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Taylor was bound to bookseller Thomas Mathews on 2 March 1640 and freed 7 May 1649. Despite serving as Beadle for nearly twenty years (1674-1692), Taylor was a controversial figure in the Company. He was frequently reprimanded for rude and abusive behaviour, particularly to the Master. As Beadle, Taylor was heavily involved in the legal proceedings of the Company. In 1681, the practice of disfranchising the Beadle so that they might appear as a witness in legal cases involving the Company was introduced. He was also active in search and seizure duties. Plomer has Taylor still in business as late as 1700.

Born in Leicestershire, Starkey served his apprenticeship to the bookseller John Sawywell from 1646 to 1655. He quickly established himself in a shop on Fleet Street, where he gained a reputation for publishing and selling the writings of controversial political theorists, such as George Lawson, James Harrington, and John Milton. Starkey’s single most significant publication was the first printed translation of Machiavelli’s Works in 1675. It has been suggested that Starkey himself was the translator, though it is more often attributed to Henry Neville (another of Starkey’s authors). His bookshop by Temple Bar was watched by authorities from as early as 1675, initially for Starkey’s alarming knowledge and news of parliamentary affairs, but by 1679 it had become meeting place for the Green Ribbon Club. In the fallout following the Rye House Plot, Starkey fled to Amsterdam, where he communed with radical thinkers again, including John Locke. In 1688, he assisted the Dutch campaign by publishing Williamite propaganda. Once returned to England, Starkey was chosen as an Assistant for the Stationers’ Company, but refused to take his seat when he was placed in the lowest place, which though appropriate as the newest Assistant, did not reflect his many years in the trade. He died shortly afterwards with the matter unresolved.

Scott was apprenticed to bookseller Daniel Frere in 1649 before then being turned over to William Wells in 1651. He attained the freedom of the Stationers’ Company in 1656. From 1661, for the duration of his career, Scott held shop at the Prince’s Arms in Little Britain. He was elected a liveryman in 1664. Scott’s publishing endeavours were done in partnership with the Wells family. However, he is best known as a bookseller, boasting clients such as Samuel Pepys, Robert Hooke and John Cosin. Scott was particularly noted for importing and personally retrieving scholarly Latin books from continental Europe for his customers. In 1681, the King saw that he was appointed to the Court of Assistants. Scott fined for all Company offices, including Master. He was the London agent of the Oxford University Press and Bodleian Library, to whom he arranged the sale of materials.

Sawbridge was born in Hilmorton, near Rugby. He served his apprenticeship to bookseller Edward Brewster 1638-1645, and shortly after attaining the freedom, married his master’s daughter, Hannah. On the death of Edward Brewster, Sawbridge succeeded him as Treasurer of the English Stock (1647). He was made a partner in the King’s Printing House after the Restoration. Sawbridge built immense wealth through investing in both the King’s Printing House and Company Stock and his estate was worth over £10,000 at the time of his death. His tenure as Treasurer was blighted slightly by a scandal involving the Cambridge printing house. In 1668, Sawbridge acted as executor for the resident printer at Cambridge, John Field’s, will, and disguised the fact he had bought Field’s printing materials and leasehold of the Cambridge printing house. He could not succeed to the Cambridge printing house and retain the Treasurership and so arranged for the printer John Hayes to manage the Cambridge printing house. His secret was not discovered until 1679, resulting in stricter auditing of accounts. Even then, it was not until 1690 that the University Printer became an English Stock employee rather than a Sawbridge servant.

Royston was a prolific bookseller and publisher in the seventeenth-century. Over a long career in the trade, he published over 800 books, including the works of notable writers such as John Donne and Thomas Heywood. He served his apprenticeship from 1617 to 1627, initially to Josias Harrison before being turned over to John Grismond. Royston was a staunch royalist throughout the Civil Wars and Interregnum and was periodically imprisoned for publishing pamphlets critical of parliament. His loyalty was rewarded after the Restoration when the King granted him the monopoly for the works of Charles I. Moreover, it was the King’s intervention that saw Royston admitted to the Company Court of Assistants in 1663. To reflect his elevation in the Company, Royston was also admitted to the livery around this time. He proved a problematic figure for the Stationers’ Company, and was often reprimanded for infringing Company printing rights, and others’ copies. Royston enjoyed the affluent post of stationer to the court of Charles II.

Norton served his apprenticeship to his uncle, the London bookseller, William Norton from 1578 to 1586. From 1587, Norton was often found in Edinburgh, where he was importing books from Germany, especially after having secured a license to import books duty free into Scotland in 1589. The Scottish business weakened, however, after losing legal cases against other Edinburgh booksellers and Norton sold the business off entirely in 1596. Meanwhile in London, his first publication was a tract by Beza in 1590. Some of Norton’s more notable later publications included John Gerard’s Herbal (1597) and James I & VI’s Basilicon Doron (1603). John Bill was bound as an apprentice to Norton in 1592 and would go on to become his lifelong business partner, often travelling to continental Europe as Norton’s agent. In 1605, Norton, Bill and Norton’s cousin, Bonham Norton, formed an official publishing partnership under the imprint Officina Nortoniana. As a member of the Stationers’ Company, Norton was elected to the livery in 1598. He rose through the ranks of the Company after being elected an Assistant in 1602, serving as Upper-warden and Master for terms apiece. By the time of his death in 1612, Norton was an incredibly wealthy bookseller and left £1000 to the Company in his will.

Mearne was born in Reading in 1624, served Robert Bates as an apprentice 1637-1646, and had set up his own book bindery in Little Britain by 1653. Upon the Restoration, Mearne was appointed Bookbinder to the King and enjoyed royal favour for the remainder of his life. In 1668, Charles II intervened to see Mearne appointed to the Company’s Court of Assistants. In 1675 Mearne’s position as Binder to the King was expanded to the life-long offices of Bookbinder, Bookseller, and Stationer to the King, which he held with his son Charles. At the same time, Mearne consolidated his influence in the Stationers’ Company, serving as under-warden for two terms (1672-1674), upper-warden (1676-1677), and finally Maser of the Company (1679-1680, 1682-1683). He was particularly known in both the Company and to the King for being involved in searches for illicit printing activity. Mearne remains famous in the book trade to this day for his elaborate and highly desirable bindings. He is credited with creating the “cottage style”, often found in red and black leather.

The founder of Guy’s Hospital was by trade a bookseller. Age eight, Guy’s father died, and the family moved to his mother’s hometown of Tamworth. Here, Guy was likely educated at Tamworth Grammar School until, in 1660, he was apprenticed to London bookseller John Clarke. Guy was freed of the Stationers’ Company in 1668 and made a freeman of the City of London. In 1673, he was admitted to the livery of the Company. His early career was defined by a defiance of Company patents. He was found importing Dutch Bibles and in 1679, Guy and fellow bookseller Peter Parker were selected by John Fell, Bishop of Oxford, to set up a press for the university and produce Bibles. A long legal battle ensued between Guy, Parker and the university and the Stationers’ Company. However, in 1691 the Company were triumphant, having removed Guy and Parker from their Oxford contract. Nonetheless, Guy was a highly successful bookseller and businessman, aided by successful investments in the South Sea Company. He turned his wealth to philanthropy, particularly aiding his childhood home of Tamworth. Here, he founded an alms house with a library, donated to the grammar school, and workhouses. Guy served as MP for Tamworth 1695-1708. In 1704, he became a governor of St Thomas’s Hospital and in 1721 bought land to build a new hospital in London, which would become Guy’s Hospital. Thomas Guy died in 1724. His remains were later interred in the crypt at Guy’s Hospital.

John Day was a leading member of the Elizabethan book trade. His early years remain obscure, but he was printing in London from 1546. Working in partnership with William Seres, Day seized upon the opportunities presented by the accession of Edward VI. With the regulations against Protestant and evangelical works removed, Day and Seres published authors including John Hooper, Hugh Latimer, and John Calvin. In 1550, Day dissolved his partnership with Seres and transferred from the Stringers’ Company to the Stationers’ Company. In 1553, he secured the patent to publish works by Thomas Becon and John Ponet. The reign of Mary proved challenging for the evangelical printer and he was briefly imprisoned in 1554, but Elizabeth’s accession saw him restored to prominence. Under Elizabeth, Day collected major printing patents so that he controlled the publication of some of the period’s most lucrative works, including the ABC with Little Catechism and English psalter. His most ambitious and significant publication was John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. Day’s success and ever-growing monopolies of lucrative books did not make him a popular figure in the trade. In 1573, there was an attempt on his life and in 1584 he was forced to hand the rights to thirty books to the Stationers’ Company. He died whilst travelling to visit his wife’s family in Suffolk, leaving a hefty and complex inheritance for his son, Richard Day, who inherited his business.

Sir Thomas Davies was the first of very few stationers to become Lord Mayor of London. Born in London and educated at St. Paul’s School, Davies was apprenticed in 1648 to bookseller, Thomas Whitaker, whilst also being bound to his father in the Drapers’ Company. He was freed of the Stationers’ Company in 1655 and set up as a bookseller in St Paul’s Churchyard. Davies took the livery in 1664. He was able to become increasingly involved in London civic life after inheriting a fortune from his great-uncle Hugh Audley (d.1662). In 1667, Davies was made alderman and knighted in quick succession, and was consequently elected to Company Assistant and shortly after Master of the Stationers’ Company. Upon his election to Lord Mayor of London in 1676, Davies transferred to the Drapers’ Company as only a liveryman of one of the Twelve Great Companies could hold the mayoralty. Following his tenure as Lord Mayor, Davies served as Master of the Drapers’ Company and Colonel of the Orange Regiment.

Curtis served his apprenticeship to Thomas Matthews from 1659 to 1666. Less than a month after completing his apprenticeship, he married Jane Evans and together they set up as booksellers on Ludgate Hill near Fleet Bridge. Curtis first registered a copy with the Company Register on 16 February 1669, entitled The Quakers Spirituall Cort Proclaymed. He and his wife Jane were responsible for numerous scandalous and seditious works and consequently in near constant trouble with the authorities. The Curtis’ most incendiary works were carefully timed political commentaries, such as A Pacquet of Advice from Rome, a weekly sheet first released in 1678, coinciding with the frenzy of the Popish Plot; Scroggs upon Scroggs (1681) satirising Lord Chief Justice William Scroggs; and Lord Russell’s Ghost (1683) on the Whig martyr Lord William Russelll. It was publications like these, which has seen Curtis labelled a Whig publisher, further consolidated by his newspaper the True Protestant Mercury. Langley Curtis’s final imprint is dated 1690. He appears to have died in 1693 in Ireland.

Crooke served his apprenticeship to bookseller Roger Potts from1622 to 1629. He thereafter set up shop at ‘the sign of Green Dragon’, which sign, despite moving premises, he kept for the entirety of his career. Crooke slowly but surely climbed the ranks of the Stationers’ Company. He took the livery in 1638 and was elected to the Court of Assistants in 1653. Crooke served as both under-warden (1660-1661) and upper-warden (1663-1664) before completing two terms as Master of the Company (1665-1667). Outside the Company, Crooke was also the representative of Farringdon Within for the city of London’s common council (1656-1657, 1659-1663, 1667). Crooke is perhaps best remembered as Thomas Hobbes’s publisher. He entered Leviathan, Hobbe’s most famous and most controversial work, in the Stationers’ Register in 1651. Crooke though was not only Hobbe’s publisher, but his agent more widely. He was responsible for a large part of Hobbes’s correspondence, which was directed through Crooke’s shop. From as early as 1673, Crooke’s nephew William succeeded to this position as Hobbe’s man and thereafter managed the philosopher’s letters, both written and printed. Andrew Crooke died on 20 September 1674.

Blount was educated at the Merchant Taylors’ School, giving him a knowledge of Latin, Italian, and literary quality. He was apprenticed to notable Elizabethan publisher, William Ponsonby, for ten years from 1578. Blount has been described as ‘the most important publisher of the early seventeenth century’. His keen interest in European scholarship and languages was reflected in his publications, which boasted translated works, European travel accounts, and John Florio’s dictionaries. Of course, Blount’s most famous publication remains the first folio edition of Shakespeare’s plays. Other significant Blount publications include works by Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, George Chapman, Samuel Daniel, John Lyly, and Thomas Hobbes. He was a respected member of the Stationers’ Company, elected liveryman in 1611 and to the Court of Assistants in 1625. After his death, Blount’s widow, Elizabeth, sold his copyrights to Andrew Crooke.

Bishop served his apprenticeship to Elizabeth Toy from 1556 to 1562. His early career was spent working with London bookseller Lucas Harrison to import unbound books and maps from Antwerp. Bishop and Harrison appear in the records of Antwerp printer Christophe Plantin, visiting and buying books from the famed Plantin printing house. Bishop was one of very few British booksellers to sell at the Frankfurt bookfair and was listed in the Frankfurt catalogues 1594-1605. He was an important publisher at home too, and was involved in the production and costs of major works including, John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, John Stow’s Annals of England, as well as editions from Ralphael Holinshed, William Camden, and Richard Hakluyt. Bishop was a dedicated member of the Stationers’ Company. He was elected to the livery in 1568 and served as Master five times: 1590, 1592, 1600, 1602, and 1608; and was twice elected to serve remaining terms when an incumbent Master died (1593, 1603). Between 1588 and 1599, he managed the Queen’s printing house as Christopher Barker’s deputy. Bishop’s will, proved in 1611, left his property in Shropshire to the Company as well as money for the Company’s poor.