| Description |
Bernard Chester Middleton was born in London in 1924 to Doris Hilda Webster, a secretary to a well-known barrister, and Regent Marcus Geoffrey Middleton, a talented bookbinder. At the age of thirteen in 1938, Bernard earned a trade scholarship to attend the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London, as had his father before him. There he received instruction from Peter McLeish in the same room where McLeish had previously taught Bernard's father and gleaned further training from William Mathews who had been Regent's classmate.2 The little known about Regent is, nonetheless, impressive. In 1913, at the age of fifteen, he won the City & Guilds of London Institute's Bronze Medal and the Stationer's Company's Silver Medal for Forwarding. He then apprenticed as a forwarder in one of Britain's largest fine binderies, W.T. Morrell & Sons. Renowned for its tough, inflexible working conditions, the bindery consistently produced technically superb work. Underage at sixteen, Regent joined the Territorial Army during World War I and was seconded for five years, principally in Salonika, Greece, where he served with the horse-drawn artillery. Decommissioned in 1919, he discovered Morrell's was unwilling to rehire him but found employment with the preeminent West End bindery, Sangorski and Sutcliffe, where he was able to finish his apprenticeship. |
