A History of the Cambridge University Press, 1521-1921Roberts, S. C. (Sydney Castle)
History
A History of the Cambridge University Press, 1521-1921
Roberts, S. C. (Sydney Castle)
Cambridge University Press -- Bibliography; Cambridge University Press -- History
Accordingly a partnership was formed between Ged, Fenner, and
Thomas James. The design, it was alleged, "had at that time all
imaginable appearance of Success"; Thomas James, being unable to
get any help from his father ("a Clergyman then living upwͩˢ of 85
years of age, who had, upon a small Endowmͭ in Hampshire, brought
up a numerous family"), applied to his brother John, an architect
at Greenwich, for financial assistance. John James came into the
partnership, paying an entrance fee of £100, and, as the invention
of stereotype plates was likely to be used with most advantage for
the printing of bibles and prayer-books, undertook to apply for a
licence to the University of Cambridge--"the only one at that time
unemploied."[99]
This application was successful and the lease was granted to Fenner
on 23 April, 1731; Fenner's name was used as that of the only
member of the partnership who was a stationer, and John James gave
a bond for £100.
The plates were at first made in London, at a house in Bartholomew
Close, but in the summer of 1732 a house was hired in Cambridge
and all the materials and implements moved thither. "For yͤ better
prosecuting the Affair," a certain James Watson was sent to Holland
"as well as to hire Men, as to buy Presses" and several Dutchmen
were employed in printing the nonpareil bible and the small book of
common prayer by the new process.
But the business did not prosper. Ged quarrelled with Fenner and
"left the whole business at a stand, Secreting or taking with him
several Tools and other things to which he had no Right"[100];
Baskett, the king's printer, filed a Bill in Chancery against
Fenner for printing bibles; the injunction was subsequently
withdrawn, but meanwhile John James was losing confidence in the
scheme and growing anxious about his money; he urged Fenner to
"go on with the Cambridge Patent Work in common Type Way by the
Assistance of Mr Watson, _and have nothing farther to do in the
Plate Way_." "As far as I can learn," wrote James in another letter
(28 Nov. 1732), "the Booksellers all agree that the Prayer-Book
that is done will by no means pass. So that to proceed farther in
this Way will but run us more and more out of Pocket." Finally,
Fenner died in debt in 1734; four specimens of his work in
Cambridge have survived: an octavo Book of Common Prayer, Thomas
Johnson's _Letter to Mr Chandler_, John Colbatch's _Examination of
the marriage treaty of Charles II_, and _A Collection of Poems_,
by the Author of _A Poem on the Cambridge Ladies_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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