More about Woodwork Tools by Charles Hayward, William Fairham and Evans Bros.
Over at the Lost Art Press blog, the subject of Charles Hayward came up with a response noting my pdf of Hayward's How To Make Woodwork Tools booklet and a question about the legality of my providing this as a free access pdf. Lost Art Press.
I provided an answer on the LAP blog in order to clarify the copyright, Public Domain and the relationship between William Fairham, Charles Hayward and Evans. Bros. That answer follows, in full:
Gary Roberts, Toolemera Press publisher here. Link backs at my blog brought this post to my attention. Allow me to provide some background on the Hayward booklet and Evans. Bros. The Hayward booklet exists on multiple online repositories, all providing public access for educational purposes. That too is the purpose of Toolemera Press. This pdf has never been offered for sale, only as a free download expressly for educational and personal use. Such use expressly falls within Fair Use limitations, both US and international. Copyright is not a complex issue. The legality of both copyright and Fair Use are well defined and available for review on numerous university sites. Stanford in particular is an excellent resource.
As a retired research librarian and archivist whose speciality was the digitization of texts, theses and journals, copyright is something I take seriously. Having digitized hundreds of thousands of pages of books and journals for library use, copyright was always a factor in deciding how, when and where to produce both print and digital editions. I was fortunate to have worked in that field during the decades long transition from card catalogs to MS-DOS to GUI to the creation of massive PDF DB archives.
Before digitizing the original William Fairham editions of The Woodworker Series texts, which predate the Hayward books of the same titles, I contacted Evans Bros. Their archivist informed me that all of their records had been destroyed during WWII. They retained no copyright over the earlier William Fairham editions nor did they over any Hayward books published during WWII. The booklet in question was published by Evans Bros during WWII. Having transitioned to publishing children's books, Evans Bros. had no interest in the Woodworker Series titles. At the time of that conversation, they had no information as to how to contact the Hayward estate. My reprints are of the William Fairham and J. C. S. Brough books, in no conflict with the later Hayward books of the same titles.
I do get questions on occasion about the connection between Fairham and Hayward. Evans Bros. engaged Charles Hayward to edit re-issues of the Woodworker Series texts that had proved popular pre-WWII. William Fairham, a practicing turn of the century carpenter and Manual Arts educator, was no longer available, the assumption by Evans Bros. was that he had passed. Fairham and James C. S. Brough were the editors and writers of the Evans Bros. woodwork related books and journals. Hayward used much of the original Fairham text content for the Woodwork Tools and Woodwork Joints editions before going on to edit and write the later titles under this imprint.
Hopefully this comment clarifies some of the questions about the Hayward booklet.