Our History

A.Bliss was established in 1799 by Annie Bliss. The company hand coloured maps, plans and drawings. After fighting in the First World War, Sydney Mawby bought the company for £150, he was the first of 4 generations. Sydney worked mostly in the map and plan colouring industry using stencils, dyes, brushes and intricate techniques to hand colour various mediums before the advent of economical colour printing.

Teddy Mawby and his sister Gladys joined their father in the 1940s. Teddy added first wet, then dry mounting, this process being in the early stages of development at the time. Teddy concentrated on developing these different types of mounting and over the years perfected them. This is the point historical records, including logos, started to be preserved. Our oldest logo above dates back to this era.

Edward Mawby joined in 1966 and Sally Mawby in 1984. They moved the business towards fine art, building working relationships with reputable artists and institutions over many years. Edward’s son Will has now joined the team – making A.Bliss a 4th generation family owned business.

We are proud of our long history. We keep in touch with the foundations of the company, producing work to detailed, exacting standards with an ethos of the best service, quality and integrity.