BIBLIOGRAPHERS OF THE PERIOD OF THE English Restoration
have for
years associated the imprint phrase "In the Savoy" with presswork
issuing from the King's Printing House. They have not, however,
recognized the value of the phrase in identifying the printers of
a large number of proclamations and books, especially plays, whose
title-page imprints carry "In the Savoy" but fail to name the
printer. Consequently they have not attempted what this note tries
tentatively to do; that is, to set down the history of the phrase
and to distinguish among the seventeenth and early
eighteenth-century printers who used it.
The Savoy was a large, sprawling structure situated in the
Strand next to Somerset House and almost directly opposite the New
Exchange. It was built originally in 1245 by Peter, Earl of Savoy,
from whom it received its name. In the Restoration its ample
apartments served as quarters for not only the King's Printing
Press but also a prison; a parish church; religious assembly halls
for the English dissenters, the French, Dutch, High Germans, and
Lutherans; and a hospital harboring the poor. The Savoy fell into
disuse and ruin late in the eighteenth century and was razed early
in the nineteenth to clear the approach to Waterloo Bridge.
The location in the Savoy of the King's Printing Office
dates probably from the early weeks of September, 1666, when the
great fire of London destroyed along with Baynard's Castle the
neighboring shop of Thomas Newcombe, the printer of the
London
Gazette and the more active of the two printers working for the
King under the patent held by the assigns of John Bill and
Christopher Barker. The last extant issue of the
Gazette
which Newcombe signed with his Baynard Castle address is dated
August 30, 1666; the issue of September 3, Number 84, is lacking in
files of the news-sheet and was presumably destroyed by the fire.
If we are to believe J. G. Muddiman, the next issue of the
Gazette to appear, that of September 10, "Newcombe was
compelled to print . . . in the open air, in the evil-smelling
churchyard of the Savoy, choked with the bodies of the dead from
the plague."
[1] The imprint of this
issue, however, reads simply "London, Printed by Tho. Newcomb."
The exact date on which the King's Printing Office was moved to
the Savoy, therefore, remains in doubt, but there can be no
question about the fact that by November 8, 1666, Newcombe and the
patentees of the King's Press had decided to make the Savoy their
permanent quarters; for on that date Newcombe first used the
imprint phrase "In the Savoy" on two different publications printed
in his shop. One was the issue of the London Gazette dated
November 8, 1666; the other was the King's proclamation
"prohibiting the importation of all sorts of manufactures" printed
"By the Assigns of John Bill and Christopher Barker" and likewise
dated November 8, 1666.[2]
From November 8, 1666, to July 19, 1688, the imprints on issues
of the London Gazette run in an unbroken succession:
"Printed by Tho. Newcomb in the Savoy." The forty-four entries in
vol. 1 of Wing's S.T.C. bearing the imprint "In the Savoy by
Thomas Newcombe . . ." are similarly distributed
through the years from 1667 to 1688. No imprint containing "In the
Savoy" is linked with any printer's name other than Newcombe's
during those years, and no imprint bearing the name of Thomas
Newcombe or the Assigns of Thomas Newcombe after 1688 contains the
phrase "In the Savoy." The later Wing volumes will, of course, have
to be checked in order to verify these findings, but in the light
of the specific corroborative evidence furnished by the
London
Gazette imprints, there is little likelihood that any
additional data uncovered will change the terminal dates of
Newcombe's printing activity in the Savoy. Further, an examination
of a substantial number of the publications bearing Savoy imprints
without Newcombe's name printed between those terminal dates
reveals the presence of ornaments and decorative capitals clearly
identifiable as Newcombe's. Those books lacking ornaments present
a typography in no way inconsistent with the assumption that
Newcombe was the printer.
Thus one may conclude with reasonable certainty that any
proclamation or book with a Savoy imprint published between
November 8, 1666, and July 19, 1688, came from the presses of
Thomas Newcombe.
That conclusion, however, needs one qualification. Sometime
between December 21, 1681, and January 11, 1681/2, Thomas Newcombe,
Sr., died, and his son, Thomas Newcombe, Jr., also free of the
Stationers' Company and presumably working with his father,
inherited the business and assumed his father's
responsibilities.[3] Although the
clerk of the Stationers' Company was making a distinction between
father and son in Stationers' Register entries as early as
October 27, 1677, no Newcombe imprint either in the London
Gazette or in vol. 1 of Wing's S.T.C. makes the
differentiation. Further, Thomas Newcombe, Sr., appears to have
been actively engaged in his work almost to the end of his life,
for his last entry in the Stationers' Register occurred on
December 5, 1681. Therefore it
seems safe to conclude, finally, that all material containing the
imprint phrase "In the Savoy" printed between November 8, 1666, and
December, 1681, was issued by Thomas Newcombe, Sr., and all
material signed "In the Savoy" and printed between January, 1681/2
and July 19, 1688, came from the presses of Thomas Newcombe, Jr.
Only a check of Wing's later volumes will determine whether the
second Thomas Newcombe or any succeeding Savoy printer issued
imprints carrying the phrase "In the Savoy" without his name. All
eighty-seven imprint citations of this special sort gathered so far
fall within the dates assigned exclusively to Thomas Newcombe,
Sr.
The imprint of the London Gazette for July 23, 1688,
links the Savoy phrase for the first time with a printer named
Edward Jones. The explanation for his replacing the younger Thomas
Newcombe as the King's Printer midway during the year of the
"Bloodless Revolution" is almost certainly political. Plomer states
that Bill, Hills, and Newcombe were obliged to retire in favor of
Jones "on the accession of William" because they had printed the
declaration made by James 11 against the Prince of Orange.[4] Plomer's argument may be sound, but the
date of the London Gazette first bearing Jones' name
indicates clearly that Jones had taken over the duties of the
King's Printer some months before William's Tor Bay landing on
November 5, 1688.
Whatever the political maneuvering was that led finally to
Jones' gaining the patent as printer to the King, the fact is that
from July 23, 1688, until February 18, 1705/6, two days after
Jones' death, the imprints on issues of the London Gazette
read without deviation: "Printed by Edw. Jones, in the Savoy." And
thirty-two of the thirty-three entries in the first volume of
Wing's S.T.C. containing the Savoy phrase dated from 1688
to
1700 are signed by Edward Jones.
The single Wing entry (C6729) linking the phrase "In the
Savoy" with another printer's name is Thomas Coxe's
A
Topographical, Ecclesiastical and Natural History of Great
Britain. In the Savoy: by Eliz. Nutt: and sold by M. Nutt . .
. and J. Morphew . . ., 1700. 4° O[xford: Bodleian]. Further
investigation of this volume has revealed that Wing's imprint
citation is accurate; the difficulty rests with the patently
incorrect date "MDCC", which occurred as a result either of a
typesetter's error or of someone's deliberate attempt at false
dating. The text following this title-page in the Bodleian copy and
in others similarly dated
[5] is
typographically in the same style as portions of the text of Thomas
Coxe's
Magna Britannia (6 vols.) printed in the Savoy by
Eliz. Nutt some twenty years later in 1720-1731.
Following Edward Jones' death, "M. Jones," apparently Jones'
widow, undertook to manage the Queen's Press and to print the
London Gazette. The news-sheet imprints indicate that her
tenure of office extended from February 21, 1705/6, until February
26, 1707/8, after which Jacob Tonson, Jr., assumed the publication
of the London Gazette at his Gray's Inn shop, and J. Nutt,
who had served Edward Jones in 1700 and 1703 as the retail
bookseller for two of Jones' publications,[6] began
operating the Savoy presses. Thus
one may conclude that all publications containing the imprint
phrase "In the Savoy" printed between July 23, 1688, and February
18, 1705/6, were the presswork of Edward Jones, and all material
bearing the Savoy phrase between February 23, 1705/6, and February
26, 1707/8, came from the presses of M. Jones.
The evidence for determining the Savoy printers after 1708 is
too sketchy to warrant any definite conclusions. The history
reconstructed from scattered statements in Plomer's
Dictionaries
[7]
reveals that the Office of Queen's or King's Printer passed
successively from one member of the Nutt family to another. After
J. Nutt's death in 1710(?), Benjamin Nutt seems to have held office
in the Savoy. He was followed in 1720 by Elizabeth Nutt, whom
Plomer conjectures to be J. Nutt's widow. Sometime in 1724 she, in
turn, joined Richard Nutt in a partnership which lasted until 1738.
Thereafter, until his death in 1780 when the King's Printing Office
was moved from the Savoy to new quarters, Richard Nutt appears to
have signed all imprints bearing the phrase "In the Savoy" with his
name.
