Bernard C. Middleton

Bernard Chester Middleton (29 October 1924 – 28 January 2019) was a preeminent British restoration bookbinder. He was regarded as one of the foremost book craftsmen and trade historians of modern times, lecturing and teaching in Europe (Belgium, Switzerland, and the Netherlands) and the Americas (Brazil, the United States, and Venezuela). He authored two major works, A History of English Craft Bookbinding Technique and The Restoration of Leather Bindings (1972), which became essential reading for professional bookbinders, scholars and collectors.

In the trade, he was known as "The Great Man". He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 1951 and, in 1986, was awarded an MBE for services to bookbinding. His gold-tooled bindings may be seen in the British Library, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Royal Library, Windsor, and the Wormsley Library, and in other major libraries worldwide.

In 1938, at the age of thirteen, he earned a trade scholarship to attend the Central School of Arts and Crafts, in London, has his father had done before him. When he was sixteen, his father helped him secure a six-year apprenticeship at the British Museum Bindery, during which he was awarded the City and Guilds of London Institute's silver medal in Forwarding, the first prize. His military service during the Second World War, during which he served in the Home Guard from 1941 to 1943 and in the Royal Navy from 1943 to 1946, ).

His experience secured his election as a Fellow in the Royal Society of Arts in 1951 and, that same year, he became a manager at the important bindery Zaehnsdorf's. Also in 1951, he married Dora Mary Davies (d. 1997), an accountant who had formerly been in the WRAF — finding the work environment at Zaehnsdorf's untenable, the couple soon established their own book-restoration business in Soho. That year, the British Library and Oak Knoll republished his memoirs (was first printed in 1995 by the Bird and Bull Press ), under the title Recollections: A Life in Bookbinding. Several of his scholarly articles about several aspects of bookbinding were reprinted in 2015, under the title A Bookbinders Miscellany.

Suffering a first stroke in 2011, he gradually became slower and weaker, and eventually retired at the age of 92, after 78 years in the trade. Eric Horne, Middleton's long-time assistant since 1961 had retired in 1986; for 12 years his place was taken by Flora Ginn, who carries on in the Middleton tradition.

He spent the last two years of his life virtually confined to bed and, with difficulty in shaving, grew a snowy white beard. His mind remained sharp in spite of his advanced age, and kept an interest in meeting book dealers and collectors that he knew, and collecting fine gold tooled bindings in book fairs (which he reluctantly visited in his wheelchair). He died of a stroke on 28 January 2019.