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Information about stationers in England during the first hundred years of printing continues to be relatively sparse. Duff's Century of the English Book Trade (1905), containing "short notices of all printers, stationers, book-binders, and others connected with it" from 1457 to 1557, remains the single authoritative work on the subject. At its initial publication, Duff himself perceived the incompleteness of his book and invited assistance "in correcting the errors or in adding new names or facts." Even in reissuing the book in 1948, the Bibliographical Society saw the reprint as only "an interim measure" and recognized the necessity for new editions, not only of Duff, but also of the Dictionaries of McKerrow, Plomer, and others.[1]
Presented below are abstracts of the wills of thirteen stationers, all of whom practised their trade and died during the sixteenth century. The earliest will is that of William Breton, who began publishing in 1506 and whose will (prepared in 1517) was probated in 1526; the latest is that of James Gonneld, who died in 1594. Three of the men (James Gonneld, Stephen Kevall, and Randall Tyrer) appear in the list of 97 charter members of the Stationers' Company in 1557.[2] Duff includes entries for eleven of the men, while the other two (Jerome Glover and Henry Middleton) appear in McKerrow. The wills of eight of these stationers have not been noted before. Of the remaining five, Duff mentions the wills of James Gonneld, Stephen Kevall, Philip Scapulis, and Henry Taverner, and McKerrow cites Henry Middleton's will, but neither Duff nor McKerrow furnishes virtually any information beyond the dates of will and probate (except for Kevall, whose will was probated in two different courts). Plomer provides an abstract of Kevall's will, as probated in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, but both he and Duff missed Jane Kevall's will, which is dated much later than her supposed
In 1903, when Plomer published abstracts of forty stationers' wills, he observed "the value of wills as historical documents" and noted as his object the illustrating of "the history of printing and bookselling" by means of those documents. Plomer's wills revealed three things: the close association of the stationers with each other in the form of "a guild or brotherhood," the Stationers' Company's enormous wealth as a result of bequests from its members, and the availability of new information about the biographies of individual stationers and about the book trade in general.[3] While some intrinsic interest inheres in any stationer's will, its true value transcends any fascination with the document for its own sake. A stationer's will can be an important index to financial worth, family, and associates. Besides supplying a desired terminal date for publishing activity, the document can furnish an address where the stationer practised his trade, as well as the names of a wife and children—clues, in short, that can assist in future searches. It is in that spirit that the following abstracts are offered.
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