31 - The Bible trade

Summary

In the overall history of the book in Britain, the lapse of the Licensing Act signals a fundamental change in the circumstances of printing and publishing, but for the Bible trade the year 1695 was essentially uneventful. The production of the Authorized (or King James) Version (AV) of the Bible, along with the Book of Common Prayer (the liturgy of the established Church of England), continued to be the subject of a privilege enjoyed in England by the King’s Printer in London and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, in Scotland by the King’s Printer for Scotland, and in Ireland by the Printer-General. Similarly, the metrical psalms – in the version of Thomas Sternhold and John Hopkins – continued to form part of the English Stock of the Stationers’ Company, to be printed by members on behalf of the shareholders, and often bound up with Bibles and prayer books from the privileged printers.

The privileged printers

The history of the office of the King’s Printer in England is a complex one,reflected in the imprints of London Bibles: there were competing claims to the office and overlapping patents; moreover, the nominal incumbents frequently assigned their rights to others, either exclusively or in fractions, such arrangements being indicated by imprints reading ‘By the assigns of …’ In January 1710, the office passed to the heirs of Thomas Newcombe and Henry Hills for a period of thirty years. John Baskett, who was subsequently to secure a virtual monopoly of Bible printing in Britain, bought a one-sixth share of this privilege in May 1710, and by 1732 – when his name first appears alone in the imprint of a London Bible – he had bought out the other interests. At his death in 1742, Baskett was succeeded by his sons Thomas and Robert, and by dint of purchasing the competing rights of Benjamin Tooke and John Barber – due to take effect in 1740 – members of the Baskett family remained as King’s Printers until 1769, when Charles Eyre purchased the remaining thirty years of their privilege. Thus began the reign as King’s Printer of what was to become the firm Eyre and Spottiswoode, King’s/Queen’s Printer until 1990.