SIBERCH, JOHN (fl. 1521–1522), the first printer at Cambridge, has sometimes been identified with Johann Syber or Sibert, who printed at Lyons between 1482 and 1498; but it is more probable that he came to England from Cologne. He set up the first printing-press at Cambridge in 1521, in which year and in 1522 he printed there nine or more books. The house in which he lived was between the Gate of Humility and the Gate of Virtue, within the precincts of Gonville and Caius College, and it bore the sign of the ‘Arma Regia.’ Siberch styled himself ‘primus utriusque linguæ in Anglia impressor,’ and it was on the title-page of his ‘Augustinus’ that Greek type was first used in England. He was probably the bookseller named as an old friend by Erasmus in a letter written from Basle on Christmas day 1525 to Robert Aldrich of Cambridge, afterwards bishop of Carlisle: ‘Saluta mihi ueteres sodales … Gerardum, Nicolaum, et Ioannem Siburgum bibliopolas.’ The art of printing was not again exercised at Cambridge until Thomas Thomas was appointed university printer in 1583.
The books known to have been printed by Siberch are, in order of date, as follows: 1. The ‘Oratio’ addressed to Cardinal Wolsey at Cambridge by Dr. Henry Bullock, 1521. Four copies of this, the first book printed at Cambridge, are known, viz. at the British Museum, Bodleian Library, Lambeth Palace, and Archbishop Marsh's Library, Dublin. 2. St. Augustine's ‘Sermo de miseria ac brevitate hujus mortalis vitæ,’ 1521, of which the only extant copy is in the Bodleian Library. 3. Lucian's ‘Opusculum περὶ διψὰδων,’ 1521, edited by Dr. Bullock, with the addition of his above-mentioned oration to Wolsey. Two copies are in the British Museum, and a third is at St. John's College, Cambridge. 4. Archbishop Baldwin's ‘Sermo de altaris sacramento,’ 1521 (Bodleian, Cambridge Univ. Libr. &c.). 5. Erasmus' ‘De conscribendis epistolis,’ 1521 (Brit. Mus., St. John's Coll., Cambridge, &c.). 6. Galen's ‘De temperamentis,’ translated by Thomas Linacre, 1521 (Brit. Mus., Bodleian, &c.). 7. Bishop Fisher's ‘Contio,’ delivered on the day of the public burning of the writings of Martin Luther, translated into Latin by Richard Pace, 1521 [1522]. Two copies are in the Bodleian Library, and another is in the Althorp collection. 8. Papirius Geminus’ ‘Hermathena,’ 1522 (Brit. Mus., St. John's Coll., Cambridge, &c.). 9. Two leaves only of an unknown edition of William Lily's ‘De octo orationis partium constructione,’ discovered in the library of Westminster Abbey. Facsimile reproductions have been published of Nos. 1, 2, 6, and 8.
[Bibliographical Introduction by Henry Bradshaw prefixed to the facsimile edition of Bullock's Oratio, 1886; Ames's Typogr. Antiq., ed. Herbert, 1785–90, ii. 1410–13; Bibliographica, 1895–7, ii. 28 (art. ‘English Provincial Presses,’ by W. H. Allnutt).]
SIBLEY, GEORGE (1824–1891), civil engineer, born on 12 Aug. 1824, was son of Robert Sibley, one of the first members of the Institution of Civil Engineers. From 1831 to 1838 he received his education at University College school, London. After serving an apprenticeship with his father in London, he obtained employment in 1845 as assistant engineer on the Bristol and Exeter railway under Isambard Kingdom Brunel [q. v.], and afterwards under Charles Hutton Gregory. In 1851, through James Meadows Rendel [q. v.], he received the appointment of assistant engineer on the East India railway, and was placed in charge of the Chandernagore district. His promotion was rapid. In August 1853 he was placed in charge of the Beerbhoom district as resident engineer, and in this position designed the two largest brick arch-bridges in India, those over the Adjai and More. In December of the same year he was made a district engineer. About 1857 he was appointed deputy chief engineer under Turnbull, and in 1859 chief engineer of the North-West Provinces division. On the death of Samuel Power he became, in April 1868, chief engineer of the whole line and a member of the board of agency. During his service in the North-West Sibley completed the Allahabad Jumna bridge, then the largest railway bridge in the world, constructed the Delhi Jumna bridge, and designed all the works at Delhi connected with the railway.
In 1869 he was involved in a controversy with the Indian government, which had issued a notification implying that the civil engineers received commissions from others than their employers. The accusation does not appear to have been justifiable, and Sibley, with the other engineers, addressed a strong remonstrance to the government.
In January 1875 Sibley left India on furlough, and shortly after retired. In consideration of his services he was made a companion of the order of the Indian Empire. He resided in England in a house
