Subfonds STO - Records of the English Stock

7 series

Records of the formation and administration of the Stationers' Company's primary joint stock company.

English Stock records have been arranged into 7 sections:

TSC/STO/A: Constitutional records

TSC/STO/B: Governance records

TSC/STO/C: Membership records

TSC/STO/D: Financial records

TSC/STO/E: Trade records

TSC/STO/F: Administrative records

TSC/STO/G: Property records

• English

• Latin

Court minute books [TSC/B/01]

C Blagden, 'The English Stock of the Stationers' Company in the Time of the Stuarts', The Library, 5 xii (1957), pp. 167-86 C Blagden, 'The English Stock of the Stationers' Company: An Account of its Origins', The Library, 5 x (1955), pp. 163-85 R Bowden, 'The English Stock and the Stationers' Company: The Final Years', in R Myers (ed.), 'The Stationers' Company: A History of the Later Years 1800-2000' (Phillimore & Co Ltd: Chichester, 2001), pp. 79-105

Catalogued

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The English Stock was a joint stock company established by Letters Patent in 1603. It traded from Stationers' Hall in books which had been assigned to the Company by the original patentees, effectively establishing a monopoly on printing popular works including almanacs, psalters and primers. Shares in the English Stock were purchased by members of the Stationers' Company according to their position within the Company; they could be inherited by a partner's widow, but would be re-assigned if she re-married outside the Company.

The term 'English' refers to the fact that the books the company traded in were chiefly in English. At various times, the Stationers held other stock relating to different categories of publication: there was a Ballad Stock, a Bible Stock, an Irish Stock, a Latin Stock, and a Scotch Patent. However, the English Stock was the only one which functioned as a continuously viable and profitable entity.

The English Stock was wound up in 1961, when the remaining partners were given lifetime annuities.