Upper part of the first page of the Oxford (now London) Gazette, 1665. The oldest newspaper still existing in England
The first notable promoter of the Oxford Press was Archbishop Laud, whose statutes contemplate the appointment of an Architypographus, and who secured for the University in 1632 Letters Patent authorizing three printers (each with two presses and two apprentices), and in 1636 a Royal Charter entitling the University to print ‘all manner of books’. The privilege of printing the Bible was not exercised at this date; but in 1636 Almanacks were produced, and this seems to have alarmed the Stationers’ Company, who then enjoyed a virtual monopoly of Bibles, Grammars, and Almanacks; for we find that in 1637 the University surrendered the privilege to the Stationers for an annual payment of £200, twice the amount of Joseph Barnes’s working capital. The most famous books belonging to what may be called the Laudian period were five editions of Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy and one of Bacon’s Advancement of Learning in English.
OXFORD UNIVERSITY ARMS
Some ancient examples used by the Oxford University Press
