A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898Plomer, Henry R. (Henry Robert)
History
A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898
Plomer, Henry R. (Henry Robert)
England -- Imprints; Printing -- England -- History
At the time of the Civil War, Robert Barker, the King's printer, had in
1639 been commanded to attend His Majesty in his march against the
Scots, and printed several proclamations, news-sheets, etc., at
Newcastle-on-Tyne in that year. He is next found at York, where some
thirty-nine different sheets, etc., have been traced from his press, and
in 1642 a second press was at work in the same city, that of Stephen
Bulkeley. When York fell into the hands of the Parliament, Bulkeley's
press was silent for a while, and his place was taken by Thomas Broad,
who printed there from 1644 to 1660, and was succeeded by his widow,
Alice, who disappears in 1667. After the Restoration, Bulkeley again set
up his press at York, where he continued down to 1680. Barker in 1642
had been summoned to attend the King at Nottingham, but no specimen of
his work bearing that imprint is known, and the next heard of him is at
Bristol, some time in 1643, Mr. Allnutt mentioning ten pieces from his
press at this place.
In 1645 Thomas Fuller issued in small duodecimo, a collection of pious
thoughts, which he aptly termed _Good Thoughts in Bad Times_, and in the
Dedication to it expressly stated that it was 'the first fruits of the
Exeter presse.' There was no printer's name in the volume, and no other
work printed in Exeter at that time is known. In 1688, however, another
press was started there, and printed several political broadsides
relative to the Prince of Orange. A new start was made in 1698, when a
small pamphlet was printed in this city.
Stephen Bulkeley, the York printer, appears to have gone from that city
to Newcastle in 1646, and continued printing there until 1652. He then
removed to Gateshead, where he remained until after the Restoration,
subsequently returning to Newcastle, and so back to York. No more is
heard of printing in Newcastle until the opening of the eighteenth
century.
A press was established in Bristol in the year 1695 and in Plymouth and
Shrewsbury in the year 1696.
In America the progress of printing was very slow throughout the
seventeenth century. Until 1660, Samuel Green, at Cambridge,
Massachusetts, remained the only printer in the colony. But in that year
the Corporation for the propagation of the Gospel in New England among
the Indians sent over from London another press, a large supply of good
letter, and a printer named Marmaduke Johnson, for the purpose of
printing an edition of the Bible in the Indian tongue. This press was
set up in the same building as that in which Green was already at work,
and the two printers seem to have worked together at the production of
the Bible, which appeared in quarto form in 1663, the New Testament
having been published two years earlier. Johnson died in the year 1675,
but Samuel Green continued to print until 1702. After his death the
press at Cambridge was silent for some years.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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