Open Collections

[Bookbinder's Ticket]

In black ink on white paper, the bookbinder's ticket consists of a border made up of joined circles surrounding black text of various sizes and fonts. The word 'Carswell' begins with a decorative letter 'C'. A decorative element in the shape of a water drop or a flame is found in the lower middle of the bookbinder's ticket.

Established in 1864, Carswell Company, Limited is Canada's largest law publishing house and the leading Canadian distributor of legal texts of all kinds for many publishers around the world. Based in Toronto, the company was founded by Robert Carswell (1838-1928) as a North American source for Empire (subsequently Commonwealth) legal materials. Carswell opened his first store in 1866 at 16 King Street West and sold general law text books before expanding into publishing in 1872 with the publication of "A Treatise on Criminal Law as Applicable to the Dominion of Canada" by Samuel Robinson Clarke. In 1879, Carswell formed a partnership with Charles Frankish, W. E. Collins, and Arthur Poole under the name of Carswell and Company, with premises at 30 Adelaide Street East. The partnership company evolved into a limited liability Ontario corporation (Carswell Company, Limited) in September 1891, of which Carswell was president until his death. In the 1909, the company moved to 19 Duncan Street, and, as expansion continued, subsequently moved to 145-149 Adelaide Street West in 1919. In the 1960s Carswell became a subsidiary of Methuen of Canada Ltd. and in 1987 joined the International Thomson Organisation Ltd., later the Thomson Corporation. Today Carswell is a division of Thomson Reuters Canada Limited with headquarters at 2075 Kennedy Road. The company provides information tools and resources in a range of formats, including books, looseleaf services, journals, newsletters, CD-ROMs, and online resources to Canadian legal, finance, and human resources professions. A copy of this ex libris is also available in the Philippe Masson Ex Libris Collection at McGill University.
References:
1) Barnett, K. (2001). The Carswell story: 1864-2001. (Carswell Legal Publishing Company). Canadian Law Libraries, 26(2), 49-53.
2) Thomson Reuters Carswell. (n.d.). About Carswell. Retrieved January 25, 2013, from http://www.carswell.com/corporate/about-us/
3) University of Manitoba: Faculty of Law. (2004). Prizes and Scholarships - The Carswell Company Limited Prize. Retrieved January 25, 2013, from http://www.umanitoba.ca/law/darcyp/scholarship/prizes.php?year=year23&THE%20CARSWELL%20COMPANY%20LIMITED%20PRIZE
4) University of Manitoba: Faculty of Law. (2004). Prizes and Scholarships - The Carswell Company Limited Prize. Retrieved January 25, 2013, from http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/callb26&div=26&g_sent=1&collection=journals
5) Western Libraries. (2013). Business and History - The Carswell Company Limited. Retrieved January 25, 2013, from http://www.lib.uwo.ca/programs/companyinformationcanada/ccc-carswell.html
6) The Philippe Masson Ex Libris Collection at McGill University, from http://digital.library.mcgill.ca/bookplates/

2013

Images provided for research and reference use only. Permission to publish, copy, or otherwise use these images must be obtained from Rare Books and Special Collections: http://rbsc.library.ubc.ca

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