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Bookplate for Robert Crichton-Stuart


I am grateful to Anthony Pincott of The Bookplate Society who told me about this plate and the articles mentioned below, and to a Private Collector in Scotland who provided me with an image of it.


An article published in The Double Tressure, the journal of the Heraldry Society of Scotland, entitled Scottish Bookplates by Sir Ilay Campbell (No.17, pp. 8-25, 1995), described and illustrated a bookplate designed by Stephen Gooden for Lord Robert Crichton-Stuart (1909-1976), second son of the 4th Marquess of Bute. The article reported that the plate was designed but not, in fact, engraved by the artist.. An image of the plate is shown, left.

Ilay Campbell (1927-2017) wrote a book on Scottish Bookplates (Bookplate Society, 2006) with Brian North Lee.

The book plate shown to the left was engraved by Henry Wilkinson (1921-2011). Wilkinson learned engraving while working for the gun maker Hammond’s of Winchester and later taught at the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers. He is best known for his engravings of sporting subjects, particularly dogs. An article on Wilkinson in The Bookplate Journal in March 1986 reported that he had been asked to engrave designs by both Stephen Gooden and Henry Badeley. No list of Wilkinson's bookplates and their designers has been found.

The design of the bookplate is much more conventionally armorial than many of Gooden's plates and perhaps less fluid and with less depth, but that may be due to the engraver rather than the designer. However there are similarities in the design of the banner at the base, on which the name is engraved, to plates designed by Gooden for George Senter and Geoffrey Keynes. Although the lettering is more conventional, a plain upper case serif font, the shapes at the sides and ends of the banner are similar to details of the bookplates shown either side, below.

More information would be welcome, here.

Image of bookplate

Full bookplate, 118 x 75mm (click to enlarge)

Image of part of bookplate  Image of part of bookplate  Image of part of bookplate

The banners of bookplates, left to right, for: Geoffrey Keynes, designed and engraved by Stephen Gooden; Robert Crichton-Stuart, possibly designed by Stephen Gooden and engraved by Henry Wilkinson; George Senter, designed and engraved by Stephen Gooden