Horace Hart’s name is immortalised in his publication Hart’s Rules, originally entitled Hart’s Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford. It is the oldest continuously updated style guide in the English language, providing authoritative guidance for writers and editors covering all aspects of the editorial process. It began life in 1883 as a small pamphlet issued by Hart to the printers at Oxford University’s print shop (Hart having taken over as University Printer earlier that year) and it went on to govern good practice in the printing and proof-reading of text around the world. As Printer, Hart was tasked with modernising Oxford’s printing operations. He embraced new technology, re-introduced the seventeenth century Fell types into current usage, and upgraded the entire Printing House with the addition of a bindery.
Here we look at Hart’s other rules though: the dozens of printed notices issued by him for display around the Printing House – reminders to employees of the rules and expectations of their work and conduct. In Volume III of The History of Oxford University Press, Hart is described as a cross between ‘a dervish and a field marshal’, and that Hart’s Rules ‘should be seen as both a professional code and a police action against the old-time sloppiness that their author perceived around him every day’. This is echoed in the notices on show here, attempting to address the laxity that Hart observed.
The notices are very much to the point and address safety, cleanliness, and behaviour. Even when talking about holidays, the style employed could be blunt and left no room for doubt. Hart was clearly an outwardly strict manager. Nevertheless, he revolutionised the Printing House. In 1915, at the age of 75, he retired as Controller or Printer to the Press and died the following year. The notices serve as a reminder that despite OUP’s academic focus, the Archive is also responsible for guarding a unique industrial heritage.
