This is a Specimen of Fine Letterpress Printing – booklet, Wil Hudson, 1965

This is the first known specimen of type and printing by Wil Hudson in Vancouver. Born in Milwaukee in 1928, Hudson lost his father while still a teenager. His mother later moved to California, where he attended high school, then apprenticed at a small typesetting shop in San Jose. He worked briefly in San Francisco before relocating to Vancouver in 1962.

Hudson’s first press was located on Lower Lonsdale Avenue in North Vancouver. He soon moved to Vancouver’s growing West End, sharing space in Pauline’s Books, a small bookstore at 1105 Denman Street. The partnership was short-lived and he moved his type and presses to a basement shop at 323 Cambie Street – just below Hastings Street. It was at the Denman Street location where book collector Geoffrey Spencer first encountered Hudson. Spencer was struck by the careful typesetting and printing on display – a level of craft that was still quite rare in Vancouver at the time. The encounter would lead to the founding of The Alcuin Society.

Hudson remained at the Cambie Street shop until 1972, when he moved to Cape Dorset. He died in Port Alberni in 2014. – Rod McDonald