Still looking for Mr. Fairham

[Toolemera]

Quite a while ago I asked if anyone knew anything of William Fairham, the author of Woodwork Joints and Woodwork Tools and How To Use Them, both from Evans Bros.

To date, I have been unable to find anything about Fairham. Nothing in Ancestry.com, nothing in any book indexes, even Evans Bros. has no information on him.

I am back again to ask, yes, plead for any information on Mr. Fairham. Is he mentioned in any Woodwork magazines of days gone past? Was he an instructor in a technical school somewhere?

thanks
Gary

 

[bugbear]

Quite a while ago I asked if anyone knew anything of William Fairham, the author of Woodwork Joints and Woodwork Tools and How To Use Them, both from Evans Bros.

To date, I have been unable to find anything about Fairham. Nothing in Ancestry.com, nothing in any book indexes, even Evans Bros. has no information on him.

I am back again to ask, yes, plead for any information on Mr. Fairham. Is he mentioned in any Woodwork magazines of days gone past? Was he an instructor in a technical school somewhere?

thanks
Gary

Given the blanks you've drawn, one has to suspect a pseudonym, which was common in days of yore. Read through a few articles in "work"; virtually every article is by "tradesman" or "nil desperandum" etc.

BugBear

 

[AndyT]

Gary - One thought - if you can date the books (my copy of Woodwork Joints is undated, but the British Library catalogue says it's 1918) you could then find someone with a complete run of the Woodworker magazine from the same year. They must have put a paragraph in announcing that they were available, and might have taken the opportunity to explain who the author was.

But as BB says, they were very coy over naming contributors. I've got old copies from when Charles Hayward was editor, and his own books were often credited to 'a Craftsman'.

Further thought - having looked in the BL catalogue, I checked what other titles they list against his name. As well as the two you named, there are:

Carpentry for Beginners. (Most of the chapters written and illustrated by W. Fairham.) 1919
Staining and Polishing including varnishing and other methods of finishing wood (no date)
Wood-Turning. (Written and, for the most part, illustrated by W. Fairham.) 1920

These were all published by Evans Bros, in the same Woodworker series.


(PS - Thanks for your great website!)

 

[bugbear]

Gary - One thought - if you can date the books (my copy of Woodwork Joints is undated, but the British Library catalogue says it's 1918) you could then find someone with a complete run of the Woodworker magazine from the same year. They must have put a paragraph in announcing that they were available, and might have taken the opportunity to explain who the author was.

But as BB says, they were very coy over naming contributors. I've got old copies from when Charles Hayward was editor, and his own books were often credited to 'a Craftsman'.

Indeed - thus I doubt that they'd "blow" the pseudonym explaining who the author (really) was. There might be some biographical details, I suppose.

BugBear

 

[Alf]

Gary, it's a very wild shot in the dark, but have you tried Shoreditch Training College? Well it's history site, anyway. Just that it had connections with a few published woodworking authors (Hayward lectured there, I believe) and, well, you never know.

 

[Toolemera]

Further thought - having looked in the BL catalogue, I checked what other titles they list against his name. As well as the two you named, there are:

Carpentry for Beginners. (Most of the chapters written and illustrated by W. Fairham.) 1919
Staining and Polishing including varnishing and other methods of finishing wood (no date)
Wood-Turning. (Written and, for the most part, illustrated by W. Fairham.) 1920

These were all published by Evans Bros, in the same Woodworker series.

(PS - Thanks for your great website!)

Andy

It's quite possible Fairham is a stand-in for the real guy, who could be J. C. S. Brough for all I know. Usually I can find some lead, somewhere, that provides a glimpse of who the person was. James Lukin and Frances Young are good examples. I've delved into every library catalog I can get to, even using my old librarian contacts to dig deeper. Nada.

We've looked in old copies of Woodwork and more Nada. It's quite possible Fairham did not write for the magazine and was simply hired to do the book series. It's an unfortunately common enough name to present a problem. Ancestry.com yielded nothing, as did the online British Archives.

I did contact Shorditch some time ago, but nothing is lost by trying again. Evans Bros did not keep the records from that time period as they have changed hands many times.

I'm now working my way through the early 20th C manual arts books to see if I can find a lead.

Thanks
Gary

On the bright side, I'll be doing reprints of Wood Turning along with a few other Woodwork Series books.

 

[Toolemera]

Paul

Yes, I do think there's a good chance Fairham wasn't Fairham. I've tried spelling his name backwards, but that didn't work.

 

[yetloh]

Gary,

You have probably thought of this, but I am aware that there is text analysis software that can identify, through word and phrase usage analysis whether or not pieces of writing are by the same author. I don't know how available this software is, but if you have any pieces by other authors who you think could possible also be writing under a pseudonym, it might be worth a try.

Jim

 

[bugbear]

Paul

Yes, I do think there's a good chance Fairham wasn't Fairham. I've tried spelling his name backwards, but that didn't work.

Your remaining hope (in a couple of years) is when all the UK newspapers have been scanned, and you can search for the obituary of "the guy who wrote as William Fairham".

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/19 ... aper_scan/

BugBear

 

[Toolemera]

Gary,

You have probably thought of this, but I am aware that there is text analysis software that can identify, through word and phrase usage analysis whether or not pieces of writing are by the same author. I don't know how available this software is, but if you have any pieces by other authors who you think could possible also be writing under a pseudonym, it might be worth a try.

Jim

It's an interesting idea. The problem would be the quality of any OCR that has been run on the document. But, there are always idiosyncratic phrases people use so who know, it might work.

I have been comparing the artwork of Fairham to other Woodwork Series books as well as early articles. No matches yet, but I'll continue to look. Chris Schwarz had a deep search done through their corporate Ancestry.com account, but no luck there.

On more than one occasion, the editor, Brough, commented on 'securing the services' of Fairham for a given book. Maybe Brough had a second persona?

Gary

 

[Toolemera]

Paul

Yes, I do think there's a good chance Fairham wasn't Fairham. I've tried spelling his name backwards, but that didn't work.

Your remaining hope (in a couple of years) is when all the UK newspapers have been scanned, and you can search for the obituary of "the guy who wrote as William Fairham".

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/19 ... aper_scan/

BugBear

That's great news, at least for people like me! Of course, it would have been even nicer if the BL had not tossed thousands of newspapers years ago in favor of microfilm...

 

[AndyT]

That's great news, at least for people like me! Of course, it would have been even nicer if the BL had not tossed thousands of newspapers years ago in favor of microfilm...

I expect you have read Nicholson Baker's book "Double Fold" - if not, I think you should!

 

[Toolemera]

That's great news, at least for people like me! Of course, it would have been even nicer if the BL had not tossed thousands of newspapers years ago in favor of microfilm...

I expect you have read Nicholson Baker's book "Double Fold" - if not, I think you should!

Own it, read it twice. Unfortunately, I've also worked at libraries where massive book and journal dumps have taken place along with some large scale digitization projects which I shall never do again.

 

[bugbear]

Gary,

You have probably thought of this, but I am aware that there is text analysis software that can identify, through word and phrase usage analysis whether or not pieces of writing are by the same author. I don't know how available this software is, but if you have any pieces by other authors who you think could possible also be writing under a pseudonym, it might be worth a try.

Jim

It's an interesting idea. The problem would be the quality of any OCR that has been run on the document. But, there are always idiosyncratic phrases people use so who know, it might work.

I have been comparing the artwork of Fairham to other Woodwork Series books as well as early articles. No matches yet, but I'll continue to look. Chris Schwarz had a deep search done through their corporate Ancestry.com account, but no luck there.

On more than one occasion, the editor, Brough, commented on 'securing the services' of Fairham for a given book. Maybe Brough had a second persona?

Gary

I don't think textual analysis will work here. It's a fragile art at best.

Given that the books in question are partly based on pre-existing sources, and then (probably) (sub)-edited by by house staff, the text will also not be "pure" Fairham.

You'd also need a wide range of "comparison" texts to match against.

BugBear

 

[shipbadger]

A very obtuse thought has just gone through my mind. I don't know enough about capentry authors or training establishments but, could Mr Fairham have corrupted Fareham, a town with which he may have had links? A very long shot I know.

Tony Comber

 

[Toolemera]

A very obtuse thought has just gone through my mind. I don't know enough about capentry authors or training establishments but, could Mr Fairham have corrupted Fareham, a town with which he may have had links? A very long shot I know.

Tony Comber

That's part of the problem, the evolution of names. The Ancestry.com search goes on with delving into name variations.

As for text analysis, I'm looking for examples of idiosyncratic work methods that might match up. But I doubt that will uncover anything. As Paul points out, editing by another adds an unknown element.

The primary clue is that Fairham was an instructor, somewhere.

Gary

 

[Harbo]

Complete guess - Fairham - Hampton? C W Hampton??
Maybe the wrong era?


Rod

 

[Tom K]

Complete guess - Fairham - Hampton? C W Hampton??
Maybe the wrong era?


Rod

Do you set cryptic crosswords?

 

[AndyT]

Gary - another possible line of enquiry - if the elusive Mr Fairham was a professional woodworker, he might have been a member of a trade union - the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers. This site gives some background info - http://www.unionancestors.co.uk/ASW.htm (but doesn't mention him as an official). It says the membership records are at the University of Warwick, so they might be able to help, or maybe someone here has access to their library.

 

[Toolemera]

Complete guess - Fairham - Hampton? C W Hampton??
Maybe the wrong era?


Rod

Fairham predates Hampton by a small bit.