The 'John Pryntare' can be none other than John Herford. 'Bonere' was a misreading for Bonham, and these three, Pepwell, Tab, and Bonham, all of them printers or booksellers in St. Paul's Churchyard, were evidently sent down especially to inquire into the matter.
We next hear of John Herford as in London in 1542, but meanwhile a modification of Stevenage's device was used by a London printer named Bourman. From the Letters and Papers of Henry VIII., vol. xv. pp. 115, etc., it appears that after his retirement from the abbey, Richard Stevenage went by the name of Boreman. He is invariably spoken of as 'Stevenage alias Boreman,' so that the Nicholas Bourman, the London printer, was perhaps a relative.
The Rev. S. Sayers in his Memoirs of Bristol, 1823, vol. ii. p. 228, states, on the authority of documents in the city archives, that a press was at work in the castle in the year 1546. Of this press, if it ever existed, not so much as a leaf remains.
In 1547 Anthony Scoloker was established as a printer at Ipswich. In that year he printed The just reckenyng or accompt of the whole nomber of yeares, from the beginnynge of the world, vnto this present yeare of 1547. Translated out of Germaine tonge by Anthony Scoloker the 6 daye of July 1547. He was chiefly concerned with the movements of the Reformation, and his publications were mostly small octavos, the writings of Luther, Zwingli, and Ochino, printed in type of a German character and of no great merit. In 1548 he moved to London, where for a time he was in partnership with William Seres. The adjoining cut, the earliest English representation of a printing press, is taken from the Ordinarye of Christians, printed by Scoloker after he had settled in London.
Fig. 26.—From the Ordinarye of Christians, c. 1550.
A second printer in Ipswich is believed to have been John Overton, who in 1548 printed there two sheets of Bale's Illustrium maioris Britanniæ scriptorum summarium, the remainder of which was printed at Wesel. Nothing else of his appears to be known.
The third printer at Ipswich was John Oswen, who was also established there in 1548. Nine books can be traced to his press there. The first was The Mynde of the Godly and excellent lerned man M. Jhon Caluyne what a Faithful man, whiche is instructe in the Worde of God ought to do, dwellinge amongest the Papistes. Imprinted at Ippyswiche by me John Oswen. 8vo. This was followed by Calvin's Brief declaration of the fained sacrament commonly called the extreame unction. The remainder of his books were of a theological character. He left Ipswich about Christmas 1548, and is next found at Worcester, where, on the 30th January 1549, he printed A Consultarie for all Christians most godly and ernestly warnying al people to beware least they beare the name of Christians in vayne. Now first imprinted the xxx day of Januarie Anno M. D. xlix. At Worceter by John Oswen. Cum priuilegio Regali ad imprimendum solum. Per septennium. The privilege, which was dated January 6th, 1548-9, authorised Oswen to print all sorts of service or prayer-books and other works relating to the scriptures 'within our Principalitie of Wales and Marches of the same.'[9]
Oswen followed this by another edition of the Domestycal or Household Sermons of Christopher Hegendorff, which was printed on the last day of February 1549.
Then came his first important undertaking, a quarto edition of The boke of common praier. Imprinted the xxiv day of May Anno MDXLIX. The folio edition appeared in July of the same year. Two months later he printed an edition of the Psalter or Psalmes of David, 4to. On January 12, 1550, appeared a quarto edition of the New Testament, of which there is a copy in Balliol College Library, and this was followed in the same year by Zwingli's Short Pathwaye, translated by John Veron; by a translation by Edward Aglionby of Mathew Gribalde's Notable and marveilous epistle, and the Godly sayings of the old auncient fathers, compiled by John Veron. Two or three books of the same kind were issued in 1551, and in 1552 he issued another edition of the Book of Common Prayer. The last we hear of him is in 1553, when he printed an edition of the Statutes of 6th Edward VI., and An Homelye to read in the tyme of pestylence. What became of Oswen is not known. He very likely went abroad on the accession of Queen Mary.