{{short description|English printer and biographer (1840–1916)}} {{about||the English footballer|Horace Hart (footballer)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=January 2020}} {{Infobox writer|birth_date=1840|birth_place=Suffolk, England|death_date=9 October 1916|death_place=Youlbury Lake|occupation=printer and biographer|notable_works=''Hart's Rules for Compositors and Readers''}} '''Horace Henry Hart''' (1840 – 9 October 1916) was an English printer and biographer. He was the author of ''Hart's Rules for Compositors and Readers'', first issued in 1893.
==Early life and early career== Hart was born in Suffolk in 1840; his father was a shoemaker. He was sent to the printers Woodfall & Kinder in London at the age of fourteen, and was apprenticed to the compositor's trade two years later. He became the manager of Woodfall & Kinder by the age of twenty-six, but left to take over management of the London branch of the Edinburgh-based Ballantyne Press.
He left Ballantyne Press in 1880, when he was appointed manager of the head office and main works of William Clowes & Sons, which was then the biggest printing house in Britain. He left, however, after only three years at Clowes, when vacancy for Controller of the Oxford University Press (OUP) was advertised.
==Oxford University Press== Hart served as Printer to the University of Oxford and Controller of the University Press between 1883 and 1915. During that time, he convinced the Press to begin using wood-pulp paper, and also introduced collotype and printing by lithography. In 1896, he wrote a monograph on ''Charles, Earl Stanhope and the Oxford University Press''. In 1900, he wrote ''Notes on a Century of Typography at the University Press Oxford 1693–1794''.
In 1893 he issued the first version of what became known as Hart's Rules as a single broadsheet page for in-house use. Although first issued internally at the Oxford University Press in 1893, these rules had their origins in 1864, when Hart was a member of the London Association of Correctors of the Press, working for Woodfall & Kinder. With a small group of fellow members from the same printing house, he drew up a list of "rules", which was constantly updated and revised during his career at three other printing houses.
==Health issues and death== The last twenty years of Hart's life were plagued by bouts of depression and insomnia. He suffered his first nervous breakdown in 1887, followed by another in 1888. A final, severe breakdown led to his retirement from the OUP in 1915 at the age of seventy-five. The following year, he drowned himself in Youlbury Lake near Oxford, a secluded lake in the grounds of a neighbour's garden.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/43064742/mr_horace_hart/ |title=Mr. Horace Hart |work=The Times |page=27 |date=1916-10-10 |access-date=2020-01-26 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> His gloves were folded neatly on the bank.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JmmHFLkF6AcC&pg=PA121 |title=The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary |first=Simon |last=Winchester |author-link=Simon Winchester |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780192805768 |page=121 |year=2004 |access-date=2020-01-26 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref>
==Works==
* ''[[Hart's Rules|[Hart's] Rules for Compositors and Readers [at the University Press, Oxford]]<nowiki>]</nowiki>'' (1896) ** First edition (privately printed edition, for use solely at the press): 1896 ** Fifteenth edition (first authorized edition for sale to the public): 1904 ** Thirty-ninth edition (final edition in the traditional format): 1983 *"Charles Earl Stanhope and the Oxford University Press" in Collectanea III (1896) **First standalone edition: 1966
* ''Notes of a Century of Typography at the University Preß, Oxford: 1693-1794. With Annotations & Appendixes.'' (1900) ** First edition: 1900 ** Facsimile reprint with supplementary material: 1970
==See also== * Vivian Ridler
==References== {{Reflist}} * ''The Oxford Manual of Style'' (OUP, 2002) Introduction
==External links== *{{cite web|url=http://www.ritter.org.uk/H&C/H_edns/Hart_bio.html |title=Biography & Accomplishments: Horace Hart |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110716080656/http://www.ritter.org.uk/H%26C/H_edns/Hart_bio.html |archivedate=2011-07-16 |url-status=usurped }}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Hart, Horace}} Category:1840 births Category:1916 suicides Category:1916 deaths Category:English biographers Category:English printers Category:Businesspeople from Suffolk Category:Suicides by drowning in England Category:Writers of style guides Category:19th-century English businesspeople
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