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Notes
H. R. Plomer, "The King's Printing House under the Stuarts," The Library, new series, II (1901), 353-375. A. F. Johnson, "The King's Printers, 1660-1742," The Library, fifth series, III (1948), 33-38.
Public Record Office: C5/499/75, The Patentees of the King's Printing Office [hereafter designated as KP] v. Samuel Lee et al, 1682; C5/146/31, KP v. Roger Clavell et al, 1696; C5/148/1, KP v. Abel Roper et al, 1697; C5/148/51, KP v. Richard Baldwin, 1697; C5/592/16, KP v. Thomas Snowden, 1698; C5/592/17, KP v. Ichabod Dawkes, 1698; C5/592/18, KP v. Anne Baldwin, 1698; C5/592/19, KP v. Benjamin Beardwell et al, 1701; C5/592/20, KP v. Samuel Cope, 1703; C5/592/21, KP v. John How, 1703; C5/592/22, KP v. Henry Hills, 1706; C5/592/23, KP v. Joseph Button, 1707; C5/335/15, Edward Darell v. James Hills et al, 1708; C11/238/14, KP v. Edward Berrington, 1715; C11/169/10, KP v. Samuel Hobbins, 1746; C11/178/5, KP v. John Nicholson and Felix Farley, 1747. Capitalization, which is frequently inconsistent within a single Bill of Complaint, has been normalized in quotations from these documents. I am indebted to Mr. E. K. Timings of the Public Record Office for assistance in locating and deciphering a number of the documents cited in this paper.
For an account of the changes in the King's Printers' imprint to 1714, see Tudor and Stuart Proclamations, 1485-1714, calendared by Robert Steele (Oxford, 1910), I, xxxvi-xxxvii.
P.R.O. C5/146/31 gives the date as 1672; C5/335/15 reports that on August 8, 1672, Barker sold to Hills and Sawbridge the "privilege and authority" of printing the Bible "for which purpose the said originall copy or manuscript thereof was conveyed. . . ."
The dates of the deaths of George, Hannah and Thomas Sawbridge are from H. R. Plomer, Dictionary of Printers and Booksellers . . . 1668-1725 (Oxford, 1922), p. 263.
The partnership is referred to in H. R. Plomer, Dictionary of Booksellers and Printers . . . 1641-1667 (Oxford, 1907), s.v. "Sawbridge, George."
Titles and other designations here assigned are those applicable in April, 1706. P.R.O. C5/592/22.
The MS (P.R.O. C5/335/15) has been partially obscured at this point. It states that "out of his other third part thereof he gave several [bequests?]," but cf. Plomer, Dictionary . . . 1641-1667, p. 155.
This indenture, which recounted the history of the 1680-1710 patent from the grant to Charles and Matthew Barker in 1635, is cited at length in P.R.O. C5/335/15. Darell's name is not included in Plomer's dictionaries.
On John Williams, described variously in official documents as "auditor," "agent" and "manager" of the King's Printing Office, see Johnson, p. 35.
P.R.O. C110/187, a box of documents pertaining to the estate of Dorothy Newcombe, includes copies of the commission and revocation (in Latin).
P.R.O. C5/335/45, Richard Hutchinson [Jr.] v. Dorothy Hutchinson et al, 1706, cites the terms of the marriage articles. C110/187 includes a security made by Richard Hutchinson Jr. in 1719 which cites the marriage articles, a list of the tenants of the Puddle Dock property with their yearly rents, and detailed inventories of Dorothy Hutchinson's jewels, plate, and household furnishings.
P.R.O. C11/238/14. The King's Printers filed at least half a dozen complaints of patent infringement against the printers of newspapers between 1696 and 1715. The offenses consisted generally of reprinting proclamations and speeches of the sovereign at the opening and closing of Parliament. The zealousness with which the patentees defended their monopoly on such items indicates that a considerable portion of their profits must have come from public sale of the official versions. Berrington had reported royal orders for "preserving unity in the church" and changes in the prescribed forms of prayer in the Evening Post of November 20 and December 21, 1714, and October 4, 1715. He admitted having sold between 3,000 and 3,500 copies of each of these issues but insisted that the King's Printing Office monopoly did not extend to such materials. This is the only suit I have encountered in which a newspaper printer attempted such a defense. I have failed to find a judgment in the case.
Nichols, Literary Anecdotes, IX, 551, where Dorothy Hutchinson is erroneously described as the "relict of Thomas Newcombe, sen. Esq."
P.R.O. Rot. Pat. 12 Anne. C. H. Timperley, A Dictionary of Printers and Printing (London, 1839), 599.
Johnson, p. 36, cites Robert Steele to that effect (Tudor and Stuart Proclamations, I, xxvii), but comments upon the absence of documentary evidence. H. R. Plomer, A Short History of English Printing (London, 1915), p. 195, states that Baskett purchased Barber's share of the reversion for £1,500 and repeats the assertion in his Dictionary . . . 1668-1725, s.v. "Barber, John." He gives no authority for the statement in either work, and I can find none.
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