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After the death of her husband, printer David Mallet, in 1683, Elizabeth became the operator of their two printing presses in Black Horse Alley, near Fleet Bridge. She specialised in lurid and sensational tracts, registering a great number of such works with the Stationers’ Company. Mallet also produced serial publications, such as The New State of Europe, and, most famously, the first ten issues of the Daily Courant, the first daily newspaper in Britain.

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.

Christopher Meredith was a bookseller, specialising in theological books, who served as an Assistant of the Stationers’ Company from 1645 to his death in 1653.Born in Kempsey, Worcester, Meredith was apprenticed to stationer John Piper in 1616. Upon attaining the freedom in 1624, Meredith steadily rose through the ranks of the Stationers’ Company. He was clothed in 1631, and served as Renter Warden 1642-1644. Upon his death, Meredith left his two houses in St Paul’s Churchyard (the Crane and the Marigold) to the Company as well as a substantial charitable bequest to support poor men of the Company and gift Bibles and schoolbooks to the poor boys of Kempsey School and Christ’s Hospital.
See TSC/G/03/Meredith for more on the conditions of Meredith's bequest.

From 1730, Newbery was working as a journeyman for the printer William Carnan in Reading. Upon Carnan’s death, Newbery took over the running of the Reading Mercury and married Carnan’s widow, Mary. The family moved to London in 1744. Newbery became an important early publisher of works for children. He was an innovative and intelligent businessman, issuing the first children’s periodical and the first children’s encyclopaedia, advertising widely, offering discounts to teachers buying in bulk, and publishing other bestsellers, from the annual Ladies Complete Pocket-Book to works by Samuel Richardson and Oliver Goldsmith. From 1751, Newbery also published the works of poet Christopher Smart, a bond strengthened when his stepdaughter Anna Maria Carnan married Smart in 1752. He died a wealthy man in 1767 and was succeeded in business by his son, Francis Newbery. In recognition of Newbery’s contribution to children’s literature, the Newbery medal, introduced in 1922 in the United States, is awarded every year to an outstanding book for children.

Newcomb was born in Dunchurch, Warwickshire. He was bound to the printer Gregory Dexter on 8 November 1641 and freed by Dexter and Richard Cotes after serving seven years apprenticeship. After attaining the freedom of the Company, Newcomb married the widow Ruth Raworth and succeeded to her deceased husband’s business on Thames Street. He was elected to the livery in 1653. After the Restoration, and despite printing extensive Commonwealth literature during the Interregnum, Newcomb was appointed to manage the King’s Printing House. His print output included such notable texts as the first printed English translation of a work by Descartes, A Discourse of a Method (1649), but Newcomb was known predominantly for his printing of newsbooks and periodicals. Newcomb printed, for example, Mercurius Politicus (1651-1660), the Public Intelligencer (1655-1660), Mercurius Publicus (1656-1660), the Parliamentary Intelligencer (1656-1660), and the London Gazette (1665-1688). The Fire of London forced him to relocate to the Savoy in 1666. In 1675, he was elected to the Stationer Court of Assistants and in 1677 Newcomb was formally recognised as King’s Printer. He died on 26 December 1681, and his body was laid in state in Stationers’ Hall before being taken to Dunchurch for burial.

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.

John Playford was one of the most important publishers of music in the seventeenth century. He was born in Norwich and served seven years as apprentice to London stationer John Benson 1640-1647. Playford quickly specialised in music publications and established a bookshop by Temple Church. He took the livery in 1661, and it is from that year we find him supplying the Chapel Royal. Playford continued to enjoy royal favour, and it was the King’s influence which saw him elected to the Court of Assistants in 1681. Playford held shares in the English Stock from 1675. He was a close friend of the age’s finest musicians, including John Blow and Henry Purcell, the latter of whom composed an elegy for Playford on his death. He is buried in Temple Church.

The famous author loved letters from an early age and so, when his limited schooling meant he must choose a trade to learn, he decided to train as a printer. Richardson was apprenticed to the printer John Wilde in 1706 and freed of the Stationers’ Company in 1715. He initially stayed on with Wilde as a compositor and corrector until his former master’s death in 1720. Ricardson married Wilde’s daughter, Martha, the following year. Martha, however, died young, and Richardson married another printer’s daughter, Elizabeth Leake, in 1733. Both the Wildes and Leakes proved useful business partners to Richardson. In 1722 he was elected a liveryman of the Stationers’ Company and throughout the 1730s, Richardson was largely engaged with the printing of periodicals, journals, and newspapers. In 1742, he was awarded the contract to print the Journals of the House of Commons. It was while composing the commissioned Letters Written to and for Particular Friends, on the most Important Occasions (1741) that Richardson drafted Pamela (1740). Richardson’s first novel was a commercial success, though critical reception was mixed and a great rivalry commenced with Henry Fielding. Two more novels followed, Clarissa (1748) and Sir Charles Grandison (1753). In his later years, Richardson became especially active within the Stationers’ Company, serving as Upper-warden (1753-1754) and Master (1754-1755) in successive years. He died a wealthy man in 1761 and his novels went on to inspire the likes of Jane Austen, Honoré de Balzac, and Anna Laetitia Barbauld.

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.

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.

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.

Andrew Sowle was the most prolific printer of Quaker works in late seventeenth-century England. Three of his daughters went on to become Quaker printers too, in both London and Pennsylvania. Sowle served his apprenticeship to the widow Ruth Raworth 1646-1653. Although Sowle’s name does not appear in any imprints until 1680, he was printing for the Society of Friends from at least 1672. Sowle faced imprisonment and persecution as both a Quaker and an illicit printer. Undeterred, he printed over eighty works for the Society of Friends, including the writings of George Fox, Robert Barclay, George Whitehead, Isaac Pennington, and William Penn. He died at home in Shoreditch in 1695, leaving his printing business to his wife and daughter Tace.

One of three daughters of the printers Andrew Sowle and Jane Sowle who went into the book trade, Tace Sowle inherited the management of the family printing house and her father’s post as printer to the Society of Friends. She was freed of the Stationers’ Company by patrimony in 1695. Tace Sowle’s tenure as head of the Sowle press was the most active and prolific period of the Sowle press. John Dunton also noted her skill as a compositor. Tace eventually married in 1706 but took precautions to retain her independence and family’s control of the press. She adopted the compound surname Sowle Raylton and appointed her mother, Jane Sowle, as nominal head of the Sowle press. Tace outlived her husband by over twenty years. She died in 1749 and was buried at Bunhill Fields. For fifty-eight years she was the important Quaker printer in Britain.

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.

Stephens was apprenticed to London Stationer and printer Thomas Ratcliffe on 5 April 1658. He completed his apprenticeship in 1666 and worked briefly as a journeyman printer. Stephens was elected to the Livery of the Stationers’ Company in 1682 to general outrage, in a move by the Stationers’ Company to manipulate Lord Mayor elections. He rose to notoriety as a 'Messenger of the Press', simultaneously serving the office of Secretary of State and enforcing the rights of the Stationers' Company to search and seizure. Midnight raids upon the premises of his colleagues, earned him the nickname of 'Robin Hog'. Stephens was known for his corruption, violence, and taking bribes. Stephens also served the Company as an all-round handyman. He was performing search and seizure duties from 1677, and first appeared with the title of Messenger in 1679. He was active as Messenger of the Press between 1679 and 1684, and again between 1689 and 1712.