From the business point of view, the printing and selling of bibles and prayer-books no doubt continued to be the most important branch of Archdeacon's activities. In a collection of agents' accounts for the years 1766 and 1767 the well-known names of Edward Dilly, John Rivington, James Waugh, T. and J. Merrill appear. One of these accounts, made out in Archdeacon's own hand[120], is reproduced here as showing the numbers and prices of bibles supplied to Rivington during the period of six months and also the way in which the accounts were examined and approved by the Syndics of the Press.
In the year following that of Archdeacon's appointment a contract, similar to those of 1706 and 1727, was made with the Stationers' Company by which the Stationers, in return for an annual payment of £500, were granted the right of printing a large number of books (including school editions of classical authors, Lily's Grammar, Almanacks, Gradus ad Parnassum, Horn Book prints and Psalters) for the term of 21 years[121].
RIVINGTON'S ACCOUNT WITH THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1767
Later, in 1775, an Act of Parliament secured to the universities the perpetual copyright of all schoolbooks bequeathed to them; but in the same year it was ruled in the Court of Common Pleas that the right of printing almanacks was a common law right over which the Crown had no control, and the Stationers' Company thereupon discontinued their payments to the universities.
However, in 1781 a new almanack duty act granted to each university the sum of £500 per annum as compensation. At Cambridge this sum was placed at the disposal of the Syndics of the Press for the publication of works of learning by the following grace of 11 June, 1782:
Cum ad graves librorum imprimendorum sumptus sublevandos omnigenaeque adeo eruditionis studium promovendum, annuo quingentarum librarum reditu Academiam nuper auxerit munificentia publica; ne aut nostra negligentia deflorescat tantus publice habitus literis honos, aut in alios usus transferatur quod doctrinae amplificandae sacrum esse oporteat; placeat vobis ut Typographici Preli Curatores in hac etiam parte Syndici vestri constituantur, atque ut quingentae quotannis librae, si ipsis necessarium videatur, vel in novas veterum scriptorum editiones apparandas, vel in recentiorum opera divulganda insumendae iis hoc nomine e Communi Cista erogentur....