Tuesday 11 November 2025, 11:45 (AGM), 12:15 for 12:40 (Luncheon)

AGM | Simon Loxley

It was never planned, but the north shore of the River Thames at Hammersmith became a remarkable creative centre and community in the final years of the nineteenth and early decades of the twentieth centuries.

One of the catalysts for this, and the glue that held it together, was Emery Walker, resident of Hammersmith Terrace, dubbed by architect and designer Philip Webb ‘the Universal Samaritan’, in recognition of the seemingly limitless unpaid technical advice and encouragement he gave to so many in the graphic and reprographic arts. He was also instrumental in two of the greatest of the English private presses, the Kelmscott Press and the Doves Press, both of which called the neighbourhood their home. 

But there were other forces at work in the community’s story too. Human—not everyone can be allowed in, and who will be leader?—and those of nature and geography, their presence and energy humming in the background on an almost inaudible frequency, creating, defining, inspiring and destroying. 

Simon Loxley is a graphic designer and writer; he was the editor and designer of Ultrabold: the journal of St Bride Library, and has written books on typography and design, including Emery Walker: arts, crafts and a world in motion (Oak Knoll Press, 2019). He has also written about the ghost stories of M.R. James and their relationship to the Suffolk landscape (more power of place), and is currently working on another book about short supernatural fiction, a genre which, for him, contains some of the best works of imagination ever written.

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