JOHN BASKERVILLE'S PLACE OF BIRTH in Wolverley, Worcestershire and the buildings where he lived and worked in Birmingham have never been subjected to systematic historical investigation. This chapter attempts to address this omission and is divided into two parts: ‘A new birthplace for John Baskerville’ and ‘The buildings of John Baskerville in Birmingham’. A combination of archival research, topographical analysis and archaeological evidence is used to provide, for the first time, a clearer picture of where he was born and the location and nature of his residences and business premises. This multidisciplinary approach has previously been used by the author to explore the history of three industrial sites in Birmingham and Sandwell linked with Matthew Boulton and James Watt, namely the Soho Manufactory, Mint and Foundry. The new Baskerville material corrects traditional accounts and enhances our knowledge and understanding of his background in Wolverley and Birmingham. His modest rather than previously supposed gentry status in Wolverley helps explain why, aware of his abilities and potential, he left for Birmingham and perhaps why he revealed little of his origins once he had established himself as one of the town's leading industrialists. The uncovering of the sequence of his places of work and residence in Birmingham charts his gradual rise to become one of the leading printers of the time, casting light on the manner of this progress and the opportunities available to an able and ambitious young man newly arrived in a rapidly industrialising town.

A NEW BIRTHPLACE FOR JOHN BASKERVILLE

A LONG-ESTABLISHED TRADITION asserts that Baskerville was born in Sion House in Wolverley, Worcestershire, but careful scrutiny of the evidence reveals a very different and far lowlier birthplace. As a consequence, the social standing implied by his supposed birth in the substantial house standing on the summit of Sion Hill needs to be reassessed. In 1760, Samuel Derrick claimed that John Baskerville was born in Birmingham. William Hutton corrected this error in his History of Birmingham, published in 1783, identifying Baskerville's birthplace as Wolverley, a large parish in Worces-tershire near Kidderminster, and giving the year of his birth as 1706. Hutton did not provide a source for these details but probably acquired the information from a personal acquaintance. By the early nineteenth century, his account had become accepted by biographers and topographical writers with, however, no further elaboration.