Editing Times New Roman (section)

==William Starling Burgess==
In 1994 the printing historian [[Mike Parker (typographer)|Mike Parker]] published claims that the design of Times New Roman's roman or regular style was based on a 1904 design of [[William Starling Burgess]].<ref name="Burgess">
{{cite journal
  | last = Parker
  | first = Mike
  | title = W. Starling Burgess, Type Designer?
  | journal = Printing History
  | volume = 31/32
  | pages = 52–108
  | year = 1994}}
</ref> This theory remains controversial.<ref name="Alas 2009">
{{cite news
 | url = http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/a2fa033e-7ca1-11de-a7bf-00144feabdc0.html
 | last = Alas
 | first = Joel
 | access-date = 26 August 2009
 | date = 1 August 2009
 | title = The history of the Times New Roman typeface
 | newspaper = Financial Times
}}</ref> Parker and his friend [[Gerald Giampa]], a Canadian printer who had bought up the defunct American branch of Lanston Monotype, claimed that, in 1904, Burgess created a type design for company documents at his shipyard in Marblehead, Massachusetts, and hired Lanston Monotype to issue it.<ref name="Burgess" /> However, Burgess abandoned the idea and Monotype shelved the sketches, ultimately reusing them as a basis for Times New Roman. Giampa claimed that he stumbled upon original material in 1987, after he had purchased Lanston Monotype, and that some of the papers that had been his evidence had been lost in a flood at his house, while Parker claimed that an additional source was material in a section of the Smithsonian now closed due to [[asbestos]] contamination.<ref name="Burgess" /><ref name="Stanley Morison and Times New Roman" /> Giampa asked Parker to complete the type from the limited number of surviving letters, which was issued in June 2009 by [[Font Bureau]] under the name of 'Starling'.<ref name="Alas 2009" /><ref>{{Cite web |date=2009 |title=Starling |url=http://www.fontbureau.com/fonts/starling |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100105202634/http://www.fontbureau.com/fonts/starling |archive-date=2010-01-05 |website=The Font Bureau}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2009 |title=Starling: A Revival for Our Times |first1=Stanley |last1=Morison |url=https://www.type.co.uk/blog/a_to_z/FreeFonts/Books/pdf/Starling-Keepsake.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240226064310/https://www.type.co.uk/blog/a_to_z/FreeFonts/Books/pdf/Starling-Keepsake.pdf |archive-date=2024-02-26 |access-date=2024-02-26 |website=type.co.uk}}</ref>
 
Reception to the claims was sceptical, with dismissal from Morison's biographer Nicolas Barker and [[Luc Devroye]] among others; Barker suggested that the material had been fabricated in order to aid Giampa in embarrassing Monotype's British branch, while Devroye and Thomas Phinney of [[FontLab]] suggested that the claim had begun as a prank.<ref name="Stanley Morison and Times New Roman">{{cite web|last1=Loxley|first1=Simon|title=Stanley Morison and Times New Roman|url=http://www.simonloxley.com/ar_02_stan.html|publisher=Ultrabold|access-date=8 March 2016|archive-date=13 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160313155154/http://www.simonloxley.com/ar_02_stan.html|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="Starling Burgess: No Type Designer">{{cite book|last1=Barker|first1=Nicolas|title=Form and Meaning in the History of the Book : selected essays|date=2003|publisher=British Library|location=London|isbn=0-7123-4777-1|pages=[https://archive.org/details/formmeaninginhis0000bark/page/371 371–390]|chapter=Starling Burgess: No Type Designer|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/formmeaninginhis0000bark/page/371}}</ref><ref name="Devroye on Burgess">{{cite web|last1=Devroye|first1=Luc|title=William Starling Burgess|url=http://luc.devroye.org/fonts-24415.html|website=Type Design Information|access-date=8 March 2016}}</ref><ref name="Hudson Phinney TypeDrawers" /> In 2010, Mark Owens<ref>{{cite web |title=Writing |url=https://lifeofthemind.net/writing/ |website=Mark Owens |access-date=28 May 2023}}</ref> described Parker's article in retrospect as "the scantest of evidence" and a "fog of irrelevant details"<ref name="A Note on the Type">{{cite book |last1=Owens |first1=Mark |title=A Note on the Type |date=2010 |url=https://readings.design/PDF/a-note-on-the-type.pdf|publisher=Carnegie Museum of Art |pages=268–270}}</ref> and [[Simon Loxley]] that it "doesn't really have a leg to stand on".<ref name="Loxley Ultrabold 2009 editorial">{{cite journal |last1=Loxley |first1=Simon |title=[Editorial] |journal=Ultrabold: The Journal of St Bride Library |date=2009 |pages=2–3}}</ref>{{efn|Among the few prominent figures in typography to express even qualified support for the idea was Tiro Typeworks owner John Hudson, Giampa's neighbour on Vancouver Island. He wrote in 2008 that he had examined Giampa's claimed patterns and that they looked as if they were made using an early Monotype production process obsolete by 1931: "the material evidence of the two-part patterns and their numbering -- if they are genuine --, suggests very strongly a design that significantly pre-dates 1931...The patterns are either deliberate hoax or they are historical artefacts" and that he was "unconvinced that this is a hoax";"<ref name="Hudson on Typophile">{{cite web |last1=Hudson |first1=John |title=Comments on Typophile thread |url=http://typophile.com/node/50470 |website=Typophile (archived) |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110908011822/http://typophile.com/node/50470 |access-date=30 March 2019|archive-date=8 September 2011 }}</ref> but in 2019, after Giampa and Parker's deaths, he said "I do think it entirely possible that the whole thing was a hoax."<ref name="Hudson Phinney TypeDrawers">{{cite web |last1=Hudson |first1=John |last2=Phinney |first2=Thomas |title=Comments on TypeDrawers thread |url=https://typedrawers.com/discussion/3073/never-mind-starling |website=TypeDrawers |date=6 March 2019 |access-date=10 April 2020}}</ref> The claims did convince Walter Tracy, who had written a major analysis of Times New Roman's genesis in his book ''Letters of Credit''; however he died in April 1995, before Parker's finalised publication, and did not live to see the extensive rebuttals.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Tracy |first1=Walter |title=Letters of Credit: A Correction |journal=Journal of the Printing Historical Society |date=1995 |pages=2–3}}</ref> Designer Jim Rimmer wrote that "Mr Giampa gave me a set of punches for use in numbering my own matrices. The design of these numerals is identical to those used to stamp “54” on the patterns".<ref name="Stanley Morison and Times New Roman" />}} Monotype executive Dan Rhatigan described the theory as implausible in 2011: "I'll admit that I tend to side with the more fully documented (both in general, and in agreement with what little I can find within Monotype to support it) notion that Times New Roman was based on Plantin...I won't rule out the possibility that Starling Burgess drew up the concept first, but [[Occam's razor]] makes me doubt it."<ref name="It was never called Times Old Roman" />

The Times Online web site credits the design to "Stanley Morrison, Victor Lardent and perhaps Starling Burgess".<ref>
{{cite news
 | url = http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/feedback/article1185820.ece
 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080907073804/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/feedback/article1185820.ece
 | url-status = dead
 | archive-date = 7 September 2008
 | access-date = 26 August 2009
 | date = 25 January 2007
 | title = FAQ: infrequently asked questions
 | newspaper = Times Online
}}</ref>
{{clear}}