University of Virginia Library

New Light on the King's Printing Office, 1680-1730
by
Robert L. Haig

The history of the King's Printing Office and its patentees from the accession of James I to the beginning of the eighteenth century was set forth in some detail by Henry R. Plomer more than fifty years ago. More recently, Mr. A. F. Johnson has supplemented Plomer's account for the period following the Restoration and has carried the history of the patent down to the year 1742.[1] The main outlines of the patent history are now clear, but details must be added as they are brought to light. For example, the names of some shareholders in the office, designated in imprints only as "the assigns of" an original patentee, are still unknown. Johnson cites a record of payment for official printing made in 1694 to a "Richard Hutchenson," but reports: "Of this Hutchenson I can find nothing more."[2] The incidence of such names, not known to have been connected with the patent, requires explanation. More significantly, the date at which John Baskett acquired an interest in the office remains uncertain, and the circumstances under which his interest was obtained are completely obscure. The purpose of this paper is to offer solutions for a few of the problems raised by earlier accounts, and to supply a body of new information relative to the King's Printing Office during the half-century from 1680 to 1730. It is based principally upon Chancery documents in the Public Record office which have not previously been cited.

I

In January, 1680, the printing patent originally granted by James I to Robert Barker and then held by John Bill II and the assigns of Christopher Barker III expired.[3] At the same time, the thirty-year reversion which had

been granted by Charles I in September, 1635, to Charles and Matthew Barker, the younger sons of Robert Barker, became effective.[4] The earliest imprints under the new patent contained, as had those immediately preceding, the names of John Bill, Thomas Newcombe, and Henry Hills; only the omission of Christopher Barker's name indicated that the earlier patent had expired. Thomas Newcombe, manager of the King's Printing Office since the Restoration and, with Henry Hills, titular King's Printer since 1677, is known to have acquired "a right in certain letters patent granted . . . to Charles and Matthew Barker for 30 years. . . ."[5] The continuation of the names of Henry Hills and John Bill in the imprints has not been explained, although, as A. F. Johnson observed, Bill and his heirs evidently had some share in the patent for the next thirty years.[6]

Complete explanation of the 1680 imprint and the changes which occurred later requires an account of the vicissitudes through which Charles and Matthew Barker's reversion passed from the time it was granted in 1635 until 1710, the date at which it expired. Such an account has hitherto been lacking. The divisions and subdivisions of the patent reversion which took place during the forty-five year interval before it became effective were not, obviously, reflected in the imprints of the incumbent patentees; neither were they recorded in the official patent rolls. Information concerning the transfer of ownership in the reversion has existed, presumably, only in fragmentary references scattered through unsearched wills and among unrecorded indentures, many of the latter no longer extant. There is, however, a secondary source for such information which has apparently been neglected.

During the final decades of the seventeenth century, and until at least the middle of the eighteenth, shareholders in the King's Printing Office found it necessary to defend their monopoly on frequent occasions by instituting proceedings in Chancery against printers, publishers, and booksellers who allegedly infringed upon the royal patent. The Bills of Complaint filed by the King's Printers in these cases are closely-written parchments, some of them exceeding five feet in length, each of which sets forth the patentees' grievance against a particular defendant. But the actual complaint, in nearly every instance, occupies a relatively small part of the unwieldy document. Almost invariably, the greater portion of each Bill of Complaint is devoted to a demonstration of the plaintiff's right to bring suit for patent infringement; and the demonstration, in every case, takes the form of a recitation of the history of each share in the patent from the time of the original grant to the date at which the suit was filed. These

redactions purport to be based upon primary sources; some of them make reference to particular wills, indentures, and other relevant documents. The following account has been compiled chiefly from a group of sixteeen Bills of Complaint exhibited in Chancery by the King's Printers between 1680 and 1750.[7] Details omitted in some of the bills have been supplied, whenever possible, from others, and disagreements between bills on proper names and dates have been indicated.

Little more than two years after they had been granted their thirty-year reversion in the King's Printing Office, Charles and Matthew Barker sold, for an unspecified sum, half of their interest in the reversion. The purchaser, by an agreement made early in November, 1637, was one Jane Lucas, a widow, of London.[8] This interest was later sold by Mrs. Lucas to John Bill II, King's Printer under an earlier patent. The date of the sale is not recorded in the Chancery Proceedings. In 1682, two years after the reversion had become effective, Bill's share passed to his son, Charles, whose name first appeared in the official imprints of 1686.[9] Since this moiety remained intact from 1637 until the expiration of the patent in 1710, its history is a simple one; that of the other moiety is more complex.

The second division in the Barker reversion occurred on December 3, 1667, when Matthew Barker, who had survived his brother Charles, sold one-third of his remaining share (i. e., one-sixth interest in the reversion) to a Richard Brailesford of Askham, Nottinghamshire. Brailesford died sometime during the ensuing seven years, leaving his interest to his widow, Rachel, who subsequently married one William Scroop of East Retford. The Scroops' share in the reversion was purchased in 1674 by Thomas Newcombe, then manager of the Printing Office. He retained it until his death in 1681. Of Newcombe's share, more must be said later.

In 1672, Matthew Barker sold his remaining two-sixths interest in the reversion to Henry Hills and George Sawbridge, who shared it equally.[10] Sawbridge's interest in the 1680-1710 patent seems never to have been made public. It was inherited in 1681 by his widow, Hannah, and at her death, apparently in 1686,[11] by their son, Thomas. In 1692, Thomas Sawbridge died intestate, and Letters of Administration for his estate were granted to Edward Brewster, a former partner in publishing of the elder Sawbridge.[12] This fact explains the occurrence of Brewster's name in the Treasury Books as a recipient of payment for official printing between 1692 and 1710,[13] but it introduces further complexities. From 1692 until 1700, Brewster held Sawbridge's share of the patent in trust. In June, 1700, this third of a half interest was subdivided into four equal shares, one of which Brewster assigned to each of the following: Sir Thomas Wheate, Baronet, of Glympton, Oxfordshire; John Little (or Littell), Esquire, of London; John Blackall (or Blackhall), Gentleman, of London; and Elizabeth Bent, a widow, of Agmondesham, Buckinghamshire.[14] By 1706, John Blackall's one twenty-fourth share had passed to his son George. The incidence of Brewster's name in the Treasury Books after 1700 presumably indicates that he continued to administer the property in the patent for Sawbridge's assigns.

The one-sixth interest in the reversion purchased by Henry Hills from Matthew Barker in 1672 was retained by Hills until his death in December, 1688, or January, 1689. By his will, dated December 10, 1688, Hills ordered a division of his share into thirds. One-third of his sixth interest (i. e., one-eighteenth of the property in the patent) was to go to his widow, Elizabeth; one-third was to be shared equally by three of his sons, Gilham, James and George; the remaining third apparently went to another son, Henry Hills Jr.[15] Elizabeth Hills, one of the executors of the will, was convicted of recusancy, and Adiell Mill, the other, was declared a bankrupt, whereupon Gilham Hills was granted Letters of Administration, and Elizabeth's share in the patent was vested in him and two of his brothers, James and George.

Gilham Hills now held, for himself and his brothers, two-thirds of his father's one-sixth interest in the patent; however, possibly because Henry Hills Sr. had become a Roman Catholic before his death, the name of Hills vanished from the official imprints after the Glorious Revolution. It returned only after the Barker patent expired in 1710.

By an indenture of March 11, 1699, James Hills borrowed £200 on his one twenty-seventh share in the patent from Edward Darell (or Darrell), a "citizen and stationer."[16] On July 15, 1701, Darell lent James £50 more on his share, and on April 27, 1708, Gilham Hills mortgaged his one twenty-seventh to Darell for £300. In November, 1708, Darell sued in Chancery for repayment of the loans; alternatively, he requested a free title to the shares in the patent so that he might recover his money by disposing of them. In their joint answer to Darell's complaint, the brothers estimated the value of their interest in the Printing Office at "considerably more than double the sumes lent by the complaint upon the same" (£550) and denied that the value had "in any way lessened but dayly increaseth considerably." There were, they stated, "severall very considerable sumes of mony due to them from the government for printing Acts of Parliament and other things in the reign of the late King William the third and her present Majesty . . . the accounts whereof lye now before the Lord High Treasurer. . . ." With this money, they intended to repay Darell's loans. The Treasury Books for the period reveal that a warrant for £3,524 18s.od. was made to the Queen's Printers on July 25, 1709, in payment for printing and stationery wares supplied by them during the year preceding Michaelmas, 1708.[17] Apparently, James and Gilham Hills retained their interest in the office until the expiration of the patent six months later. I have found no record of a judgment in the case.

Thomas Newcombe's acquisition of one-sixth interest in Charles and Matthew Barker's patent has already been explained, and it is known that on Newcombe's death, December 26, 1681, his share passed to his son, Thomas II. The younger Newcombe, who became titular King's Printer in 1682 and succeeded his father as manager of the office, died on March 21, 1691.[18] By his will, proved April 11, his interest went to his widow, Dorothy, with the stipulation (also contained in his father's will) that ten pounds be set aside from the annual profits of the office for the benefit of ten ancient printers or their widows.

From April, 1691, to the expiration of the Barker patent in 1710,

"Charles Bill and the Executrix of Thomas Newcombe" were designated in official imprints; but the imprints reflected nothing of the fortunes which befell the "executrix" and her share in the patent. Three years after the death of her husband, Dorothy Newcombe was declared to be of unsound mind. By Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Chancery dated February 19, 1694, custody of her person and property was assigned to John Williams, who had succeeded Thomas Newcombe II as manager of the King's Printing Office.[19] According to the terms of the commission, all of Dorothy's lands, tenements, goods, chattels, and money were turned over to Williams to be used for her maintenance, and Williams was to render an account of these to the Lord Chancellor. The responsibility was no small one, for Thomas Newcombe's estate was extensive, but Williams was soon relieved of it. Less than six months after the commission had been issued, Dorothy was officially declared to have recovered, being once more of sound mind and sane memory. On June 8, 1694, Williams' custodianship was revoked, and control of Dorothy Newcombe's property was restored to her.[20]

Shortly after her recovery, the widow of Thomas Newcombe II was married to Richard Hutchinson, of the parish of St. Margaret, New Fish Street. Articles for the marriage were executed on May 29, 1694, more than a week before John Williams' guardianship of Dorothy Newcombe terminated. From references to the articles we learn that Dorothy's property included (besides an estate at Wandsworth, Surrey, where she resided) an interest in some houses and land near Puddle Dock, London, leased by Thomas Newcombe I from King's College, Cambridge; ownership "in fee simple" of several houses in Clinkard's Court, Westminster; and a share in other houses at "Wandsworth Hill."[21] At the date of the marriage articles, her one-sixth interest in the King's Printing Office "and stock thereof" was reported to yield an income of £200 annually, with an additional fifteen pounds being received from a share in certain houses "in the printing office yard." Her total income was estimated at £439 a year.

Richard Hutchinson, who must have assumed control of Dorothy's interest in the Printing Office,[22] died intestate on August 1, 1695, the year

following the marriage, leaving two sons by a former wife, Richard Jr. and George, who reached majority in the early years of the eighteenth century. The circumstances of Dorothy Hutchinson's life in the twelve years following are not recorded, but by July, 1708, she had been again declared a "lunatique," and John Williams, with one Thomas Welham of London, had as before received a royal commission for custody of her person and estate. On July 30, 1708, Williams and Welham assigned custody of the widow's person to her younger stepson, George Hutchinson, who pledged himself by a bond of £1,000 to care for her at her home in Surrey, the costs to be borne by Williams and Welham out of income from her property.[23]

II

With the final transfer of Dorothy Hutchinson's share to the control of Williams and Welham, the history of Charles and Matthew Barker's patent in the King's Printing Office comes to an end. On January 10, 1710, this patent expired, and the interests of Charles Bill and the assigns of Thomas Sawbridge were terminated. The new thirty-year term, which began on the same date, had been granted by Charles II to Henry Hills and Thomas Newcombe I on December 24, 1675.[24] Its transmission to their successors had followed the pattern outlined above for their shares in the Barker grant. Early imprints under the new patent read: "The Assigns of Thomas Newcombe and Henry Hills, deceased"; in 1711 the name of John Baskett was added.

Questions of the date and the circumstances surrounding the origin of Baskett's interest in the office have been raised by A. F. Johnson, who inferred correctly that Baskett purchased a share in the Newcombe-Hills patent, though he had found no document confirming this and no account of Baskett's being sworn in as King's Printer.[25] The original documents have still not come to light, but a relatively detailed account of the transactions by which Baskett became King's Printer is given in a 1715 Bill of Complaint filed by the patentees against Edward Berrington, printer of the Evening Post.[26]

According to the bill, those shareholders in the patent whose terms expired in January, 1710, had intended when they withdrew from the office to "take away their part & share of the printing presses letters tools & other utensills & stock used & employed in the carrying on the business of the sd office. . . ." John Williams and Thomas Welham, described in the bill as custodians and managers "of the person and estate of . . . Dorothy Hutchinson . . . during her lunacie (which still continues)," had felt that it would be "more for the advantage of the office & the sd Dorothy Hutchinson . . . to lett in another partner into the sd office who should lay down such a sume of mony as should be sufficient to purchase in the share & interest of the partners and proprietors whose term was then expiring rather than suffer them to withdraw & take away the same in specie. . . ." Gilham Hills, administrator of his late father's half interest in the new patent, had agreed, whereupon Williams and Welham had applied for and been granted an order in Chancery permitting them to sell a portion of Dorothy Hutchinson's share in the office to John Baskett.

By an indenture dated May 20, 1710, between Williams and Welham, Gilham Hills, and Baskett, one-third of Dorothy Hutchinson's moiety was conveyed to Baskett for a sum unspecified in the Bill of Complaint. A notation among documents relating to the Newcombe-Hutchinson estate reveals that in April, 1710, the month before Baskett purchased his interest, an appraisal of the "books, paper, printing materials, additional building &c." belonging to the Printing Office was made by Robert Knaplock and John Walthoe, two of the leading booksellers in London. Their valuation of the property totalled £13,812 4s. 3¾d. This would appear to place the value of Baskett's sixth interest at just over £2,300.[27]

Continuing the account of Baskett's title to the office, the Bill of Complaint states that after his purchase, "to wit on or about the month of April [1712] . . . John Baskett by & with the consent of . . . Thomas Welham John Williams and Gilham Hills & for the benefitt of them & the sd John Basket[t] was duly admitted & sworne printer to her late Majesty Queen Anne as hath been formerly accustomed in the like cases[,] & in or abt the month of November last [1714] . . . was also duly admitted & sworne printer to his prsent Majesty King George. . . ."

In February, 1718, some six years after Baskett's official appointment as King's Printer, Dorothy Newcombe Hutchinson died, having never, apparently,

recovered her sanity.[28] Surviving documents indicate that John Williams and Thomas Welham still retained custody of her property at the time of her death, and they were responsible for it for several years thereafter. Among various accounts and memoranda relating to the estate which are preserved in the Public Record Office, one is of particular interest. It is a general inventory, probably compiled by John Williams, of the stock and equipment at the King's Printing Office in March and April of 1720.[29] I reproduce it here, normalizing abbreviations which cannot be reproduced in type.

An Accompt of the Books, paper & printing Materials, &c. in His Majestys Printing Office

                                   

1719[20]		£	S	D
March 2d.	Printing Letter, presses, & other Materials for printing	1828	4	10
	Printing and Writing paper, about . . . . . . .	700	--	---
	1250 Bibles Nonp11. 12°, at 1s:6d Nett . . . . .	93	15	---
	10,000 Com-prayers Nonp11. 24° at 6d. 26 paying for 24	230	15	6
	10,000 Bibles Nonsuch and Minion 8°. 41 Sheets printed at London and 27 Sheets & ½ printed at Oxford, the whole Book sold at 3s per Book 13 to the Dozen, comes to 1384£:13s.__the proportion printed at London is . . . . . .}	826	18	10½
	35 Bermuda's Laws, 22 Sheets, at 3s:6d Neat . .	6	2	6
	30 New York Laws, 77 Sheets, at 9:- Neat . . . Acts of Parliamt. of King William and Queen Mary, Queen Anne and King George about}	13	10	---
		250	--	---
	500 Land Tax Acts at this Session Fine papr. at 2s:6d	60	--	---
	525 Acts ditto Ordinary at 2s . . . . . . . . .	50	8	---
	500 Acts for the punishing Mutiny &c fine at 1s.	24	--	---
	1450 Ditto Ordinary at 9d . . . . . . . . . .	52	4	---
	500 Malt Acts, Fine paper at 3d . . . . . . . .	6	--	---
	1900 Ditto Ordinary, at 2d . . . . . . . . . .	15	4	---
1720	500 South Sea Acts, Fine paper at 3s . . . . . .	72	--	---
April 18.	1750 Ditto Ordinary, at 2s:6d . . . . . . . . .	210	--	---
	£	4439	2	8½

The inventory seems to have been compiled primarily as an aid to the appraisal of Dorothy Hutchinson's estate. Despite its promising title, it is disappointingly vague about the equipment of the printing house. Nevertheless,

several features in the list of printed stock are of interest: the division between London and Oxford of octavo Bible production, for example (reflected in the imprints of the Old and New Testaments, 1718-19), and the fact that relatively inexpensive editions of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer comprised slightly more than sixty per cent (£1,151 9s. 4½d.) of the total value of the stock. Impressions on fine paper of the individual Acts of Parliament were intended, perhaps, for the libraries of discriminating lawyers and the reference shelves of governmental offices. The final item in the list, the South Sea Act, must have enjoyed a substantial sale between April, 1720, and the bursting of the "Bubble" four months later.

From the date of his appointment as King's Printer until the expiration of the Newcombe-Hills patent, John Baskett's name dominated the official imprints. In 1723, five years after Dorothy Newcombe Hutchinson's death, the imprints read: "Printed by John Baskett, Printer to the King's Most Excellent Majesty, And by the Assigns of Thomas Newcombe and Henry Hills, deceased." In the following year, the reference to Newcombe's assigns—probably John Williams and Thomas Welham—dropped out. While I have found no explanation for this among the Chancery records, Baskett's purchase of privileges as King's Printer in Scotland between 1711 and 1725 and his acquisition in 1715 of a thirty-year reversion upon the English patent makes it seem probable that by 1724 he had purchased the remaining two-thirds of the Newcombe moiety in the 1710-1740 patent.[30] Between 1725 and 1727 the name of Thomas Norris, described as "assignee to George Hills," was added to the imprints, but in 1728 Baskett's name is found alone. A. F. Johnson states that from 1727 until his death in 1742 Baskett's name appeared alone on publications of the King's Printing Office, [31] but I have observed that A Table of the Statutes, Publick and Private for the year 1729 was "Printed by the Assigns of His Majesty's Printer, and of Henry Hills, deceas'd," and the title-page of a quarto New Testament dated 1731 bears the same imprint. This would indicate that Baskett did not gain exclusive rights to the Newcombe-Hills patent until after 1730, if indeed he ever did.

I have found among the Public Records no new information about the King's Printers during the final decade of the Newcombe-Hills patent term. When it expired in 1740, the thirty-year reversion which—partly as a result of Jonathan Swift's influence—had been granted in 1713 to Benjamin Tooke and John Barber became effective.[32] Baskett's name continued

in the imprints, and it has been assumed, in the absence of documentary evidence, that he had purchased the Tooke-Barber reversion.[33] The assumption is now further substantiated by litigation of 1747 in which Thomas Baskett, John's son and successor as King's Printer, declared that the 1740-1770 patent had "become legally vested in John Baskett" by virtue of "several assignments and other good acts in the law."[34] The same Chancery suit reveals that Robert Baskett, who with Thomas inherited his father's rights to the Printing Office in 1742, assigned his moiety in the office, by an indenture of June 18, 1744, to William Mount and Thomas Page, partners in bookselling and publishing on Tower Hill. These matters, however, belong to a later chapter in the History of the King's Printing Office. That important and exacting work should one day be undertaken.

Notes