Background

Gaskell John Philip Wellesley was born on the 6th of January, 1926 in London, United Kingdom, the only son of John Wellesley Gaskell and Olive Elizabeth Baker.

Education

Philip studied at Dragon School in Oxford from 1930 to 1939 and from 1939 to 1943, he attended Oundle School. In 1948, he entered King's College in Cambridge, where he obtained a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1956.

Career

Before launching his career, Philip served with the Royal Corps of Signals, laying miles of wires across Holland and northern Germany, ending up near Kiel. After the war, he moved on to army broadcasting and was posted to Ceylon. In 1952 Philip Gaskell became editor of the Book Collector, and a fellow of King's College, Cambridge in 1953. The following year, he set up the Water Lane Press in the wonderful arched cellars of the Gibbs building at his college.

Afterward, in 1960 Philip accepted the position of the English department head and librarian at Oundle School, where he served until 1962. He was also a librarian at the University of Glasgow from 1962 to 1966. In 1967, Gaskell returned to Cambridge as librarian and fellow of Trinity College; he retired as a librarian in 1986, but remained a fellow till his death and continued to write and tutor students. Philip also was a visiting teacher at the California Institute of Technology, introducing mostly mathematicians to the subjects dear to his heart from 1983 to 1988.

Gaskell wrote books on production, that have been important to scholars and students interested in reconstructing authoritative texts on important literary works. In 1972, he wrote New Introduction to Bibliography, a reworking of R. B. Mckerrow’s Introduction to Bibliography for Literary Students in 1927. Other works by Gaskell in this area include, From Writer to Reader that came out in 1978 and the case study Ulysses: A Review of Three Texts in 1989, co-written with Clive Hart. Gaskell was also the author of Trinity College Library: The First 150 Years and the 1960 novel Caught!

Achievements

• Philip Gaskell was particularly known as a prolific bibliographer and librarian, who realised early that the techniques of printing practised in the 17th and 18th centuries were the key to understanding how a text came into existence, and set up a press to show how it was done. Based on this experience, he compiled two bibliographies of the work of 18th-century printers, both models of their kind. He also wrote a manual of bibliography, based on how type was set, paper made and printed, and books bound. The next step was to follow the passage of the text from the author's first draft to the last printed version, through a series of case studies from the 16th to the 20th century. The chain was completed with an archaeological history of the library at Trinity College, Cambridge, before Wren rebuilt it, seen as the interaction of books acquired with the successive structures in which they were housed.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Morvern Transformed: A Highland Parish in the Nineteenth Century

    (Gaskell's pioneering study of social and economic change ...)

    1968
  • Standard Written English: A Guide

    (This book is a clear and concise guide to written English...)

    1998
  • Landmarks in English Literature 1998
  • From Writer to Reader 1978
  • Landmarks in Classical Literature 1998
  • Landmarks in European Literature 1998

Personality

Gaskell was an accomplished clarinetist who enjoyed playing jazz, which he did with such famed musicians as Jimmy McPartland and Humphrey Lyttelton.

Physical Characteristics: Philip Gaskell was a dark-haired with a heart-warming laugh.

Interests

• music, colour aerial photography, flying

• Music & Bands

  modern jazz

Connections

Philip was married twice. His first marriage was to Margaret Bennett. They had three children, Luke W., Roger P., and Kate M. His second marriage was to Annette Beighton. They had a daughter.

Father:

John Wellesley Gaskell

John Wellesley Gaskell was a director of an engineering company.

Mother:

Olive Elizabeth Baker Gaskell

Sister:

Patricia Mary Braithwaite Muir

ex-wife:

Margaret Bennett

Wife:

Annette Beighton

Daughter:

Kate M Gaskell

Son:

Roger P. Gaskell

Son:

Luke W. Gaskell