Thompson, Nathaniel (d. 1687), printer

Although Thompson’s personal faith has never been confirmed, he is remembered as a major printer and publisher of Catholic texts in the seventeenth century. Born in Ireland in the 1640s, Thompson was apprenticed to Dublin bookseller, and former lord mayor, William Bladen. By 1668, he had moved to London and was freed of the Stationers’ Company in 1669. Between 1672 and 1678, Thompson partnered with fellow printer Thomas Ratcliffe, whose daughter, Mary Daniel he married (widow of Thomas Daniel). Together, Thompson and Ratcliffe engaged in the printing of dissenting religious works, which practice Thompson continued after leaving Ratcliffe for new premises in Fetter Lane. Mary Thompson, a professed Catholic, was notedly active in these aspects of the business too. Thompson’s career was marked by a string of conflicts, imprisonments and examinations for printing Catholic devotional texts and tracts. In 1680, he was even arrested for treason, though the charges were later dropped. Leading Tory publisher, With his newssheet, the True Domestick Intelligence, he became known as the leading Tory publisher of the age. The Thompsons experienced a reversal of fortunes following the accession of James II and though Thompson died in 1687, first his widow, and then his stepdaughter and her husband, Mary and David Edwards, continued the printing business.

Mary Daniel (wife); Margaret Thompson (daughter); Mary Edwards (stepdaughter)

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Oxford Dictionary of National Biography