University of Virginia Library

The "Company" of Printers
by
Cyprian Blagden

Christopher Barker was perhaps the first to perceive, as he was certainly the first to record, the shift of power in the Stationers' Company away from the printers who had worked for the charter of incorporation and towards the booksellers who were the chief beneficiaries by it. In his "note of the state of the Company of Printers, Bookesellers, and Bookebynders comprehended vnder the name of Stacioners"[1] he regretted firstly that, by the charter, printing had not been confined to "Printers-Stacioners" but had been allowed to any member of the Company; and secondly that, by the operation of economic necessity, the valuable copyrights had passed from the printers to the booksellers who "keepe no printing howse, neither beare any charge of letter, or other furniture but onlie paye for the workmanship, and haue the benefit, both of the imprinting, and the sale" of such books. Barker did not presume to offer his detailed solution of the problem unless Lord Burleigh were to ask for it; but he put his finger on the two main grievances of master-printers for the next 100 years: the practice of the printer's craft by those not trained to it, and the power of the booksellers—dominance in the trade leading to dominance in the corporation—to make rules for what had taken shape in 1557 as a Company of Printers.

Some of the new group of 'trade' printers, like Danter and Creede, staked claims to the printing of certain books, regardless of who owned the 'copy', and recorded these in the register.[2] This was an ingenious way of stopping the rot, but it could operate only under the supervision of the Court of Assistants and it was perhaps likely to operate only while printers still exercised power on the Court; by 1603 they were already outnumbered and in 1640 there were only two. The possession

of patents for classes of profitable books maintained the prestige and prosperity of a few big printers, like Bynneman and Marsh, during the greater part of Elizabeth's reign. But by the 1590s the Day and Seres patents were being worked by assigns under the general control of the Court,[3] and in 1603 these two privileges, with the almanack patent, were regranted to the Company by James I. This grant was the basis of the English Stock which the booksellers, as the commercial element in the Company, quickly came to dominate.[4]

George Unwin has shown[5] how similar developments occurred in other London companies during the sixteenth century and how, for instance, an industrial section, the Feltmakers, rebelled successfully against the dominating merchant interest in the Haberdashers' Company and won, by Act of Parliament in 1604, independent corporate existence. It would be surprising if the printers had not worked for their separation from the Stationers, but the evidence for such a movement in the first half of the seventeenth century is limited to one document. This is "The Petition of the Masters and Workmen Printers of London" to the knights, citizens and burgesses then (probably 1628) assembled in Parliament.[6] It refers to the incorporation in 1557 of the "Printers together with some Booke-Binders and Booke-Sellers"

and to the later investment of the government of the Company "(by what power we know not) . . . [in] divers persons under the name of Assistants, who together with the . . . Master and Wardens being Booke-Sellers . ., have assumed . . . the sole . . . Ordering of the Science and Mystery of Printing", to its detriment and (as usual) to the danger of Church and State. The masters and workmen printers, in apparent agreement, pray that the King in Parliament will give them power to regulate printing and printers and will cancel patents granted to those who have no knowledge of the printing craft. This document, whatever its date, is the first public acknowledgment, not that there were too many presses, or too little reputable work for journeymen, or too many foreigners, but that the interests of printers and booksellers were different, that the latter were in control of the former and that the employer and the employed were for once united against a common danger. The appeal for assistance was in the vaguest terms, except that "We the said Artificers may alone be stated in all those lawfull immunities and priviledges" which by right belonged to them. This might, I suppose, have been achieved within the pattern of the Stationers' Company, but at no time do the Court minutes give any indication of official reaction.

The Star Chamber Decree of 1637, a neat piece of cooperation between the central government and the Company against heretical, seditious and piratical printing, limited the number of master-printers in London to twenty and the King's Printers, and to the three each allowed at Oxford and Cambridge. But on 5 July 1641 Charles I gave his consent to the abolition of the Court of Star Chamber and removed the basis for the authority which the booksellers had exercised, with some success, over the printers. For the next few years the printers flourished and multiplied; when the Council of State was constrained in the autumn of 1649 to take recognizances from printers against the production of seditious and unlicensed books, the twenty in London had grown to thirty-six and the printers were strong enough to break, more blatantly than before and often with impunity, the rules of the Company—particularly by binding, at Scriveners, apprentices in excess of their permitted number and by employing, as journeymen, those not free of the City. That the printers as a group made no attempt in 1645 to exploit the Sparke-led revolution in the Company[7] shows, I think, not weakness but a determination to go their own way; and in the course of 1651 they petitioned the Committee for the Regulating of Printing that they might be made a Fraternity or Company distinct

from the Stationers. I know nothing more of this petition than that it was unsuccessful and that when William Ball wrote A briefe treatise concerning the regulating of printing [8] (received by Thomason on 24 November 1651) he devoted a section to condemning "their not only unsound, but even dangerous Petition, and desires", and to refuting their argument that, since the Apothecaries had successfully broken away from the Grocers, the printers could exist apart from the Stationers.

With the return of Charles II in May 1660 the Stationers looked to see "their wonted power confirmed", the absence of which they had admitted to Thomason in Court on 5 February 1655; and the printers, scenting a return to pre-1641 conditions, made another bid for separate incorporation. The first bill for the regulation of printing was dropped in July 1661 because the House of Commons would not accept a Lords amendment that the houses of peers be exempt from search.[9] But early in 1662 a new bill was introduced and, after representations to the Lords from certain printers and a counter-petition from the Company[10], "An Act for preventing the frequent Abuses in

printing seditious . . . Books . . . and for regulating of Printing and Printing Presses"[11] received the royal assent on 19 May and put the clock firmly back to 1637.[12] On 20 June the printers were summoned to Stationers' Hall to hear the new Act read and to learn that, as occasion occurred, the number permitted to keep a printing house was to be reduced to twenty. The success of the bookselling element was probably achieved by two letters from the King to the Commons—letters which Secretary Nicholas wrote and for which he was rewarded by a fee, representing in equal proportions the gratitude of the Company, of the English Stock partners and of the King's Printers.

On 11 May 1663 the printers were again ordered to present themselves and their journeymen at the Hall at ten o'clock the following morning, so that a count of printing houses and operatives could be made. "59 Mr. Printers were acknowledged; some of ym seemed to be angry at their sumons."[13] Within the next few months, and probably before 15 August when Sir Roger L'Estrange was appointed Surveyor of the Press, eleven of them had petitioned the King to grant them independence. This petition, which is in manuscript and which has three manuscript enclosures[14], has been tentatively dated 1660/1. The

third of the enclosures, the "Reasons", refers to "the last Act for Printing"; I am sure that this must be the Act of 1662 since it would hardly be tactful, in a document addressed to Charles II, to refer to that of 1653. Moreover, the two printed references to incorporation, both of 1663,[15] point to this year and the incident at Stationers' Hall to the early summer.[16] The second enclosure, the "Expedients", reads as if it were addressed to Parliament rather than to the King and is possibly a copy of the memorandum (now lost) sent by the printers to the Lords in January 1662; it suggests that twelve printers be appointed to conduct searches "untill the Affair of Printing be settled by Act", and it prays that the printers, after incorporation, be given certain powers by Act of Parliament. The first enclosure outlines the machinery by which the incorporated printers would control the press and obviously goes with the petition. The watermarks on all three enclosures are the same but the "Expedients" paper is an inch shorter than the others. It is quite understandable (if I am right in my dating) that the earlier document, or a copy of it, should be added to the later papers on the same subject and it is not surprising that it should be in the same handwriting as the "Reasons".

In the petition itself the eleven signatories, pointing out that men will always find ways of avoiding rules laid down by Act of Parliament, appeal directly to the King that the printers may be incorporated and thereby provide the only possible answer to irregularities in the press. The supporting "Reasons" can be divided into those which might carry weight with the King and his advisers and those which were important to the printers themselves. The former were, first, that only printers had enough technical knowledge to make effective searchers of printers' premises for seditious and heretical books, papers and pamphlets; second, that only by incorporation will printers be sufficiently encouraged to expose these dangerous publications and that twelve months' good management will show results; third, that the Stationers' Company had grown so large that a man reached a place

of responsibility only when he was too old for active searching; fourth, that searches were conducted for the discovery rather of copyright infringement than of heretical or seditious printing; fifth, that such printing disturbs the mind and takes it "off from solid reading of Divinity, History or Romance"; sixth, that there were plenty of precedents for separating one mystery from control by another where there were conflicts of interest—the Apothecaries from the Grocers, for instance, and the Feltmakers from the Haberdashers; and seventh, that the printers were ready to forfeit their privilege if they did not discover all illegal printing. The real reasons were that the booksellers dominated the Stationers' Company and contrived "daily the hurt and detriment of the Printers"; the latter hardly ever reached the highest offices;[17] and the former, who stood to gain most from the sale of illegal books, encouraged a superfluity of printers whose need would compel them to undertake dangerous work.

These fundamental reasons were elaborated in A brief discourse concerning printing and printers, which was printed "for a Society of Printers" in 1663. The charter of 1557 "and concorporation, . . were without doubt made in favour of Printers, and for their encouragement and security . . . [and] might conduce to their well-being then, when the Book-sellers were very few, and as inconsiderable, and so the Printers sufficient to hold the balance even." But in 1663 the booksellers "are grown so bulkie and numerous (together with many of several other Trades that they have taken in) and so considerable withal (being much enriched by Printers impoverishment . . .) that there is hardly one Printer to ten others that have a share in the Government of the Company". Moreover, few young master-printers had in recent years been able to make a bid for the copies of an old printer and "the Booksellers having engros'd almost all, it is become a question among them, whether a Printer ought to have any copy or no: or if he have, they (keeping the Register) will hardly enter it. . . ." Worst of all, "to compleat the abuse, and to encourage others in the like, they erect a Printing-house by a joynt stock of their own, and call it, The Companies House".[18] The only solution was that the printers be

independent, for, the writer concluded, "as reasonably . . . may the Buyer have the Rule of the Seller, as the Book-seller govern the Printer".

The most interesting of the enclosures (no. I) sets out in twenty-four clauses the methods by which incorporation would lead to efficient management of the press. The new company would have power to draft by-laws for the approval of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London in addition to the statutory approval of the Lord Chancellor and the Lords Chief Justice, and power to search not only printing houses but, because a protectionist policy would encourage the printing of, for instance, the classics rather than dangerous pamphlets, any shop or warehouse suspected of harbouring imported books. Master-printers would have to enter into bonds of b300 and journeymen into bonds of g50 not to print seditious matter and to report any rumour of such printing known to them; for a first offence the bond would be forfeited and for a second offence a printer would suffer disfranchisement and further fines if he continued printing. Everyone engaged in the craft would have to serve a seven-year apprenticeship, and thereafter to be free of the new company and licensed before setting up (penalties b100 per press and b50 per month). The corporation would be fined if it allowed the binding of an apprentice in excess of the agreed numbers. The high cost of serving "the King and the Kingdom" would be met by fines and by remission of all dues to the City, and the King would be financially responsible for prosecutions.

The new Society would be incorporated as a "ffellowship of Master, and Wardens, and Assistants",[19] who would hold a Court at least once a month; but one Warden and six Assistants would be chosen commissioners for three months at a time, to meet every Monday, to conduct searches, to bring offenders against Church or State before a Justice of the Peace, and to provide evidence for offences against copyright. Records would be kept of the homes and working places of all printers, with changes of address, so that "every particular mans Actions and ffootsteps may be the better observed and traced" (an echo from the earlier "Expedients" in which one of the duties of the new corporation

would be "to trace the ffootsteps of every Member"); there would be weekly declarations by masters of work put in hand and annual reports by the company of all legal proceedings taken. The names of the author and the printer would appear on every piece of printing. The corporation would have a register for all new copies (and a transcript of the old Stationers' registers) and the right to print, in a joint stock or not, copies of deceased proprietors and manuscripts in any public library. Most important of all, at least one third, and preferably one half, of the shares in the English Stock should be made over by the Stationers to the new company, with the right to elect a proper proportion of Stock-keepers to watch their interests; it was argued that at least one third of the Stationers were printers and that at least one third of the Stock was owned by printers.

Why was the appeal unsuccessful? In the first place, there was opposition from the Stationers' Company; any corporation would protest against the breaking away of a third of its members and the booksellers were able not only to muster an overwhelming majority on the Court but to make direct approaches to those close to the King—to Secretary Nicholas, for instance, as I have already mentioned, and to Lauderdale (over the patent for printing in Scotland). Moreover, there would be a strong temptation for the King's advisers rather to pin their faith to an arrangement which, but for the Civil War, might have worked satisfactorily than to sponsor a quite untried method. The Star Chamber Decree of 1637 may have seemed to them, as it did to the author of The London printer his lamentation,[20] "the best and most exquisite Form and Constitution for the good Government and regulation of the Press"; and the Decree had been supported by, and could only be worked with the aid of, the Stationers' Company.

In the second place, L'Estrange was not in favour of a Printers' Company, and he had sufficient influence at Court to obtain the post of Surveyor of the Press in August 1663. On 28 May he procured a licence for his Considerations and proposals in order to the regulation of the press,[21] just over a fortnight after the meeting at Stationers' Hall when the printers had been 'angry'. L'Estrange says some hard, and interesting, things about the booksellers, and he maintains that there "must be some way to Disengage the Printers from that Servile and Mercenary Dependence upon the Stationers, unto which they are at present subjected". But, in his opinion, the solution was not, as the printers proposed, by separate incorporation, for "It were a hard

matter to Pick out Twenty Master-Printers, who are both Free of the Trade, of Ability to Menage it, and of Integrity to be Entrusted with it"; moreover, "it would be with Them, as 'tis with Other Incorporate Societies: They would be True to the Publique, so far as stands with the Particular Good of the Company. But Evidently Their Gain lyes the other way."

In the third place, the printers themselves were not united. Why did only eleven out of about sixty master-printers sign the petition to the King? Even if the eleven were acting on behalf of a majority of their fellow employers, how far were their journeymen, for whom they said they were speaking, in favour of the break? Between 1650 and 1658 there were seven complaints to the Court by workmen printers against various malpractices of their masters, and in 1660 the London Printer in his Lamentation bewailed the excessive number of printing houses and the complete lack of training and experience in some of those who ran them. It is possible that the grumblers no more represented the general body of workmen than the eleven spoke for the masters; but the existence among the printers of even a small element which was inclined to seek support from the booksellers on the Court would provide a further argument, for anyone looking for such, against giving the masters even more power over their employees.

Support was sometimes sought from higher authority than the Court of the Stationers' Company. In a petition,[22] probably to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the journeymen hark back nostalgically to the provisions of the 1637 Decree, with particular reference to the limitation in the numbers of apprentices, and draw attention to the increase, since the abolition of the Star Chamber Court, both of presses and of Dutch and other unfree workmen, some of whom were trained in the University printing-houses. The foreigners are said to outnumber free workmen Stationers and to be preferred for secret printing because they had sworn no oath to obey the rules of the Company. The purpose of the document is obscure; it is headed "The Grievances of The Workemen Printers . . . by Way of affermation of their Pettition" and begins with the statement that the manual work in all regular printing houses is done by compositors and pressmen, while the master's job is to provide and oversee the work. But it concludes with the more interesting statement that "There be 35 Printing Houses above the Number alowed of By the Decree of Starre Chamber . . ." and it lists both these thirty-five (with comments on some of them)

and also seventeen legitimate houses which have not "crep up by reason of the late troubles".

In the accompanying Table I have arranged these fifty-two masterprinters in alphabetical order and, in an attempt to discover who were the fifty-nine acknowledged to be active in 1663, I have added those whose names occur in L'Estrange's four search warrants of 1667[23] and in his survey of 1668.[24] To make the picture a little fuller, I have given the dates of freedom (with a note if this was achieved other than by service) and indicated those whose businesses were officially approved in 1637 and gave recognizances in 1649, those who were summoned on 30 November 1664 to give the Assistants their opinion about the control of printing, and those who did work for and had shares in the English Stock between 1660 and 1668. My tally of the fifty-nine masterprinters in 1663 consists of those whose names appear in the 1660 list (fifty without Hunt, who died in 1660, and the Greek House) and Henry Bridges, Andrew Coe, Edward Crouch, John Darby, John Owsley, George Purslowe, John Rawlins, Roger Vaughan and the other Wood.[25]

I had hoped that the Table would separate the printers into groups with recognizable patterns of behaviour; but I can see no correlation between any two—or more—of the classes into which they can be divided: those whose presses were licensed, those who held shares in the English Stock, those who printed Stock books, those who put their names to the petition for incorporation, those who were summoned to give advice to the governing body of their Company. Official recognition, investment opportunity, economic necessity and gild ambition were so inextricably confused in a printer's life that it was impossible for a sufficient number of masters and journeymen to agree for long enough to win independence. The Plague and the Fire put the possibility still further into the background, and in 1667 Charles II granted

the Stationers' Company a new charter which was an exact recital of the 1557 original.

But L'Estrange kept alive the idea of a Printers' Company. On Tuesday 10 June 1679, the very day on which the Printing Act (in spite of the efforts of the Stationers) was allowed to lapse, he wrote to Henry Coventry, Principal Secretary of State, and enclosed "The Printers Reasons" for separate incorporation.[26] The previous Friday, according to L'Estrange, over a score of printers had voluntarily offered to serve the King on condition that they be incorporated and be given the normal powers of a company, and that they have their share of the English Stock according to their numbers. The business cannot be finished till after the King's return, but L'Estrange urges Coventry to encourage the printers to think more about it (revealing thereby that L'Estrange was keener than the printers) and to continue the observance of the licensing rules laid down in the Act. If this opportunity be lost it may never occur again, "ffor ye Booksellers (especially ye ffactious Part) fall foul upon ye Printrs allready, and upon my self too; and ye Printers are utterly ruin'd for their Loyalty, if they be not protected in it." This time the precedent quoted is that of the Tinmen who, because of oppression and ill-usage at the hands of the Ironmongers, achieved separate incorporation "as to the working part of their Trade" and continued to enjoy the privileges of the Ironmongers.

The printers' "Reasons" contain the usual arguments that, by their experience, they are better searchers of printing-houses than booksellers and less tempted by profit (the ratio of temptation being b5 to b50) not to suppress libels. It is now suggested that the number of printing-houses be thirty, which can be more easily searched and kept in order than 800 Stationers, "especially when every one is a spy upon his ffellow". The conclusion is an assurance to justify, on oath, that the booksellers give private warning of impending searches, refuse licensed work to those printers who will not print unlicensed, and deny informers their promised rewards for discoveries.

Two days later L'Estrange again wrote to Coventry. Both parties had been ordered to prepare their proposals for press control and to attend the Attorney General on Thursday, the day on which L'Estrange was writing; but, though the printers turned up, the booksellers waited till Tuesday—perhaps because they thought they would do better if the King had left town. Poor L'Estrange could sense the

opportunity slipping while he was confined to his bed with gout; and the printers, whom he must have been nursing against the booksellers, were beginning to weaken. "There has been great Art and Industry used by fair words and by menaces, to corrupt ye Printers"; and one of them, a "prating" fellow, had reported to L'Estrange, with evident satisfaction, the dictum of the Attorney General that "he would neither meddle nor make in ye matter". L'Estrange's only comfort is that a "Sober Person"—of possible future use to his lordship—has promised to put him on his legs again in a couple of days.

And there the story of the printers' bids for independence comes to a whimpering end or disappears for want of evidence. When the City Companies were compelled in 1684 to surrender their charters to the King, the printers and booksellers stood together and the Stationers' Company was the first to receive a new grant from Charles II.[27] The divisions were then along political and religious lines rather than along those of trade rivalry, and they continued so until the accession of William III. The Printing Act, revived by James II, lapsed finally in 1695 and made possible the nation-wide expansion of printing which had been bottled up in London. The next hundred years brought an interesting reversal of attitude; while the printers grew reasonably contented within the Stationers' Company, the booksellers resorted to combinations outside the antiquated gild framework.

                                                                     

							1660-1668 Eng. Stock
1637 Decree	1649 recogs	name	free	1660 list[1]	1663 petn	1664 meeting	share	work	1667 search lists	1668 list[2]
x	x	Mrs. [Elizabeth] Alsop	widow of Bernard	1				x		[d.?1663]
	x	[Henry] Bell	28 June 1950, pat.	1				x
		[William] Bowtell[3]	--						c	x
		[Henry] Bridges	4 June 1660					x	c	x
	x	[John] Brudenell	7 Feb. 1659, pat.	not	x			x		ruined
		[John] Cadwell	4 July 1653	not				x
		[Thomas] Childe	5 May 1656	not						ruined
	x	Mrs. [Jane] Clowes	widow of John	not
		[Andrew] Coe[4]	2 Feb. 1662, pat.						c	x
		[Peter] Cole[5]	11 Jan. 1638	not						[d. 1665]
x	x	Mrs. [Ellen] Cotes	widow of Richard	1			x	x	c	x
		[James] Cottrell	3 Aug. 1646	not	x	x	x	x	a	x
		[Thomas] Creake	3 Sept. 1638	not				x
		[Edward] Crouch	21 Oct. 1646						a	x
		[Roger] Daniel[6]	--	not				x		[d. 1667]
		[John] Darby	6 Nov. 1660						c	since Act
		[Ralph] Davenport	10 Jan. 1655	not						[d. 1665]
x	x	Mrs. [Gartrude] Dawson	widow of John	1				x		[d. ?1666]
		[John] Dever[5a]	4 Sept. 1626	not				x		[d. 1665]
		[Thomas] Fawcett	7 May 1621	not				x
	x	[John] Field	4 Feb. 1635	not			x	x	d	x
x	x	[James] Flesher	5 Oct. 1646, pat.	1			x	x	d	x
		[William] Godbid	4 May 1653	1	x			x	b	x
		The Greek House [Roger Norton]		not
x	x	Mrs. [Sarah] Griffin	widow of Edward (II)	1			x	x	c	x
	x	[John] Grismond	1 Feb. 1641	not	x	x	x	x		[d. ?1666]
		[John] Hayes	3 Oct. 1653	1	x		x	x		ruined
	x	[Henry] Hills[7]	7 Oct. 1651, red.	[not]			x	x
x		[Richard] Hodgkinson	3 June 1616	1	x	x		x	d	x
		[Nathaniel] Howell[5b]	7 June 1658	not
x	x	[William] Hunt[8]	1 Feb. 1641	1				x		[d. 1660]
	x	[Robert] Ibbitson	21 Oct. 1644	not	x		x	x	a	[d. 1667]
		[Matthew] Inman	6 Feb. 1654	not

                                                                   

							1660-1668 Eng. Stock
1637 Decree	1649 recogs	name	free	1660 list[1a]	1663 petn	1664 meeting	share	work	1667 search lists	1668 list[2a]
		[Thomas] Johnson	22 Oct. 1656	not				x	a	x
		[Thomas] Leach	21 June 1658, pat.	not				x	a	x
	x	[William] Leybourne[9]	1 July 1647, pat.	not			x	x		ruined
		[Peter] Lilliecrap	1 May 1654	not				x	a	x
		[Henry] Lloyd	3 April 1654	1						x
	x	[Thomas] Mabb	1 April 1647	not	x	x	x	x		[d. ?1665]
	x	[John] Macock	10 Jan. 1939	not		x	x	x	d	x
		[David] Maxwell	23 Dec. 1657	not	x			x	a	x
		[Thomas] Milbourne	7 July 1634	not				x	a	x
x	x	[Abraham] Miller	21 Jan. 1644, pat.	1		x	x	x		[d. 1665]
	x	[Edward] Mottershead	20 Jan. 1640	not			x	x		[d. ?1665]
x	x	[Thomas] Newcomb[10]	6 Nov. 1648	1		x	x	x	d	x
	x	[Roger] Norton, Asst.	30 June 1651	not			x	x	d	x
		]Edward] Oakes	27 June 1664, pat.						b	since Act
		[John] Owsley	30 Dec. 1649							ruined
		[Leonard] Parry	9 Feb. 1657	not
x	x	[George] Purslow	6 Dec. 1647, pat.					x	c	x
	x	[Thomas] Ratcliffe	14 Jan. 1628	not			x	x	b	x
		[John] Rawlins	4 April 1653							since Act
		[John] Redmayne[6a]	21 March 1649	not				x	c	x
		[Thomas] Roycroft	23 June 1647	1	x	x	x	x	b	x
		[John] Streater[11]	6 June 1644	not	x		x	x	c	x
		Mrs. [Mary] Symons	widow of Matthew	1			x	x	c	x
		[John] Twyn	7 Sept. 1640	not				x		[d. 1664[12]]
		[Evan] Tyler, Asst.	1 July 1639	not			x	x	d	x
		[Roger] Vaughan[13]	--							ruined
	x	Mrs. [Alice] Warren	widow of Thomas	1			x	x		ruined
		[Robert] White	7 Dec. 1639	not		x	x	x	b	x
	x	[William] Wilson, Asst.	4 Sept. 1626	1			x	x		[d. 1665]
		[John] Winter	26 March 1666						b	since Act
		[Ralph] Wood	1 Aug. 1648}	{	not					[d. 1665]
		[Robert] Wood	4 Sept. 1637}		{					ruined

Notes