University of Virginia Library

Richard Baldwin Junior, Bookseller
by
C. Y. Ferdinand

Early in the nineteenth century, John Nichols could readily claim that "the name of Baldwin has long been, and still continues to be, famous in the Annals of Bibliography."[1] The name itself might then have been famous, but many details of the lives and careers of the individual booksellers, printers, and bookbinders of that name have continued to elude bibliographers. Baldwins were active in the London booktrade from the latter seventeenth century when one Richard Baldwin (1653?-1698), the political publisher, was active, through the eighteenth century with the careers of his widow Abigail Baldwin (1658-1713), Richard Baldwin senior (1694?-1777), his sons Robert (1717-1748) and Richard junior (1724-1770), and their cousins Henry (1734-1813) and Robert Baldwin (1737-1810) (see Genealogical Appendix). A family preference for the names Richard and Robert, usually abbreviated to "R." in their imprints, complicates the problem in the eighteenth century. So Plomer conflates Richard Baldwin senior, Richard Baldwin

junior, and Robert Baldwin into one entry—under Robert; and Nichols, contemporary and friend of the late eighteenth- early nineteenth-century generation of the family, was unaware of the brief mid-eighteenth-century career of Richard Baldwin junior's elder brother Robert, and he slightly muddles the death dates of Baldwins with whom he was probably acquainted.[2] More recently, scholars have had to resort to conjecture in their attempts to decide which R. Baldwin was associated with the book in hand.[3]

The effect has been that the Baldwin family has received collective credit for its part in the publication of editions of Horace, Shakespeare, Milton, and Pope, Smollett's most important works, numerous botanical and medical tracts by Sir John Hill, Memoires of Bolingbroke, Hoyle, and other works. Richard Baldwin junior, whose enterprise and energy were in fact behind most of these publications, has been all but lost in the shuffle of R. Baldwins.[4] The main concern of this paper, then, is to establish the bibliographical and biographical details of his career.

A powerful new research tool, The Eighteenth-Century Short Title Catalogue (ESTC), offers unprecedented opportunities for unravelling such complicated bibliographical problems. Its data base contains about 217,000 bibliographical entries (800,000 locations) all of them indexed and subject to computer searches of varying complexity.[5] A straightforward search for Baldwin imprints in Richard Baldwin junior's lifetime (from the 1720s through the 1760s) produces a list of about 750 imprints.[6] An examination of the books themselves, coupled with the results of traditional archival research, provides an outline for a biobibliography of Richard Baldwin junior. And because his career overlaps and joins those of other R. Baldwins, all of them family members, details of related lives fall into place.[7] It is the further purpose of this essay, by establishing more accurately the details of the career of Richard Baldwin junior, to increase our understanding of his publishing activities and those of his associates in the eighteenth century.

Richard Baldwin junior was born in the heart of the London booktrade district probably 27 November 1724;[8] the second son of Richard and Hannah Baldwin, he was christened 13 December in the parish church of St. Martin Ludgate.[9] His father, Richard Baldwin senior, had already served a number of years in the trade, first as apprentice to bookbinder Robert Whitledge. He became free of the Stationers' Company in 1716[10] and may have continued with Whitledge in Creed Lane as journeyman bookbinder. Stationers' Company registers record Baldwin's first apprentice, John Whiffen, in February 1726 and a second, Robert Stephen, in April of the same year.[11] By this time he was paying taxes on a modest property in St. Martin Ludgate.[12] In 1732, more than sixteen years after his freedom, he accepted a call to the Livery; his name first appeared in that year as bookseller, possibly copyholder, in several imprints;[13] he moved to the Blue Bible in St. Paul's Churchyard;[14] and he took on his eldest son Robert as one of his apprentices.[15] In spite of all this activity from bookbinder to bookseller, there is little evidence in the following years of Richard Baldwin senior having a flourishing bookselling business.[16]

In 1740 when Richard junior was fifteen years old, he was sent out of London to Salisbury to serve his apprenticeship with Benjamin Collins (1715-1785).[17] The Collins-Baldwin connection must have been based in Berkshire: Benjamin Collins was born in Faringdon, where Robert Baldwin, an apothecary and Richard senior's brother, still lived with his family. A number of Richard junior's cousins, including Robert (1737-1810) and Henry (1734-1813), important figures in the late eighteenth-century booktrade, were also born in Faringdon.[18] William Collins (1705-1740?),[19] Benjamin's eldest brother, was a Salisbury bookseller and printer whose name is found in earlier partnerships with Richard Baldwin senior and with Thomas Astley, who was another Berkshire transplant to London.[20] Astley is also the first London distributor to be listed in the colophon of the Salisbury Journal. So the Berkshire-Wiltshire-London links were already well established when Richard junior began his apprenticeship in September 1740.

The two Collins brothers had been in Salisbury since about 1729 when they are believed to have had a hand in the establishment of the first short-lived Salisbury Journal.[21] The only evidence of their partnership is in the intertwined woodcut initials "BC" and "WC" in the headpieces of early numbers of the newspaper. In fact, Benjamin probably played a subordinate role to his brother at this time and may have been William's apprentice, although no formal record of apprenticeship survives. Few Collins imprints are extant from the period between 1729 and 1740.[22] It is likely therefore that the business was grounded in jobbing printing, bookbinding, and the sale of London imprints, stationery, and medical supplies to an expanding provincial market, at least until late 1736. In that year the Salisbury Journal was reestablished, and this time the newspaper was a successful addition to the Collins repertoire, providing a steady source of revenue in sales and advertisements, as well as creating opportunities for enlarging London and provincial contacts.

The printing office Richard Baldwin junior joined as an apprentice in 1740 was therefore one in which a large range of professional expertise was available; and he would have brought to it his own experience in his father's shop. By this time management of the Salisbury business was solely in the capable hands of Benjamin Collins.[23] There is evidence that Collins and his first apprentice shared a sound, intuitive sense of good business, for Collins entrusts the running of an Isle of Wight agency to the young man in 1743 when Richard is eighteen years old: "R. Baldwin, Bookseller in the Isle of Wight" replaces Thomas Geare[24] in the colophon of the Salisbury Journal for 28 June 1743. Richard Baldwin's name also appears frequently with that of Benjamin Collins and Thomas Burrough of Devizes in book, stationery, and medical advertisements in the newspaper.[25] Reports from Newport, perhaps from the pen of Richard junior, regularly appear in the paper's local news section during this time—usually they are standardized accounts of the assizes, loyal celebrations, and unusual crimes. An indication of his youthful enterprise is found in a Journal advertisement 24 September 1745 in which Richard Baldwin is selling Sterrop's True Spectacles, and "all Manner of

Musical Instruments, as Violins, German, and common Flutes, &c. Also, the most curious painted Paper for Rooms."

While Richard Baldwin the younger was maintaining an Isle of Wight agency and completing his apprenticeship, his brother Robert was setting up shop in the parish of St. Martin Ludgate, London, at the Bible and Crown near Stationers' Hall. He had obtained his freedom 7 August 1739 but was not clothed until 12 April 1743 (McKenzie, Apprentices 1701-1800, 17, 426). He is recorded in the Faringdon Within tax books from 1743 in premises previously occupied by Elizabeth Jefferies near Stationers' Hall.[26] A number of imprints in the 1740s include his name, often with J. Jefferies or in some version of "R. Baldwin & Comp. over-against Stationers-Hall."[27] Evidence of the extent and nature of Robert Baldwin's relationship with John Jefferies is provided in a Salisbury Journal advertisement of 27 July 1747:

Robert died when he was only thirty. His will was proved 13 February 1747/48, less than a month after it was written. He left instructions for his widow Elizabeth (pregnant with their daughter Elizabeth at the time of his death) to continue his trade if she wished; Richard Baldwin senior and Samuel Birt, another bookseller and a family friend, were instructed to assist her "as much as lyes in their Power," although the two were absolved of any responsibility for trade losses incurred by the widow since the book business is "in its Nature hazardous" (PRO, PROB 11/759/37). Only one book has been discovered bearing the imprint of E. Baldwin, and "Widow Baldwin" disappears from the tax assessors' books, apparently replaced by Paul Stephens in 1751.[28] Robert Baldwin's short career has been unnoticed until now.

During this time Richard Baldwin senior appears in imprints only occasionally. ESTC records "R. Baldwin in St. Paul's-church-yard" in only five entries. He and his son Robert were both subscribers to Daniel Bellamy's Truth of Christian Religion (1744). He was still in St. Paul's Churchyard (but not as a landlord, that is, taxpayer) 16 January 1747/48 when Robert Baldwin writes his will. Richard senior may have had other business activities, for it is clear that bookselling cannot have been his primary source of income.

In 1746, near the end of his time on the Isle of Wight, Richard Baldwin junior's name first appears in the imprints of two sermons. In both cases the partners are J. and J. Rivington in London and Benjamin Collins in Salisbury. The first is Magistrates and Their Office Considered, preached by William

Budworth in 1739 and advertised in the Salisbury Journal of 18 August 1746 as shortly to be published. The second, John Gilbert's topical The Duty of Fearing God and the King, is advertised 10 November. Richard Baldwin junior apparently had left the Isle of Wight by the time a pamphlet sermon of similar content and format, Thomas Whitewood's Love to God the Best Tribute of Praise, is first advertised two weeks later and this work bears the imprint of Jonathan Moore, bookseller in Newport. The Isle of Wight changes are also noted in the colophon of the Journal 24 November 1746, and Baldwin is replaced by Moore in advertisements over the next few weeks. On 15 December 1746 Richard Baldwin places a notice in the Salisbury Journal:

At this distance it is impossible to say whether Richard Baldwin's removal to London was an abrupt one to take advantage of a sudden opportunity, or whether it was a long-planned phase of his career. Certainly there was opportunity in London. The imprint of the London Magazine for November 1746, published early December, indicates that it is "printed for T. Astley, and Sold by R. Baldwin, at the Rose in Pater-Noster-Row."[29] Probably to avoid confusion between father and son, the imprint for the December number and for the general titlepage for 1746 (which would have been printed after all the monthly parts) is amended to "R. Baldwin, jun." The London Magazine was an important publication, established in 1732 by the proprietors of the Monthly Chronicle (itself begun four years earlier) to compete with the Gentleman's Magazine. The London Magazine was the Gentleman's most successful rival and the chance of obtaining an interest in the enterprise must have been attractive. Richard Baldwin junior clearly had ability and relevant experience; what is less clear is how he financed the arrangement—perhaps with the assistance of his father or of Astley himself.[30]

Soon after—on 3 February 1747—Richard junior obtained his freedom by patrimony (McKenzie, Apprentices 1701-1800, 17). Thomas Astley's name is dropped from the London Magazine's imprint with the April 1747 issue, coinciding with his arrest for publishing Lord Lovat's trial in that periodical; and when the 1747 land tax is collected on the Rose in Paternoster Row the owner is recorded as Richard Baldwin. Astley's arrest and fines did not deter him from moving to the shop next to John Walthoe on Cornhill—formerly in the possession of Francis Ellis and Company, but noted the previous year as empty—which had over four times the rateable value of his old premises in the Row. Unfortunately, this property, along with many others, was destroyed in the devastating fire of 25 March 1748.[31]

Richard Baldwin junior's status was rising steadily and so was the number

of Baldwin imprints, slowly at first, then accelerating sharply in the early 1750s. During his first complete year in London he and his brother are on three titlepages each, Richard as "R. Baldwin jun." in every case. In 1748, the year of Robert's death, Robert has only one book and Richard six.[32] There are eleven imprints in 1749 with "jun." and two more can be added on the basis of the address. Sixteen were published the following year, seven with the epithet, nine without. The Gentleman's and Tradesman's Daily Journal is registered to "Richd Baldwin in Pater Noster Row" in the Stationers' Register 29 November 1749. In this one instance Richard signs the entry and he includes "Junr," providing evidence that he was known by both forms of name in his early London years—also that he was investing in copies. A Description of the First Discoveries of the Ancient City of Heraclea registered 22 August 1750 to "Richd Baldwin" and bearing the imprint of Richard Baldwin, jun. is corroborative. But fewer and fewer of the increasing number of imprints (up to forty-seven in 1753) describe the retailer or copyholder as "junior"; the last to do so appeared in 1754. During these years he became established as Richard Baldwin at the Rose in Paternoster Row. It is possible, too, that the other Richard Baldwin, his father, left off business about this time to retire to Birmingham.[33]

One other R. Baldwin may have come to London around 1752. In that year Richard Baldwin junior's Berkshire cousin Robert would have been fourteen years old. No official record of his apprenticeship has been discovered, but Robert Baldwin owns the whole copyright of the London Magazine by July 1769 when he enters the number for that month in the Stationers' Company registers,[34] and it is he who takes over the business when Richard dies in 1770. While it is likely that Robert learned the art of bookselling from his cousin, joining Richard's first apprentice, John Staples of Salisbury,[35] there are no grounds for believing that Robert was more than a journeyman or subordinate partner until at least the mid-1760s. Henry Baldwin, another cousin and Robert's brother, presents no real problem.[36] He was printer to a number of projects in which Richard Baldwin had an interest, including the London Magazine (after Henry took over the deceased Charles Ackers's business) and the London Packet, and he is justly famous for his St. James's Chronicle.[37]

Most of the editions recorded in the ESTC Baldwin search for 1747 through 1769 can now be assigned to Richard Baldwin junior in Paster-noster Row, as retailer (that is, the book was sold by him), sole copyholder, or partner (the book was printed for him alone or in partnership) on the basis of the imprints—on the form of name, the address, and the relationship with other names.[38] The London Magazine was his most important early venture, involving, if not initially, then by the early 1750s, a financial investment in a share of the copyright. His other concerns could not always be described as great literature and are often unfamiliar to the twentieth-century reader, but many must have been good, even best, sellers. The variety of titles is striking. Copies which Baldwin bought at the beginning of his career include, among others, an account of the life of the defiant forger John Wells

(two editions in 1749), The Muncher's and Guzler's Diary (1749), An Inquiry into the Medicinal Virtues of Bristol-Water (1750), a translation of Gabriel Dellon's Relation de l'inquisition de Goa (1750), and The Gentleman's and Tradesman's Daily Journal for the Year 1750—all of them are printed for R. Baldwin, jun. Probably none of them were expensive, either in outlay for copy or in production costs. Yet they seem to have been sound investments generally, setting a pattern of buying copies and shares of copies, then investing the profits from those copies into more (and more reliable, more profitable) copies.

Imprints of 1750 indicate that seven books were printed for Richard Baldwin junior himself, and he is the retailer noted in six other books (all six printed for Thomas Astley). Ten years later Baldwin is part or sole owner of copies of thirty-three books published in 1760; only five others are sold by him, and he may have owned shares of some of those.[39] One measure of his success in the 1750s is his election to the office of Renter Warden of the Stationers' Company in 1753 (McKenzie, Apprentices 1701-1800, 405). Of perhaps greater importance is his acceptance into the London booktrade's established congers.[40] It was by this means that he obtained shares in major publications of his time. So a sub-pattern in his career is a gradual move to less risky, more substantial undertakings within the framework of large partnerships. By the time of his death 15 March 1770, Richard Baldwin junior had built up a solid family business on a foundation of sound investment in copies. When his cousin Robert succeeded to the shop at number 47 (formerly the Rose[41]) Paternoster Row, he saw no need to alter the imprints to reflect the transition. Works continued to be printed for R. Baldwin until well past the turn of the nineteenth century.[42]

Notes

Appendix