In the neighbouring county of Devon the Exeter press, finally established after many vicissitudes in 1698 by Samuel Darker, is found busily at work in 1701, Darker having been joined by Samuel Farley, whose relation to the Samuel Farley of Bristol offers an opportunity to some cunning genealogist to reap distinction. In 1701 Farley issued by himself John Prince's Danmonii Orientales Illustres; or The Worthies of Devon, a work of 600 folio pages, with coats of arms. It was certainly one of the largest works printed at that time by any provincial press outside the Universities. In point of workmanship all that can be said for it is that it was no worse than the bulk of the work turned out by provincial presses; and it furnishes its own criticism in a list of errata on the last page, which closes with the words, 'with many others too tedious to insert.' Thomas Tanner, writing to Browne Willis in 1706, says that he has heard of a bi-weekly paper printing at Exeter. No copy of an Exeter paper of so early a date is known.
In 1705 Farley was joined by Joseph Bliss, and jointly they issued several books; but the partnership lasted a very short time, as by 1708 Joseph Bliss had set up for himself in the Exchange.
On September 24, 1714, Samuel Farley issued the first number of The Exeter Mercury; or Weekly Intelligence of News, which in the next year he transferred to Philip Bishop. In 1715 also Joseph Bliss started a rival sheet called the Protestant Mercury, or The Exeter Post-Boy, from his new printing-house near the London Inn. Meanwhile Farley appears to have left Exeter, for on September 27, 1715, he published the first number of the Salisbury Post-Man. In 1717 Andrew Brice, the most important of Exeter printers, began to print, his address then being 'At the Head of the Serge Market in Southgate Street,' from which he issued, some time in 1718, a paper called the Post-Master, or the Loyal Mercury. The history of this printer is too lengthy to be told here, and has already been ably written by Dr. T. N. Brushfield (The Life and Bibliography of Andrew Brice). Farley's name occurs again in 1723, when he returned to Exeter and started Farley's Exeter Journal. In November 1727 the burial of Samuel Farley is recorded in the registers at St. Paul's, Exeter. He was succeeded in business by an Edward Farley.
Another provincial press that revived very early in the eighteenth century was that of Worcester. It had been silent for upwards of a century and a half; but in June 1709 a printer from London, named Stephen Bryan, set up a press, and started a newspaper called the Worcester Postman. In 1722 the title was altered to the Worcester Post, or Western Journal. Bryan died in 1748, but just previous to his death he assigned his paper to Mr. H. Berrow, who then gave it the name it has ever since borne, that of Berrow's Worcester Journal.
Hazlitt, in his Collections and Notes (3rd Series, p. 282), mentions a book entitled Tunbridgialia, or ye pleasures of Tunbridge, a poem, as printed 'at Mount Sion at ye end of ye Upper Walk at Tunbridge Wells,' 1705.
At Canterbury printing was revived in 1717, and a very interesting record of it is in the British Museum in the form of a broadside with the following title:—
'A List of the names of the Mayor, Recorder, Aldermen & Common Council of the City of Canterbury Who (In the year of our Lord 1717) promoted and encouraged the noble Art and Mystery of Printing in this City and County.' Canterbury, Printed by J. Abree for T. James, S. Palmer, and W. Hunter, 1718.' This John Abree died in 1765 at the age of seventy-seven.
Turning northward, the most important presses were those of York and Newcastle.
At York John White, who had settled in the city in 1680, was actively engaged in business in 1701, and he remained the sole printer there until his death in the year 1715. By his will, dated 31st July 1714, he gave his wife Grace White the use of one full half of his printing tools and presses, etc., for her life; and after her death he gave the same to his grandson, Charles Bourne, to whom he bequeathed the remaining half of his printing implements immediately upon his death. To John White, his son, he devised his real estate.
On the 23rd February 1718-19 Grace White issued the first York newspaper, The York Mercury. Upon her death in 1721 the printing-house was carried on by Charles Bourne until 1724, when he was in turn succeeded by Thomas Gent, who had served under John White in 1714-15, and married the widow of Charles Bourne. Davies in his Memoirs of the York Press (pp. 144 et seq.) gives a detailed and interesting biography of this printer, who, he says, has obtained a wider celebrity than any other York typographer. Gent was an engraver as well as printer, and was the author of a History of York, and other works. As a printer his work was wretched; there is little to be said for him as an engraver; while as an author he was below mediocrity. Nevertheless, he deserves credit for the interest he took in the history of York. His history of that city was published in small octavo in 1730, and he followed it up in 1735 with Annales Regioduni Hullini, or The History of the Royal and Beautiful town of Kingston upon Hull, also an octavo.