About the year 1790, Joseph Parker was apprenticed to Daniel Prince, whose successor, Joshua Cooke, was agent to the University Press, and thus he was able to become acquainted with the management of its publications. The Bible Press was at this period in debt, and was an annual expense to the University, but Parker saw the feasibility of making it a profitable concern, and, by dint of strenuous persuasion, was, in 1805, allowed to enter into partnership with the University Press, jointly with Cooke and Samuel Collingwood, the latter of whom attended to the printing, while the publishing business was left entirely in Joseph Parker’s hands. Great difficulty was felt at first in borrowing money to meet that advanced by the University. In a few years, however, the debts were paid off, and large profits began to come in, and during his lifetime he was able to pay over upwards of £100,000 into the University chest, building in addition the new printing-office, at a cost of £40,000, investing large sums in “plant,” and leaving a concern that was worth £10,000 a year to the partnership. For the seven years previous to 1815 the number of Bibles printed at Oxford was 460,500; Testaments, 386,000; of prayer-books, 400,000; of catechisms, psalters, &c., 200,000; and the money received as drawback for paper duty amounted to £18,658 2_s._ 6_d._ For the same period at Cambridge the Bibles numbered 392,000; the Testaments, 423,000; the Prayer-books, 194,000; while the drawback was only upwards of £1087 7_s._ 6_d._ In addition to his interest in the Bible Press, which yielded him about £1000 a year, Joseph Parker, on the death of his regular trade partner, Hanwell, became sole proprietor of the old-established bookselling business of Fletcher and Hanwell, in the Fleet, and, on the retirement of Cooke, succeeded to the office of “Warehouse-keeper,” and also to the appointment of agent for the sale of books published on the “Learned” side of the press; the value of the books sold on this side amounted to from £3000 to £5000 annually, while on the Bible side under his management the sales were something like £100,000 worth.