John Hinks
Honorary Reader in Printing History and Culture
School of Visual Communication
- Email:
- John.hinks@bcu.ac.uk
- Phone:
- O121 331 5871
John Hinks was formerly Director of Libraries and Information Service with Leicestershire County Council. His doctoral research (Loughborough University, 2002) focused on the history of printing and the book trade in Leicester until c.1850. He worked on the AHRC-funded ‘British Book Trade Index’ project at the University of Birmingham.
John is also an Honorary Research Fellow in the Centre for West Midlands History, University of Birmingham. He founded and chairs the History of the Printed Image Network (HoPIN) in 2020. John is Chair of the National Printing Heritage Committee, a committee member of the Printing Historical Society (which he chaired from 2010 to 2019), and the Print Networks Conference Committee. He is Deputy Editor and Reviews Editor of the journal Publishing History. He was an Honorary Fellow in the Centre for Urban History, University of Leicester, from 2005 to 2021. John was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in February 2022.
Areas of Expertise
- History of printed images (illustrated books, artistic prints, etc.)
- Printing and the book trade, including trade networks, and the wealth, status and social mobility of book-trade people in the long eighteenth century – especially in the Midlands
- Urban cultural networks, in the early modern period and long eighteenth century
- Popular print culture: chapbooks and other ‘street literature’ – production and distribution
- Print culture of radical politics in the long eighteenth century
Qualifications
- PhD (Loughborough, 2002)
- MA History (Leicester, 1995)
- Certificate in Fine Art (Leicester, 1999)
- MLS (Master of Library Studies, Loughborough,1980)
- Member of Institute of Personnel and Development (Birmingham Polytechnic, 1973)
- Chartered Librarian (Birmingham Polytechnic, 1968)
Memberships
- Printing Historical Society
- Print Networks
- National Printing Heritage Committee (Chair)
- Bibliographical Society
- Royal Historical Society
Research
- P. G. Hamerton, Seymour Haden and the Etching Revival in Britain
- Print Culture in Leamington Spa in the Regency Period
Publications
Publications: authored
- ‘The History of Printing and Print Culture: Contexts and Controversies’ (in a special issue on printing and print culture in the Midlands, edited by Caroline Archer-Parré and John Hinks), Midland History, 45:2 (2020), 134-144.
- ‘Baskerville’s Birmingham: Printing and the English Urban Renaissance’, inJohn Baskerville: Art, Industry and Technology of the Enlightenment, edited by Caroline Archer and Malcolm Dick (Liverpool UP, 2017), 25-41.
- ‘Text, Image and the Urban’, in John Hinks & Catherine Armstrong (eds.), Text and Image in the City: Manuscript, Print and Visual Culture in Urban Space (Cambridge Scholars, 2017), vii-xv.
- ‘The Urban Context of Eighteenth-Century English Provincial Printing’, in John Hinks & Catherine Armstrong (eds.), Text and Image in the City: Manuscript, Print and Visual Culture in Urban Space (Cambridge Scholars, 2017), 125-142.
- ‘Beyond Metaphor: A Personal View of Historical Networks in the Book Trade’, in John Hinks & Catherine Feely (eds.), Historical Networks in the Book Trade (Routledge, 2017), 1-13.
- ‘Spreading the Word: Bookselling and Printing before 1800’, History West Midlands,1 (2013), 12-14.
- ‘The Book Trade in Early Modern Britain: Centres, Peripheries and Networks’, in Print Culture and Peripheries in Early Modern Europe, edited by Benito Rial Costas (Brill, 2013), 101-126.
- ‘Richard Phillips: Pioneer of Radical Print’, Leicestershire Historian, 47 (2011), 22-26.
- 24 entries for The Oxford Companion to the Book, edited by M F Suarez and H R Woudhuysen (OUP, 2010)
- ‘Networks of Print in “Radical Leicester”’, Leicestershire Historian, 46 (2010), 21-26.
- Maureen Bell and John Hinks, ‘The English Provincial Book Trade: Evidence from the British Book Trade Index’, in The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, vol. V (1695-1830), ed. M. Suarez and M. Turner (CUP, 2009), 335-51.
- John Hinks and Maureen Bell, ‘The Book Trade in English Provincial Towns, 1700-1849: an evaluation of evidence from the British Book Trade Index’, Publishing History, 57 (2005), 53-112.
- ‘John Gregory and the Leicester Journal’, in Barry McKay, John Hinks and Maureen Bell (eds), Light on the Book Trade: Essays in Honour of Peter Isaac (London: British Library, 2004), 85-94.
- ‘Local and Regional Studies of Printing History’, Journal of the Printing Historical Society, new series, 5 (2003), 3-15.
- ‘The History of the Book Trade in Leicester to c.1850’ (PhD thesis, Loughborough University, 2002).
- ‘The Beginnings of the Book Trade in Leicester’, in Peter Isaac and Barry McKay (eds), The Moving Market: Continuity and Change in the Book Trade (New Castle, Delaware: Oak Knoll Press, 2001), 27-38.
- ‘Some Radical Printers and Booksellers of Leicester c.1790-1850’, in Peter Isaac and Barry McKay (eds), The Mighty Engine: the Printing Press and its Impact (Winchester: St Paul’s Bibliographies, 2000), 175-184.
- ‘Thomas Cooper and Leicester’s Chartist Press’, in John Hinks (ed.), Aspects of Leicester: Discovering Local History (Barnsley: Wharncliffe, 2000), 55-61.
Publications: edited
- Caroline Archer-Parré and John Hinks (eds), ‘Printing and Print Culture in the Midlands’: a special issue of Midland History, 45:2 (2020).
- John Hinks & Catherine Armstrong (eds.), The English Urban Renaissance Revisited (Cambridge Scholars, 2018).
- John Hinks & Catherine Armstrong (eds.), Text and Image in the City: Manuscript, Print and Visual Culture in Urban Space (Cambridge Scholars, 2017).
- John Hinks & Catherine Feely (eds.), Historical Networks in the Book Trade (Routledge, 2017).
- John Hinks & Victoria Gardner (eds.), The Book Trade in Early Modern England: Practices, Perceptions, Connections (British Library and Oak Knoll Press, 2014).
- John Hinks & Matthew Day (eds.), From Compositors to Collectors: Essays in Book-Trade History (British Library and Oak Knoll Press, 2012).
- John Hinks, Catherine Armstrong & Matthew Day (eds.), Periodicals and Publishers: the Newspaper and Journal Trade 1740-1914 (British Library and Oak Knoll Press, 2009).
- John Hinks and Catherine Armstrong (eds.), Book Trade Connections from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Centuries (British Library and Oak Knoll Press, 2008).
- Barry McKay, John Hinks and Maureen Bell (eds), Light on the Book Trade: Essays in Honour of Peter Isaac (British Library, 2004).
- John Hinks (ed.), Aspects of Leicester: Discovering Local History (Barnsley: Wharncliffe, 2000).
Publications: book reviews
- Forging Ahead: Austerity to Prosperity in the Black Country, 1945-1968, by Simon Briercliffe, Midland History (forthcoming 2022).
- Knowledge and the Early Modern City: a History of Entanglements, ed by Bert de Munck and Antonella Romano, English Historical Review (forthcoming 2022).
- Pen, Print and Communication in the Eighteenth Century, ed by Caroline Archer-Parré and Malcolm Dick, Midland History, 46:1 (2021), 148-9.
- Edvard Munch: Love and Angst, [catalogue of 2019 British Museum exhibition of Munch's prints], edited by Giulia Bartram, Journal of the Printing Historical Society, 3rd series, 1 (2020), 310-11.
- Leisure Cultures in Urban Europe c.1700-1870, ed by Peter Borsay and Jan Hein Furneé, English Historical Review, 135 (2020), 1037-8.
- Review of Street Literature of the Long Nineteenth Century: Producers, Sellers, Consumers, ed by David Atkinson and Steve Roud, The Library, 7.20.2 (2019), 261-3.
- C. R. W. Nevinson: the Complete Prints, by Jonathan Black, Journal of the Printing Historical Society, new series, 27 (2017), 99-100.
- Commonplace Books and Reading in Georgian England, by David Allan, English Historical Review, 128 (2013), 970-1.
- The Business of Books: Booksellers and the English Book Trade, 1450-1850, by James Raven, English Historical Review, 126 (2011), 921-3.
- Publishing, Politics and Culture: the King’s Printers in the Reign of James I and VI, by Graham Rees and Maria Wakely, Journal of the Printing Historical Society, new series, 16 (2010), 53-54.
- Cyril Power Linocuts: a Complete Catalogue, ed by Philip Vann, and British Prints from the Machine Age, ed by Clifford S. Ackley, Journal of the Printing Historical Society, new series, 16 (2010), 55-56.
- Agent of Change: Print Culture Studies after Elizabeth L. Eisenstein, ed by Sabrina A Baron and others, Journal of the Printing Historical Society, new series, 16 (2010), 56-7.
- Teaching Bibliography, Textual Criticism and Book History, ed by Ann R. Hawkins, Journal of the Printing Historical Society, new series, 11 (2008), 101-102.
- Collecting Prints and Drawings in Europe, c. 1500-1750, ed by Christopher Baker and others; Chinese Printmaking Today: Woodblock Printing in China, ed by Anne Farrer; Colorful Impressions: the Printmaking Revolution in Eighteenth-Century France, ed by Margaret Morgan Grasselli; German Expressionist Prints: the Marcia and Granvil Specks Collection, ed by Stephanie D’Alessandro and others, Journal of the Printing Historical Society, new series, 9 (2006), 93-96.
- Printed Matters: Printing, Publishing and Urban Culture in Europe in the Modern Period, ed by Malcolm Gee and Tim Kirk, Journal of the Printing Historical Society, new series, 7 (2004), 79-80.