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The most distinguished resident at Book House...

He never leaves the building. He's worth a small fortune. And you can see him any time you climb the stairs up to the first floor of Book House.

'He' is a portrait of Sir Stanley Unwin, an international figure in publishing, painted in 1959 by Oskar Kokoschka.

Born and raised in London, Stanley Unwin grew up with a passion for books and, in 1914, he became chairman of the London publishing firm of George Allen & Unwin. In twenty years' time, he was to have full control of the business.

A strong proponent of international co-operation in book matters, he served as president of the Publishers Association of Great Britain and president of the International Publishers Association. A non-conformist and liberal thinker, he travelled extensively throughout the world, collecting information on publishing techniques from booksellers and publishing houses.

The novel, The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien, was one of the most famous books he ever published.

However, he did not take all the credit.

His son, Rayner, was a test subject for the firm because Sir Stanley believed that children were the best judges of what made a good children's book. Rayner was paid one shilling by his father for each written report and, at the age of 10, in 1936, it was his enthusiasm for The Hobbit that played a crucial role in influencing his father to publish the volume.

Rayner entered publishing himself around 1951 and it was his desire for a sequel from J.R.R. Tolkien that resulted in the publication of The Lord of the Rings. Without him one of the great works of English Literature may have remained unpublished for a long time to come.

When Sir Stanley Unwin died 17 years later, Rayner took over as chairman of George Allen & Unwin and soon became involved in the NLSC (National Life Story Collection) Book Trade Lives project through donations to the organisation. But his interest was much more than financial and the combination of donation and active involvement was typical of his approach to projects over the years.

In 1980 The National Book League (which later became Booktrust) was forced out of its Mayfair premises, with little financial reserve to be able to move to a new building. The National Book League's director contacted Rayner to see if he could offer some funding, and soon the two men were on their way to look over a building in Wandsworth called Book House.

Rayner went onto buy the former town hall for NBL. Later, he also brought in the Training Centre from the Publishers Association, making it Book House Training Centre (later to become the Publishing Training Centre, or PTC). In his work with PTC, Rayner was fulfilling the terms of the charitable trust set up in memory of his father – the Stanley Unwin Memorial Trust.

And so the Publishing Training Centre was born, running just 2 open courses at the time (Editing Skills 1 and Editing Skills 2, which are now known as Copy-Editing Skills and Commissioning and List Management).

Throughout the last 27 years, the PTC has expanded tremendously. We now run 70 open courses, covering the complete range of publishing skills with a key part of our portfolio training being in IT and electronic publishing. In the last decade, tailor made training and distance learning courses have been introduced and have proved extremely successful.

We are proud to say that since the PTC opened in 1980, it has come a long way and we are constantly updating our courses to keep them in touch with the ever moving publishing industry. As publishing develops, so does the PTC.

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