[9][10][11][12] Fragments from medieval manuscripts collected by Alfred Fairbank are located at the Cadbury Research Library of the University of Birmingham.

Fairbank's greatest achievement was the revival of a general hand-writing style known as Italic Script which was invented in renaissance Rome and used extensively by the Vatican bureaucracy.

[23] To this end, Fairbank produced educational works which were used in schools, A Handwriting Manual (1932)[24] and the Beacon Writing Books (1959), written in conjunction with educationists.

I claim the superiority of actual script over reproduced copies, on the same grounds as one believes in the painting more than in its reproduction, or the playing of an orchestra rather than the gramophone record.

[30]English orthography is phonetically irregular, causing difficulty for children to learn to read; the mid-20th century was an unusual time when several attempts were made to address this issue, and in each case the proponents for change turned to Fairbank for the necessary calligraphy.