Alfred John FairbankCBE was a British calligrapher and author on handwriting. Influenced by Edward Johnston, Fairbank was a founding member of the Society of Scribes and Illuminators in 1921, and became chairman. He was involved in the foundation of the Society for Italic Handwriting in 1952; his work and 1932 textbook A Handwriting Manual were influential on the italic script handwriting taught in British schools. His portrait was painted by Anna Hornby. For Penguin Books he wrote A Book of Scripts, on writing systems used throughout the world. Fairbanks was a civil servant who spent his professional career working at the Admiralty in London and Bath; he retired to Hove on the south coast and lectured at what is now the University of Brighton after his retirement. Fairbank also designed one upright italic typeface for Monotype. It was named "Bembo Condensed Italic", Monotype series 294 as part of their Bembo family, a name which irritated Fairbank who thought it should have been kept as an independent design. This face was for the composition caster in metal type only available in 4 sizes: 10, 12, 13 and 16pt. The last size was made for large composition. It was digitised in 2004 as "Fairbank".
Publications by Alfred Fairbank
S. P.E. Tract No XXVIII English Handwriting Continued from Tract XXIII with Thirty-one Additional Plates, Alfred Fairbank, Edited By Robert Seymour Bridges with Notes on penmanship, At the Claredon Press Oxford University Press 1927, P.-251, 35–65 pages. fasc,
A Handwriting Manual, Leicester, The Dryad Press, 1932
* revised edition 1947: The Dryad Press, Leicester, printed at the Curwen Press, Plaistow, E.13,
* third edition: revised and enlarged, 1961: London, Faber and Faber, 95 p., p. pl,
The Dryad Cards, Originally issued in 1935 as: The Barking Writing Cards. publisher: The Dryad Press, Leicester.
Lettering Of To-Day, C.G. Holme; Eberhard Holscher, Alfred Fairbank, Anna Simons, Percy J. Smith, and R. Haughton James, Studio 1937
A book of scripts, 1949, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, The King Penguin Books nr. 48, 64 p, ill., facs,
Augustino Da Siena, the 1568 Edition of His Writing Book in Facsimile, Alfred Fairbank, publisher: David Godine, Boston, 1975. limited edition of 750 copies
BEACON WRITING: A Course in Italic Set of 6, Alfred Fairbank, publisher: Ginn & Company LTD, London, 1958
Humanistic script of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Alfred John Fairbank & Richard William Hunt, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodleian picture books nr. 12, 8 p., 24 p. facs.
The Italic Hand in Tudor Cambridge: Forty-one Examples, Alfred Fairbank & Bruce Dickins. publisher: Bowes & Bowes, London, 1962, Monograph / Cambridge Bibliographical Society no. 5, VIII, 32 p., 24 p. pl, facs.
How to Teach the Italic Hand Through the Beacon Writing Books, Alfred Fairbank, Ginn 1963
Calligraphy and Palaeography, essays presented to Alfred Fairbank on his 70th birthday, ed. by A.S. Osley, publisher: Faber & Faber, London, 1965, with index. XXIII, 286 p, illustrations,
Lettering – Modes of Writing in Western Europe from Antiquity to the Eighteenth Century, Hermann Degering with preface By Alfred Fairbank, Ernest Benn Ltd., London 1965 & Pentalic Corporation, N Y, 1965
The Story of Handwriting: Origins and Development, Alfred Fairbank, Faber & Faber 1970
