John David Chambers's Biography(Books)

David John Chambers (born 1930) is an English bibliographer,
printing historian, printer and book-collector. Throughout a

Chanticleer, Pertelote and Cockalorum, being a bibliography
of the Golden Cockerel Press, September 1949–December

career in insurance, latterly as a non-marine underwriter
for AS Harrison Syndicate 56 at Lloyd's of London, and more

1961. Written with Christopher Sandford. Pinner: Private
Libraries Association, 1976.

recently in retirement, Chambers has studied books and
ephemera relating to printing, typography,

o Chambers, David. Lucien Pissarro: notes on a
selection of wood-blocks held at the Ashmolean Museum.

book-illustration, private presses, the book-arts, English
art and literature, and has published books and articles on

Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 1980.
o Chambers, David. "The Boar's Head and Golden Hours

Presses" in The Private Library. Third series, 8:1, Spring
1985, pp. 2–34.

the Private Libraries Association, a bibliophile society of
which he has been Chairman since the 1970s, and a Council

o Chambers, David. Joan Hassall: engravings and
drawings. Pinner: Private Libraries Association, 1985.

member from the late 1950s.

o Chambers, David. Gogmagog: Morris Cox & the Gogmagog
Press. Written with Colin Franklin and Alan Tucker. Pinner:

Chambers has also compiled volumes of the Association's
annual bibliography of Private press books, and has designed

Private Libraries Association, 1991.
o Chambers, David (editor). A modest collection:

some of the publications of the Private Libraries
Association and of the Bibliographical Society of London.

Private Libraries Association 1956–2006. pinner: Private
Libraries Association, 2006.

His major work of recent years is a history and bibliography
of British private presses before Kelmscott, being chiefly

o Chambers, David. English country book shops. Pinner:
Private Libraries Association, 2009.

the privately-run and amateur printing offices of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This work is currently

in progress.

*

As a printer, Chambers has operated the Cuckoo Hill Press
since the late 1950s, having made his first press himself.

o Chambers, David. The office press. 1961.
o Chambers, David. Elizabeth II numismata. 1964.

He printed a number of significant illustrated books in the
1960s, 1970s and 1980s, but since that period has mostly

o Bewick, Thomas. Engravings on wood by Thomas Bewick
and his pupils. 1971.

confined his printing to ephemera and Christmas greetings.
He has collected printing equipment and archives since the

o Potocki de Montalk, Count Geoffrey. Meillerie.
1972.

1950s, with a special interest in wood-engraved blocks.

o Chambers, David. On printing by hand. 1977.
o Shirley Smith, Richard. Wood engravings: a

selection, 1960 to 1977... with a foreword by Laurence
Whistler. 1983.

*
o Chambers, David (editor). Charles Holtzapfel's

o Kalashnikov, Anatoli. Anglo-Russian relations: an
essay in wood-engraving... with a commentary by W. E.

Printing apparatus for the use of amateurs. Edited with
James Mosley. Pinner: Private Libraries Association, 1971.

Butler. 1983.

o Chambers, David (editor). Caracteres de
l'imprimerie, nouvellement graves par S. P. Fournier le

1. ^ "David Chambers: early private printing" in A modest
collection: Private Libraries Association 1956–2006

jeune. London: Printing Historical Society, 1975.
o Chambers, David. Cock-a-hoop: a sequel to

(Pinner: Private Libraries Association, 2007, pp.
[144]–146).