A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898

by Henry R. Plomer

John Twyn was a small printer in Cloth Fair, and his crime was that of printing a pamphlet entitled A Treatise of the Execution of Justice, in which, as it was alleged, there were several passages aimed at the King's life and the overthrow of the Government. It was further stated by the prosecution that the pamphlet was part of a plot for a general rebellion that was to have taken effect on the 12th October 1662. The chief witnesses against Twyn were Joseph Walker, his apprentice, Sir Roger L'Estrange, and Thomas Mabb, a printer. Their evidence went to show that Twyn had two presses; that he composed part of the book, printed some of the sheets, and corrected the proofs, the work being done secretly at night-time. On entering the premises it was found that the forme of type had been broken up, only one corner of it remaining standing, and that the printed sheets had been hurriedly thrown down some stairs. In defence Twyn declared that he had received the copy from Widow Calvert's maid, and had received 40s. on account, with more to follow on completion, and he stoutly asserted that he did not know the nature of the work. The jury, amongst whom were Richard Royston and Simon Waterson, booksellers, and James Fletcher and Thomas Roycroft, printers, returned a verdict of Guilty, and Twyn was condemned to death and executed at Tyburn.

The charge against Simon Dover was of printing the pamphlet entitled The Speeches of some of the late King's Justices, which we have already seen that Roger L'Estrange had seized in John Hayes' premises, while Thomas Brewster was accused of causing this and another pamphlet, entitled The Phœnix of the Solemn League and Covenant, to be printed. In defence, Thomas Brewster declared that booksellers did not read the books they sold; so long as they could earn a penny they were satisfied—an argument that had been used more than a century before by old Robert Copland as an excuse for indifferent printing. Both Dover and Brewster were condemned to pay a fine of 100 marks, to stand in the pillory, and to remain prisoners during the King's pleasure. Sir Roger L'Estrange, as a reward for his services, was appointed Surveyor of the Press, with permission to publish a news-sheet of his own, and liberty to harass the printers as much as possible.

But far greater calamities than the malice of Sir Roger L'Estrange could devise fell upon the printing trade by the outbreak of the Plague in 1665, and the subsequent Fire of London. In a letter written by L'Estrange to Lord Arlington, and dated 16th October 1665, he stated that eighty of the printers had died of the Plague (Cal. of S. P. 1665-6, p. 20), in which total he evidently included workmen as well as masters. The loss occasioned by the stoppage of trade and flight of the citizens must have been enormous, and yet it may have been slight in comparison to that occasioned by the Great Fire. Curiously enough, however, there are very few records showing the effect of this second disaster upon the printing trade. We find a petition by Christopher Barker, the King's printer, to be allowed to import paper free of charge in consequence of his loss by the Fire, and the same indulgence is granted to the Stationers' Company as a body and the Universities; but there are no notes of individual losses, and only one or two references to MSS. that were destroyed in it. There is, however, one very eloquent testimony to the ruin it caused in this, as in other trades. The coercive Act of 1662, which had been renewed with unfailing regularity from session to session down to the year 1665, was not renewed during the remainder of the reign of Charles II. On the 24th of July 1668 a return was made of all the printing-houses in London, which shows at a glance who had survived and who had suffered by that terrible calamity (see Appendix II.).

Comparing this list with that of 1649, we find that no inconsiderable number of the printers there mentioned had survived the thinning-out process, as well as imprisonment, death, and fire. In fact, only eight London printers were actually ruined by the Fire, and among them we find both John Hayes and John Brudenell, and also Alice Warren.

But another paper, written in the same year, and preserved in the same volume of State Papers,[13] is even more interesting, for it shows the position of every man in the trade. This is headed—

A Survey of the Printing Presses with the names and numbers of Apprentices, Officers, and Workemen belonging to every particular press. Taken 29 July 1668. (See Appendix III.).

From this we learn that the largest employer in the trade at that time was James Fletcher, who kept five presses, and employed thirteen workmen and two apprentices. Next to him came Thomas Newcomb, with three presses and a proof press, twelve workmen and one apprentice; John Maycocke, with three presses, ten workmen and three apprentices; and then Roycroft, with four presses, ten workmen and two apprentices; while at the other end of the scale was Thomas Leach, with one press, not his own, and one workman.

Whether L'Estrange carried out his threat of prosecuting the three men who had set up since the Act, we do not know, but this is certain, that one of their number, John Darby, continued to work for many years after this, and was the printer of Andrew Marvell's Rehearsal Transposed, and a good deal else that galled the Government very much. In fact, the Act of 1662 was openly ignored, and new men set up presses every year.

But of all this work it is almost impossible to trace what was done by individual printers. The bulk of the publications of the time bore the bookseller's name only, and it is very rarely indeed that the printer is revealed. Newcomb had the printing of the Gazette, and also printed most of Dryden's works that were published by Herringman; while Roycroft, we know, was employed by all those who wanted the best possible work, such men as John Ogilby, for instance, for whom he printed several works. Milton's Paradise Lost came from the press of Peter Parker; but the printer of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress is unknown to us.

As it happens, there is not much lost by remaining in ignorance on this point. For no change whatever took place in the character of printing as a trade during the second half of the seventeenth century. There were only three foundries of note in London during that time, and none of them is considered to have produced anything particularly good. Indeed, one has only to glance at even the best work of that time to see how wretchedly the majority of the type was cast. The first of the three was the celebrated Joseph Moxon, who, in 1659, added type-founding to his other callings of mathematician and hydrographer. Having spent some years in Holland, he was very much enamoured of the Dutch types, and in 1676 he wrote a book entitled Regulæ Trium Ordinum Literarum Typographicarum, in which he endeavoured to prove that each letter should be cast in exact mathematical proportion, and illustrated his theory by several letters cast in that manner. Similar theories had been propounded in earlier days by Albert Durer and the French printer, Geoffrey Tory, but no improvement in printing ever resulted from them.