In 2012 Rupert Murdoch sold all his assets in Wapping to the Berkley Group for £150 million. Since then the Berkley Group has been redeveloping the area, demolishing the majority of the print works to build flats and offices. The Grade 1 listed docking warehouse however could not be demolished and is the only part of Fortress Wapping that remains. In 1985 it had been fitted out as a storage room for papers and inks, the Grade 1 windows were allowed to be fitted with defensive barricades to prevent damage or burglary, as well as razor wire fences and surveillance systems fitted around the perimeter of the plant. These traces of Fortress Wapping have long since been removed, the warehouse now functions as office spaces.
Since 2012, Stereotype has slowly built a network of moles within the Berkley Group. As well as leaking documents, the mole’s primary goal was to maintain the legacy of Wapping and not allow its history to be erased. One of the early successes of the project was incorporating the manicule within the redesign of the area.
In 2022 Terry Ellis gave a short presentation outside the warehouse to celebrate this small victory. The slides of this presentation are shown here, along with text from Ellis’ cue cards, although according to viewers he did not stick closely to his script on the day of the presentation. The event was advertised exclusively through word of mouth, photography or recording were banned in order not to generate evidence for the growingly suspicious Berkley Group.
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The first instances of codex form books being used were dated to the 4th century AD. Before this, scrolls were the most popular form for writings.
For the first time, discontinuous reading was encouraged, as codex allows one to easily flick pages back and forth. This was previously severely impractical due to scrolls needing to be ravelled and unravelled.
The increase in discontinuous reading brought with it an increase in annotations and marginalia being used alongside texts. Marginalia being the term for symbols used in margins of text.
The manicule was a type of marginalia used for highlighting particular parts of texts that were found interesting or important.
The first recorded example of a manicule in use is seen in the Domesday book, published in 1086.
Note taking in books became more and more popular well into the renaissance period. Manicules became more and more elaborate as readers would start to develop their own signature styles.
With the invention of the printing press and moveable type, books began to become far cheaper, considered less and less as long term investments to be cared for and edited over time. Annotations and marginalia became less elaborate and far less frequent.
The manicule ceased being a hand drawn symbol of the reader and instead became a typographic symbol.
Initially it was used as a less popular version of the pilcrow, to denote the change of paragraph.
Pilcrows were initially hand drawn elements, scribers would leave indents for rubricators to draw pilcrows in.
During the early era of print books, pilcrows remained hand drawn, but soon rubricators could not keep up with the pace of the printing press and the indents once left for them began to be left blank. This is how the indent became the denotation of a new paragraph. Only once paper became cheap would an indent and a paragraph space be used.
After a brief stint as a pilcrow, the manicule became used more frequently as a decorative element, known as a dingbat, alongside other dingbats such as the fleuron.
During the 19th century the manicule became increasing popular in advertising and signage.
Its usage collapsing at the end of the century due to the oversaturation of the symbol.
Early modern design favoured the arrow over the manicule, abandoning the symbol in the late 19th century, consigning it to the categories of “retro” or “antique”
The symbol remained largely dead until the events of Wapping in 1986, when it became a symbol of solidarity among the striking print workers.
It is with great pride today that I can unveil to you, after great lengths of work within the Berkley Group…
The manicule returned to Wapping