In Memoriam: Alfred Fairbank
Patrick Nairne
I was one of the least and latest of Fairbank's disciples. I met him when he was at the height of his powers as a calligrapher and near the end of his career in the executive ranks of the Admiralty. I should have known of his reputation outside the Admiralty, but did not: he had no reason to take any notice of me inside the Admiralty, but did.
As a new and young Assistant Principal I was sent in early 1948 to visit the Admiralty production departments in Bath. One January afternoon I met Alfred Fairbank in his office as Civil Assistant to the Admiral who was Director of Dockyards. As I waited to see the Admiral, I saw the handwriting on an official file on a desk and remarked casually on the beauty of the civil servant's script. Fairbank replied, with a touch of testiness, that beauty was not the point: his italic hand was a functional hand, the fastest and clearest cursive script. I was ushered in and out of the Admiral's office without the opportunity of a further word.
I owe my own enthusiasm for handwriting to my father. He was a good practitioner himself, and he had established a family collection of handwriting, enriched by a generous contribution from Sir Sydney Cockerell out of his own fine collection. When he had heard of my meeting, my father was anxious to secure an example of Fairbank's hand. With some trepidation - many months after my inept remark outside the Admiral's door - I wrote a letter of request to Fairbank. His reply of 29 November 1948 is a perfect example (in spite of the minor mis-spelling of my name) of the Master at his best - warm, modest, encouraging, and a superb piece of contemporary Italic. He replied with similar kindness and modesty to my letter of thanks.
'Thanks for your note. I don't often get to London and when I do I am usually tied up at lunchtime. Perhaps you would say the same thing about your visits to Bath, but I hope not.
You may like to have the enclosed envelope for your collection. Wardrop never writes slovenly - I often do.'
And so the Nairne collection rapidly acquired a Wardrop envelope as well as two Fairbank letters.
I never knew how good a civil servant Fairbank was. I imagine that he was highly valued in the Dockyard Department for the meticulous standards and mental vigour that characterised his contribution to calligraphy and handwriting. His italic hand had an influence on Admiralty colleagues. I became one of the small band of Admiralty disciples who, in the words of Dr. Osley in a footnote to his book of essays, Calligraphy and Palaeography, had to put up with the inaccurate comment that one wrote just like that chap Fairbank'. In the early 1950s an italic exhibition was mounted at the Treasury and opened by the Head of the Civil Service, Lord Bridges, son of the poet. In 1955 Alfred Fairbank retired after 44 years in the Civil Service. The Secretary of the Admiralty concluded a short formal valedictory letter with these words:
It has been a privilege for the Admiralty to have had as a member of its staff a person who has reached so eminent a position in calligraphy and it was a source of pleasure to Their Lordships when his late Majesty King George VI honoured you, in recognition of the Service which you have given to this art, by appointing you as a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.
For the italic disciples it was more than a privilege: it was an inspiration for life.