Modern Printing Old Lower Case

---[ ]aeoe ()  j      e      thin+mids '  ?  !  ;  ..  fl 
&bcd isfg  ff
ffl fi
ffilmnh oyp,wenem
hr
zvutthickar q:quad
x.-


This English layout is that given by Southward: Modern Printing (1898), and still shown in the 8th edition of 1954 (edited by Whetton). It is also shown by Jacobi: Printing (5th edition 1913 and 6th ed 1919), and Legros & Grant: Typographical Printing-Surfaces (1916), apart from both showing 3 dot rather than 2 dot leaders. It is described as having been in use for many years in bookwork offices, and Legros & Grant date it to 1870. It is different to the Old Lower given by Southward in Practical Printing, 1882, eg which had numerals in the lower case. However it is close to the Lower case shown by Luckombe, 1771. The companion Upper lay is Old Upper.

Having dropped the long s characters, and ct, the case thus has one large box for s, rather than being split between s and long s. Compared with Luckombe, Southward had added em dash and .. and swapped ' and (), and splits the spacing, apart from mids and thins. Stower was the first to show split spacing, in Hazard's revised Lower case (1808).

The empty case configuration is Johnson Lower.

Other empty cases
ie with the boxes left blank
Other type layouts
ie with characters assigned to boxes
Full Index of layoutsGlossary of terms usedSources of the layoutsIntroduction
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and Double Cases
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This page was written in 1997 by David Bolton and last updated 16 April 2009.