1944): 146
Notes: The Lakeside Press was a publisher in Chicago, Illinois
SG B19: John Raymond Danson
Date: 1934
Plate size: 108 x 65 mm
Paper size: 118 x 75 mm
Campbell Dodgson (1944): 147
Notes: John Raymond Danson served in both World Wars and was a collector and benefactor.
SG B20: George Harrap
Date: 1935
Plate size: 113 x 65 mm
Paper size: 140 x 94 mm
Campbell Dodgson (1944): 148
Notes: This bookplate was designed for George Steward Harrap (1892-1956), the son of George Godfrey Harrap (1868-1938), both publishers of books illustrated by Stephen Gooden. George junior lived in Chesham Bois, but perhaps before Stephen and Mona Gooden moved there. The bookplate is based on a device that Gooden designed for the publiching firm of George G. Harrap: a 'gee-gee' on the capital H. It wasn't used but Gooden produced it as a bookplate for G.G.'s son G.S.'
SG B21: Liverpool Medical Institution Library
Date: 1936
Paper size: 129 x 84 mm
Plate size: 130 x 87
Campbell Dodgson (1944): 149
Notes: This bookplate was for Liverpool Medical Institution Library, which was founded in 1779.
The snake wound around a stick is the Rod of Asclepius, an ancient symbol of medicine believed to represent the means of removing the nematode worm Dracunculus medinensis through the small abscess, usually on the lower leg, through which the female worm releases its larvae into water. The worm needs to be removed slowly, otherwise it could break and cause inflammation, so it was wound around a small stick and every day more of the worm was pulled out. By the way, my first career was as a Parasitologist.
SG B24.4: Royal Library Windsor Castle, medium design
Date: 1954
Paper size: 177 x 133 mm
Plate size: 122 x 85 mm
States: four
Campbell Dodgson (1944): 152
Notes: This medium bookplate was first designed for King Edward VIII with a Royal cypher at the top, but he abdicated, so it was modified for King George VI. This version has no royal cypher, so is the fouth and final state, modified by Gooden in 1954.
SG B25.7: Royal Library Windsor Castle, large design
Date: 1937
Plate size: 173 x 110
Paper size: 216 x 146
Campbell Dodgson (1944): 153
Notes: This large bookplate was first designed for King George VI. This version lacks the initials G R, to the left and right of the crown, and the Roman numerals VI within the letter G to the left, which is reported by Dodgson to be the final version. However I suspect that this version is the seventh and final state, with no cipher.
L1: Hertfordshire Art Society
Date: 1938
Plate size: 137 x 84 mm
Paper size: 150 x 98 mm
States: unknown
Campbell Dodgson (1944): 154
Notes: This is an award label rather than a bookplate. The society held its first exhibition in 1889 at Hertford but seems to have died out during the Second World War.
SG B26: William George Arthur, IVth Baron Harlech
Date: 1938
Plate size: 131 x 105 mm
Paper size:
States: four
Campbell Dodgson (1944): 155
Notes: William George Arthur Ormsby-Gore (1885-1964) was a Conservative politician and Secretary of State for the Colonies between 1936 to 1938, the year he inherited his title and the year he commissioned Gooden to design a bookplate for him. At the top is part of the family crest, described as: a Dexter Arm embowed in armour proper holding in the hand a Man's Leg also in armour couped at the thigh.
The father of the first Lord Harlech was born William Gore in Ireland in 1779. In 1815 he married Mary Ormsby, an heiress, and added her family name to his to become Ormsby-Gore.
The bookplate is initialled 'SG' in the scroll, lower right. Click on it to see it in more detail.
SG B27: Ethel Luce-Clausen
Date: 1940
Plate size: 107 x 67 mm
Paper size: not seen mm
State: four
Campbell Dodgson (1944): 156
Notes: Ethel Marjorie Luce-Clausen was student at Trinity College, Dublin with Mona Gooden, Stephen's wife. Dr Clausen worked at the University of Rochester, New York, and was a paediatrician and an expert on rats. She asked Gooden to draw an animal for her bookplate, but not a rat. Gooden apologised and said 'the rat crept in when I wasn't looking.
Dr Clausen was probably responsible for getting the Rochester Print Club to commission a design for a print by Gooden, entitled Diana (1940).
After her husband, Dr Samuel Woolcott Clausen, died in the USA in 1952, Ethel retired to her family home of Jersey. She died there in about 1965.
SG B29: Elizabeth R (large plate)
Date: 1942
Plate size: 134 x 94 mm
Campbell Dodgson (1944): 183
Notes: This plate is for the books of Queen Elizabeth, the wife of King George VI and mother of Queen Elizabeth II.
Campbell Dodgson (1944): 183
SG L2.1: Ashwell Merchant Taylor's School
Date: 1942
Plate size: 113 x 76 mm
Campbell Dodgson (1944): 185
Notes: This is an award plate, to be pasted inside a book to be given as a prize. The lettering on the plate was later changed to Ashwell County Primary School by another engraver.
Campbell Dodgson (1944): 183
SG B31: City of Liverpool Public Libraries, large plate
Date: 1944
Plate size: 124 x 91 mm
Notes: The main library in Liverpool is now called Liverpool Central Library. The Liver bird on the plate is represented as a Comorant with laver seaweed in its bill. The box to enter details about who the book was presented by has a separate plate mark.
SG B32: City of Liverpool Public Libraries, Presented by
Date: 1944
Plate size: 39 x 91 mm
Notes: The main library in Liverpool is now called Liverpool Central Library. The Liver bird on the plate is represented as a Comorant with laver seaweed in its bill. The box to enter details about who the book was presented by has a separate plate mark.
(1st state, click to enlarge)
(Final state, click to enlarge)
SG B33: Liverpool Public Libraries, Reference Library
Date: 1944
Plate size: 101 x 48 mm
States: four
Notes: This shows the four states of the design.
The main library in Liverpool is now called Liverpool Central Library. The Liver bird on the plate is represented as a Comorant with laver seaweed in its bill.
(1st state, click to enlarge) (2nd state, click to enlarge)
(3rd state, click to enlarge) (Final state, click to enlarge)
SG B35: Elizabeth
Date: (1946)
Plate size: 138 x 92 mm
Paper size: 254 x 187 mm
Notes: This bookplate was for designed by Gooden for Princess Elizabeth in 1946, when she was 20 years old, so before she became Queen. My copy is a trial proof on a sheet of thick wove paper, which is often used by engravers to check their designs, about 355 x 190 mm. It is not listed in Dodgson (1944).
SG B36.1: Central African Archives Library
Date: 1946
Plate size: 138 x 83 mm
Paper size: 158 x 102 mm
Notes: The Central African Archives was established in 1946 by the Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia Archives Ordinances. The Ordinances transformed the Southern Rhodesia Archives in to a Central African Archives to provide common archival services for Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and Nyasaland (now Malawi). All the three territories were then under the colonial administration of Britain. The archive was established in Salisbury (now Harare). In 1958 the Central African Archives was renamed as the National Archives of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. In 1963 the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was dissolved and this was followed by the independenceof Malawi in July 1964 followed by Zambia’s independence in October 1964. The white minority government of Rhodesia declared independence unilaterally in 1965 leading to a 15-year war until 1980, when Zimbabwe was created.
I suspect that Stephen Courtauld (see above) may have been instrumental in commissioning this bookplate. In 1951 he moved to Mutare in Southern Rhodesia where he lived for the rest of his life and where he was a notable philanthropist. I suspect that he had been to Rhodesia before he moved there.
SG B36.2: The National Archives Library
Date: 1946
Image size: 120 x 78 mm
Notes: This is only known from a reproduction, bought in the sale of John Deacon, son of a collector of Gooden's work and a collector himself. It has the same dimensions as the engraved plate of the Central African Archives and the same design except that the two shields are missing and the title shield at the top is shorter, as there are only four lines in the title, not five. I wonder if it was a trial or abandoned design, as the shield with pick axe and scrolls beneath are probably specific to the institution. Perhaps the plate was designed before the Central African Archive was a created, when it was known as the National Archives?
SG B37: Derek Spence
Date: 1949
Plate size: 84 x 84 mm
Paper size: 122 x 2226 mm
Notes: This proof of the bookplate is gummed.
This bookplate was for the Chairman of Peter Spence & Sons, industrial chemists and importers of alum. The Centaur is standing on a crystal of alum. A similar design of a female centaur on a crystal of alum, was used as a tailpiece in a book The Earliest Chemical Industry by Charles Singer published by the Folio Society in 1948 in two formats: numbers 1-100 were hand-bound in red morocco by Sangorski and Sutcliffe, signed by the author and Derek Spence; and numbers 101-1100 were numbered and issued in red cloth.
I have a drawing by Gooden of a male Centaur on a crystal, which may be a trial design for this endpiece.
SG B38: Royal College of Surgeons, small plate
Date: 1952
Plate size: 66 x 51 mm
Paper size: 92 x 77 mm
Notes: The Royal College of Surgeons is a professional body that regulates surgery. The designs for this plate can be seen here.
SG B39: Royal College of Surgeons, large plate
Date: 1953
Plate size: 117 x 89 mm
Paper size: 164 x 126 mm
Notes: The Royal College of Surgeons is a professional body that regulates surgery. The designs for this plate were presented to the RCS by Sir Geoffrey Keynes, who also had a bookplate designed for him in 1926 by Gooden.
(1st state, click to enlarge)
(Final state, click to enlarge)
SG B40: Urban Huttlestone Rogers Lord Fairhaven, large plate
Date: c 1954
Plate size: 108 x 95 mm
Paper size: 124 x 109 mm
Notes: This is the largest of three plates for the books of Urban Huttlestone Rogers Broughton, Lord Fairhaven (1896-1966).
SG B41: Urban Huttlestone Rogers Lord Fairhaven, medium plate
Date: c 1954
Plate size: 97 x 65 mm
Paper size: 115 x 85 mm
Notes: This is the medium plate for the books of Urban Huttlestone Rogers Broughton, Lord Fairhaven (1896-1966).
