Peter Allpress came to bookplates relatively late in life. After Cambridge and a brief spell farming on the Isle of Wight with his brother, a career in the colonial service took him to Nigeria, the Cameroon and South Africa. Only in retirement, to the beautiful mountain village of Ordino in Andorra, were he and his wife Lucille able to pursue their cultural interests in Europe. He joined the Bookplate Society in 1979 and soon became a regular contributor to the Society's Newsletter & Journal,
As the bookplate collection developed, grateful editors received a steady stream of short pieces prompted by acquisitions he had found interesting enough to research. 'A fine armorist, it was in the field of badges, war cries, orders of chivalry and augmentations of honour as displayed in bookplates, that his most lasting work was done.' This interest in heraldry, medals & military records is apparent in the working library catalogued here. Likewise his collection of bookplates from several European countries prompted the acquisition of many major studies in Spanish, Portuguese, French & German.
Bookplates commissioned from Leo Wyatt and Richard Shirley Smith were featured in the Bookplate Journal and a profile of the man & his collection in the Newsletter of September 2002. After Peter's death in July 2014, Paul Latcham wrote a fitting tribute for the Spring 2015 Journal on which this writer has leaned heavily.
