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Notes
See, for instance, the entries for 22 September 1584 and 6 September & 20 October 1596; see also the Court order of 1 March 1596 in favour of Valentine Simmes.
Industrial Organization in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, 1904 (reprinted, 1957), pp. 79, 13off.
The dating is difficult. Of the two copies known to me, one is in the Bagford and the other in the Thomason collection (B.M. Harl.5910, i, ff. 142-3 and 669.f.4 no.79); the latter is undated in manuscript but catalogued among the broadsides received in March 1642. Four patents are referred to in it: (1) that of Christopher and Robert Barker, the reversion of which was granted, on 16 September 1635, to Robert's sons, Charles and Matthew; (2) the Law Patent "lately confirmed to Iohn More", the date of this confirmation being 19 January 1618; (3) the privilege for books in Latin, Greek and Hebrew, the property of Roger Norton who, according to the Court Book, was active at least as early as 1633; and (4) the patent "lately granted to one Thomas Symcocke", for briefs etc. printed on one side of a sheet, which was dated 30 October 1619 and terminated by agreement in October 1631 (see pp. xvi ff. of Wm. A. Jackson's Introduction to the Records of the Court of the Stationers' Company, 1602 to 1640, 1957). I cannot believe that the petitioners could have been ignorant of the Symcock settlement and I find it difficult to believe that, as late as 1642, they would have referred to the others in the terms quoted. Antedating the petition to April 1640, when the Short Parliament met, will not help; the last Parliament before this was dissolved in March 1629. It is possible that Thomason received a copy only in March 1642 and that he did not date it because he was not sure when it was printed. I favour 1627/8 for the printing, the first gild year in which neither the Master nor the Wardens were printers; the Master, George Cole, was a Proctor in the Court of Arches (see the reference to outsiders, p. 9 below). It was during this gild year (3 March 1628) that the printers engaged on English Stock work were censured by the Court.
Reprinted in The Struggle for the Freedom of the Press, 1934, by William M. Clyde. It is possible that Henry Hills, who had the ear of the Army leaders, was involved in the failure of this attempt to form a Company of Printers. On 22 August Fleetwood's third letter (in three weeks) to the Stationers about Hills's admission to their Company was read to "divers Printers" who resolved to appeal to the Lord Mayor; there is no sign that they did.
A compromise was reached on this clause the following year. Among the House of Lords Papers, under the date 27 July 1661, are two petitions relating to copyrights. The first is from Thomas Clarke and his wife Jane, the late wife and executrix of Nicholas Bourne, and prays that the right to print bills of lading and Virginia indentures be specifically covered in the Act; this was successful, for an interlinear amendment to the draft (filed under 16 January 1662) reads "or formes of blanke bills or Indentures for any his Majesty's Islands". The other is from Peter Cole (see the comments on him in f.n.5 to the Table). He has invested £5000, partly his own money and partly from the estates of thirteen orphans, in printing books of Anatomy, Surgery and Medicine and fears that the expense of licensing will ruin him. He appends firstly, lists of the books already printed and of those in the press with their retail prices, and secondly, a draft clause to excuse him the formality of getting licenses provided the work is done by a licensed printer (which Cole was not) and provided Cole's name and address are given on all books. No notice was taken of this. These petitions, and those mentioned in the following footnote, illustrate the fears which the prospect of the Act aroused, the pressures brought to bear on the legislators, and the dependence of the Stationers' copyright control machinery on government support.
House of Lords Papers, 16 January 1662. The Company refers to "some addresses . . . lately made . . . by certaine printers" and prays to give reasons, by counsel or otherwise, against these and against Chetwind's suggestions. The printers may have put forward a plea for separate incorporation along the lines of the "Expedients" of 1663 (see p. 8 below), but all the Stationers told the Lords in 1662 was that the printers aimed to obstruct the passing of the Bill and to gain the estates of the petitioners. Philip Chetwind, a Clothworker who had married Mary, the widow of Robert Allot, claims in his petition to have been swindled out of Allot's copies (he does not mention Shakespeare) by John Legate and Andrew Crooke, who acted as trustees because Chetwind was not a Stationer; and he submits a draft clause to allow him and his wife to enter in the register and to enjoy copies like other booksellers. A draft clause extending the principle to all widows and orphans is also attached; but, in spite of the Bishop of Durham's support, the amendment was not adopted. See the printers' comments on the owning of copies, p. 9 below.
To come into operation on 10 June. See A. W. Pollard's article in Trans. Bib. Soc. n.s. iii, 1922, pp. 100-2.
The 1661 draft is filed under the date 16 January 1662 and amendments to it under 19 May, when the Bill received the royal assent. In the draft the printers at the Universities were to be allowed as many apprentices as they thought fit but to find work for their own journeymen and not allow them to clutter the London labour market. In spite of an instruction to the Attorney General to compare this with the corresponding clause (no.XXII) in the 1637 Decree, it was deleted. Only by amendment was Cambridge to be treated like Oxford and receive a free copy of every book published. By amendment too, the filling of vacant places among masterprinters and letter-founders was altered from the presenting of candidates by the Company and the printers for approval by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, to straight nomination by the latter, who probably insisted, also, on the limitation in the number of masterprinters; the booksellers would have liked to control the appointment of new masterprinters and would have benefited from the competition which a large number of presses would ensure.
This revealing phrase occurs only in the 'Waste' Court Book and was not transcribed in the fair copy.
S. P. Dom. Car. II, vol. 22, nos 8 and 8 I-III. The titles of the enclosures to the petition are: I. "In Order to the better Regulating of the Press, for the Prevention of Treasonable, . . . . . Books . . . . . , It is humbly offered." II. "Expedients for the Prevention of Printing Treasonable . . . . Books, . . . . &c." III. "Reasons humbly offered to his Most Sacred Majesty . . . . . Why the Printers (Masters and Workmen) should be Incorporated . . . ." H. R. Plomer, in his Short History of English Printing, 2nd ed. 1915, pp. 167-9, gives a brief summary of these documents.
Another small pointer is a reference in clause 1 of enclosure III to the incorporation of the Distillers as a separate entity "since yr Maties happy Restauration". Mr Kellaway, of the Guildhall Library, has kindly verified for me that the Distillers received their charter in 1638 but obtained approval of their ordinances only on 20 June 1663; the confusion between charter and ordinances is understandable.
Only two printers were Master of the Company between 1635 and 1668: Felix Kingston in 1635/6 and 1636/7, and Miles Flesher (whose press was managed by his son James from about 1650) in 1652/3, 1653/4, 1662/3 and 1663/4. Only four others served as Warden in the same period. George Miller, John Legate, Roger Norton and Evan Tyler.
I do not know what this means. It cannot be an allusion to the warehouse of the English Stock (which was at the Hall), but it may refer to the printing-house at Leith, which had been bought in 1647 as part of the Scotch Patent and was run, on the Company's behalf, by Christopher Higgins until he died in 1668. In the Court minutes for 3 June 1647 there is reference to "the new printing house" in London, where Bibles were being printed; this must, I think, have been the King's Printing House, of which the Company had bought Bill's share and were renting the Barker share.
It reads almost as if, after their long exclusion from the Court of the Stationers' Company, the printers were determined that all should be Assistants! In the petition the number of Wardens is given as two and a space is left for the number of Assistants.
"Printed by A[ndrew] C[oe] June 3d M.DC. LXIII." but not entered, according to clause 3 of the Act, in the Stationers' register!
S.P.Dom. Car.II, vol. 99, nos 162-5. These are tentatively dated June 1664, but the absence of those who were ruined by the Fire puts the date after September 1666 and the presence of Ibbitson, who died in 1667, puts it before 1668. The four lists are differentiated as a, b, c and d.
S.P.Dom. Car.II, vol. 243, no.126, 24 July. Plomer, op.cit., pp. 185-6, prints the list as it appears in the original.
The list is based first on the individuals, men or women, whose surnames (but not, alas, Christian names) occur in the Lambeth list of 1660; the freedoms are those of the men in this list and of the men listed by L'Estrange in 1667 and 1668. Only an old printer like Richard Hodgkinson and Thomas Ratcliffe runs right through the thirty-one years covered by the Table; in many cases there is a concealed succession from master to widow, from father to son, or from brother to brother. There is a tear in the Lambeth manuscript which has removed the name of an unlicensed printer; it is probably that of Henry Hills who is mentioned in the body of the document.
Coventry Papers, vol. VI, ff.64-7. I am grateful to the Marquess of Bath for allowing me to examine these and other documents, and to quote from them; and I am grateful also to Miss Coates for her kindness and help during my visit to Longleat.
Those with 'not' in this column "are such houses as are not Licensed, but are crep up by reason of the late troubles".
Those with 'not' in this column "are such houses as are not Licensed, but are crep up by reason of the late troubles".
L'Estrange added notes against those printers who had been ruined by the Fire and those who had set up since the Act of 1662.
L'Estrange added notes against those printers who had been ruined by the Fire and those who had set up since the Act of 1662.
The Custom House printer, mentioned in the grant (9 July 1660) to Sir Andrew King of the office of Clerk of the Bills in the Custom House.
Cole and two servants of his, Dever and Howell, were really booksellers who doubled their advantage by keeping printing houses "& putting their Sickles unconstionably into the Printers harvest".
Cole and two servants of his, Dever and Howell, were really booksellers who doubled their advantage by keeping printing houses "& putting their Sickles unconstionably into the Printers harvest".
Cole and two servants of his, Dever and Howell, were really booksellers who doubled their advantage by keeping printing houses "& putting their Sickles unconstionably into the Printers harvest".
A paper or picture seller, who kept, with his son-in-law Redmayne (a haberdasher of hats), a printing house "where no lawful freeman or apprentice is employed"; a Popish printer.
A paper or picture seller, who kept, with his son-in-law Redmayne (a haberdasher of hats), a printing house "where no lawful freeman or apprentice is employed"; a Popish printer.
"For 4 or 5 years together, was very disgracefull, both to the Kings Most Excellent Majesty and the Rest of the Royale party."
"A Notorious Intruder to Mischievious Printing" (but powerful enough to be excluded from the provisions of the 1662 Act).
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