In 1831, The Beagle was commissioned by the admiralty to
conduct a hydrographic survey of the coast of South America before proceeding
into the Pacific and returning via Australia, completing a complete
circumnavigation of the globe. It was
Fitzroy who invited the young Charles Darwin, a geologist and naturalist to
accompany the voyage, an opportunity that was to make Darwin’s reputation and
provide him with the material and inspiration for his theory of evolution.
On their return Fitzroy, took the journals of Captains King
and Stokes to record their accounts of the first voyage which comprises volume
1. Volume 2 with an appendix is
Fitzroy’s account of the second voyage and Darwin was then invited to include
his observations which form volume 3. The completed narrative was published in
1839.
The book was originally bound in cloth with blind stamped
decoration. The Leeds Library copy was
rebound in 1891 by Leeds bookbinders. Edwin Morley at their workshop in William
IV yard off Lands Lane.
The half leather binding was now in very poor condition
with the leather showing signs of serious acid degradation. Sulphuric acid was used for washing skins to
remove metallic particles introduced during processing and it was not realised
at the time that this would ultimately lead to the deterioration of the leather
unless the acid was effectively washed out.
As this was not the original binding and because of its
extremely poor condition, it was decided to rebind the book rather than attempt
restoration. On removing the old binding
and stripping off the spine linings it was found that when the book had been
rebound by Morleys, it had been re-sewn by overcasting. This is a sewing method used as a ‘last
resort ‘ when there is so much damage to the back of the individual sections
that it is not possible to sew the book by the usual methods. This damage may have been caused by excessive
wear – this was a popular and ultimately famous book which would have been read
many times. Alternatively, it may have
been caused by acid degradation of the paper, this time as the result of acid fumes given off by the gas lighting,
installed in the library in 1853 and which we have identified as a problem in
many of the books in the library’s collection.
As the text block of each of the four volumes appeared tight and sound
it was decided not to risk further damage to the pages by taking the book apart
and re-sewing, but to simply attach new
boards and rebind the books.
 |
| Endpapers sewn on |
Cloth-jointed
‘made’ endpapers were sewn through the joints and the slip of starched linen,
now firmly attached to the book were used to attach the split boards.
 |
| Split
boards attached to cloth slips |
The spines were re-lined and a hollow back with false raised
bands was attached. Blue Chieftan goatskin,
supplied by Hewits tannery in Edinburgh was selected for the binding. Pieces were cut for the corners and spine and
then each piece pared to the desired thickness before pasting and applying the spine of the book, working over the
raised bands.
 |
|
Cutting the leather
|
 |
| Paring the leather |
 |
| Working
the leather over the false raised bands |
 |
| Working
the leather over the boards |
 |
|
Forming the headcaps
|
The sides of the boards were covered in hand –marbled paper.
 |
| Title
labels created using blocking machine and gold foil. |
Labels were
made for each of the volumes using black leather with the lettering applied
using a blocking machine and gold foil.
Once the labels were applied, the rest of the spine decoration was done
using gold leaf. This is laid over a
heat-sensitive adhesive which causes the gold to adhere to the leather where a
heated hot brass tool is applied.
 |
|
Gold leaf applied to spine
|
 |
| Heated
fillet wheel used to create lines across spine |
 |
| Excess
gold leaf removed with gold rubber |
 |
|
The finished book.
|
By Brian Cole
