The Doves Type was a typeface created by T.J. Cobden-Sanderson and Emery Walker of The Doves Press, founded in 1900. When the partnership was eventually dissolved in 1909 after a bitter dispute, ownership of the Dove Type was appointed to Cobden-Sanderson, whereupon his death the ownership would pass to Walker.
Rather than let this happen, Cobden-Smith began to dispose of the type matrices into the River Thames off Hammersmith Bridge. Cobden-Sanderson wrote in his personal journals that he "bequeathed to the river" the type itself. Beginning in 1916, under the cloak of midnight, Cobden-Sanderson began the slow task of disposing of Doves into the river. He said that he completed the task in January 1917 after 170 trips in total to the bridge.
Over 150 pieces of the typeface were recovered from the riverbed by Robert Green in 2014, with the help of the Port of London Authority and the acquisition of a mudlarking license.
