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Notes
See P. Hernlund, "William Strahan's Ledgers: Standard Charges for Printing, 1738-1785," SB, XX (1967) for explanation of terms and other information basic to the present study.
The approximate total number of entries in these ledgers was found as follows. For Ledgers A, B and D, the entries on sixty pages were counted, divided among beginning, middle and end of each ledger. The average number of entries for these pages was found, the result was multiplied by the remaining number of pages, and finally the total for the sixty pages previously counted was added to reach the total. For Ledger F, forty pages were counted and averaged, and then all entries to the end of 1785 were counted from folio 5or to the end of the ledger. Entries are defined as separate chargeable units (regardless of debit or credit, how long they were, or how much information they contained), names of customers heading accounts, the totals for the accounts, and comments by Strahan. I did not include indexes, end papers, or inserts. The totals for each ledger were:
| Ledger | Total Entries, |
| Approximate | |
| A | 6,768 |
| B | 4,714 |
| D | 2,620 |
| F | 4,027 to the end of 1785 |
| ------ | |
| 18,129 |
Suppliers of manufactured products and of services are mentioned so often in the ledgers that a separate study would be necessary to indicate their identities and their importance to Strahan and his customers. In the eleven instances in which the customers specified paper suppliers, it is probable that Strahan recorded the names as a check against warehouse receipts, since he did not record the professions of the suppliers or details of the shipments. The names are: Bloss and Johnson, Chapman (twice), Grosvenor (twice), Herbert, Johnson, Johnson and Unwin, Johnston, Stiles, Wilkinson. Elsewhere in the ledgers are forty-six entries which specifically list the names of fifteen stationers. Only two of these entries are in the main printing ledgers A, B, D and F; forty-four are found in Ledgers H, K, M and O. Furthermore the entries have no immediate connection with Strahan's charges for paper. Therefore, I have not included them in the categories in the text. However, a list of them is given below. The reader will note that some of the names coincide with the list above. Wording of the list is Strahan's: Mr. Baker, Stationer; Mr. Bailis, Stationer; Mr. Bloxam, Stationer; Messrs. Bowles (also listed as "Mr. Bowles, Stationer," "Thos. Bowles"); Bowles & Ware; Mr. Browne, Stationer; Mr. Chapman, Stationer; Mr. Curtis, Stationer; Foudienier & Co., Stationers; Mr. Grosvenor ("for paper"); Mr. Johnson, Stationer (also listed as "Mr. Job Johnson for Paper"); Mr. Johnson and Unwin [sic]; Mr. Lepard, Stationer; Mr. Revell (seven entries for Demy paper); Mrs. Ware, Stationer; Mr. Webber, Stationer (also listed as "W. Weaber, Stationer"). J. A. Cochrane's notation that Stephen Theodore Janssen was a supplier is mentioned in the introduction, above, Janssen was also a customer for printing. The prevalence of the practice of buying from more than one supplier, and certainly of receiving deliveries from more than one, is amply documented. Herbert Davis, in "Bowyer's Paper Stock Ledger," Library, 5 Ser., VI (1951), mentions four suppliers whose names are the same as suppliers to Strahan: Bloss, John Bowles & Son, E. Johnson & Co. and Johnson (pp. 76, 78). He indicates that Bowyer bought at first from three leading Stationers: Thomas Brewer, Samuel Hoole and Samuel Sheafe (pp. 75-76). Several other suppliers of paper are mentioned in the article. Philip Gaskell, in John Baskerville: A Bibliography (1959), indicates that Baskerville "used many different sorts of paper at his press, some of which is identifiable as deriving from Whatman's mill, . . . and several times mentioned buying printing paper" (pp. xx-xxi). In A Bibliography of the Foulis Press (1964), Gaskell comments that "my impression is that none of the Foulises bought their paper exclusively from any single source, but patronised several mills or warehouses" (p. 27).
The practice of printing on two kinds or sizes of paper — what I have called "split runs" — can be seen in descriptions of the practices of Bowyer (Davis, pp. 81, 85, 86), the Foulises (Gaskell, Foulis, p. 22) and Cambridge University Press (McKenzie, II, 296, 340). I. G. Philip lists a particularly interesting split run at Oxford in 1759 in William Blackstone and the Reform of the Oxford University Press in the Eighteenth Century, Oxford Bibliographical Society Publications, New Ser., VII (1957 for 1955) in which 200 copies on "a coarser Paper" were designed "for foreign markets" (pp. 104-105). Though this example indicates a change in quality, I cannot discern that quality was changed more often or less often than size was changed at the printing companies mentioned above. It does appear to be true that Bowyer's customers changed size oftener than quality and that the Foulises' customers changed quality oftener. The intricacies involved in any description involving split runs can be seen in D. F. Foxon's "'Oh! Sophonisba! Sophonisba! Oh!'," SB, XII (1958), pp. 204-213.
Richardson used this alternate "jobbing" method of contracting for work on a basis of "Paper included" (Philip, Oxford, p. 127; Sale, p. 78). Bowyer not only used the jobbing entries, he even kept separate account books for paper used in "Proposals, Proof paper, Errata sheets, Titles, and . . . [possibly] 'wrapping'," as well as for "Bishops' Charges, Indentures, Lawyers' Cases, Receipts, Bills for Hogs and Pigs, and . . . Paper for Gold Coin" (Davis, p. 87).
Strahan did not mention inches in referring to sizes. The inch measurements used in the text are taken from Table V of Philip Gaskell's "Notes on Eighteenth-Century British Paper," Library, 5 Ser., XII (1957), 41, supplemented by additional information from Gaskell's Baskerville, p. xvi. The practice of referring to paper by size and quality, or "dimensions" and "group," was widespread. For example, Richardson used the double designation (Sale, pp. 24, 78, 81), as did Bowyer (Davis, p. 75), the Foulises (Gaskell, Foulis, pp. 23, 26), Oxford (Philip, p. 98), and Cambridge (McKenzie, I, 22, 144 and II, passim). When the Wolvercote Mill was inventoried in 1782 there were moulds for "printing and writing papers of eight sizes" from double crown to pot. See Harry Carter, The Wolvercote Mill, Oxford Bibliographical Society, New Ser., Extra Pub. (1957), pp. 23, 67. Super Royal, Medium and Post were fairly recent sizes in paper, having been brought to popularity early in the century by the first manufacturers to enlarge sheet sizes for the purpose of lowering the tax fees of their customers. See Allen T. Hazen, "Eighteenth Century Quartos with Vertical Chain Lines," Library, 4 Ser., XVI (1935), 337; Graham Pollard, "Notes on the Size of the Sheet," Library, 4 Ser., XXII (1941), 126-29.
A view contrary to my speculations can be seen in D. C. Coleman, The British Paper Industry, 1495-1860: A Study in Industrial Growth (1958). Coleman states that in the eighteenth century "there were neither sensational technical advances drastically to lower costs of production nor sweeping extensions in markets to carry this [paper] industry forward in the way that the cotton and iron industries were carried forward" (p. 90). However, Coleman's study covers many centuries and his statements are necessarily generalized. The fact remains that Strahan's prices did not increase markedly.
Richardson's practice is described in Sale, pp. 25, 81, Bowyer's is described throughout Davis's article, but particularly on p. 76. See also Moxon, ed. Davis and Carter, pp. 321-322; Caleb Stower's The Printer's Grammar (1808), pp. 402-406; Gaskell's "Notes," pp. 34, 41n; Phillips's Oxford, p. 98; and Allan Stevenson's Observations on Paper as Evidence, Univ. of Kansas Publications: Library Series No. 11 (1961), p. 21. In lieu of a long argument and charts, I offer two examples of how I determined the size of the ream. 1) One ream and 5 quires are sufficient to print one sheet in 632 copies only if the ream is 516, in which case there would be a spoilage allowance of nine sheets (Ledger B 15v, 1756). 2) Three reams are sufficient to print 4 ½ sheets in three runs of 60, 25, 250 (totalling 335) only if the ream is 516 sheets, in which case there would be a spoilage allowance of 8 ½ sheets for each press (Ledger F 39v, 1779).
We can obtain some idea of the efficiency of Strahan's pressmen in staying within the spoilage allowance if we know how many jobs they ran. I have computed the totals for Strahan's first full year in business and the last year of his life. In 1739, the pressmen processed fifty-five work orders for a total of 592,825 impressions (perfected sheets). In 1785, the pressmen processed 289 work orders for a total of 4,403,515 impressions.
Some of the entries for paper may give the reader an impression of "extra" charges, but we must remember that the paper is not actually "extra" at all; it is always needed in an amount necessary to complete a given number of copies for a given job. The entries which Strahan considered as "extra" charges were generally for services, rather than materials like paper, and they were primarily for services which were not part of a normal printing contract. These charges will be the subject of the third article in this series of studies of Strahan's ledgers.
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