Cirrus@Austlit

In 1936, visionary headmistress, Winifred West, commissioned Frensham School graduate Joan Phipson to establish Frensham Press.Phipson who was then in England consulted Leonard Woolf of Hogarth Press and Tom Jones of Gregynog Press, purchased a press and returned to Frensham School in 1937 to take up her position as librarian-printer. In 1937, at Winifred West's suggestion, Joan Phipson and Frensham student, Rosemary Dobson, typeset and printed Dobson's first book of poetry, Poems (1937). As another Frensham student Nancy Keesing recalls, annual issues of Pen and Ink, on roneod sheets stapled between covers designed by talented art students, promoted student writings. In 1940, a second book, Pen and Ink: An Anthology of Prose and Verse, written by members of the Frensham Pen and Ink Club was published by Frensham Press.