Blackwell's
Encyclopedia
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, which has an annual turnover of £
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
74 million. The business is distinct from Blackwell Publishing
Blackwell Publishing
Wiley-Blackwell is the international scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly publishing business of John Wiley & Sons. It was formed by the merger of John Wiley's Global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business with Blackwell Publishing, after Wiley took over Blackwell Publishing in...
, a leading academic and journal
Academic journal
An academic journal is a peer-reviewed periodical in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as forums for the introduction and presentation for scrutiny of new research, and the critique of existing research...
publisher, which was also owned by the Blackwell family, under the leadership of Nigel Blackwell, until its sale to John Wiley & Sons
John Wiley & Sons
John Wiley & Sons, Inc., also referred to as Wiley, is a global publishing company that specializes in academic publishing and markets its products to professionals and consumers, students and instructors in higher education, and researchers and practitioners in scientific, technical, medical, and...
in 2007.
The company started out as a bookshop selling academic books in Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, growing to include a chain of bookshops and a (now separate) publishing firm. The original shop, much expanded behind an unassuming front, still stands on Broad Street, Oxford; the company owns two bookstores on the same street covering different specialities (art and music), and several others in the city. Other Blackwell's bookshops also tend to have an academic emphasis and they are often located close to universities.
History
The company was founded in 1879 by Benjamin Henry Blackwell, son of the first city librarian, who having finished his education at 13, was apprenticed to a local bookseller for a shilling£sd
£sd was the popular name for the pre-decimal currencies used in the Kingdom of England, later the United Kingdom, and ultimately in much of the British Empire...
a week. His father, Benjamin Harris Blackwell, had been heavily involved in the Temperance Society
Temperance movement
A temperance movement is a social movement urging reduced use of alcoholic beverages. Temperance movements may criticize excessive alcohol use, promote complete abstinence , or pressure the government to enact anti-alcohol legislation or complete prohibition of alcohol.-Temperance movement by...
. The society promoted, as well as religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
, self-education and also encouraged reading. The society provided separate rooms for non-alcoholic refreshment and silent reading. A religious family, the Blackwells had also become involved with the Temperance Society due to Benjamin's father being teetotal, and as a protest against the government making money from the excise duty on alcohol.
The flagship Broad Street
Broad Street, Oxford
Broad Street is a wide street in central Oxford, England, located just north of the old city wall.The street is known for its bookshops, including the original Blackwell's bookshop at number 50, located here due to the University...
shop in Oxford, at number 50 was originally only twelve feet square but quickly grew to incorporate the upstairs, cellar and neighbouring shops. Benjamin Henry Blackwell was well respected in Oxford and was elected the first-ever Liberal
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
councillor for Oxford North.
Basil Blackwell
Basil Blackwell
Sir Basil Blackwell was born Henry Blackwell in Oxford, England. He was the son of the founder of Blackwell's bookshop in Oxford, which went on to become the Blackwell's family publishing and bookshop empire, located on Broad Street in central Oxford...
, Benjamin Henry's son, became the first Blackwell to go to university; he was awarded a scholarship
Scholarship
A scholarship is an award of financial aid for a student to further education. Scholarships are awarded on various criteria usually reflecting the values and purposes of the donor or founder of the award.-Types:...
at Oxford University's Merton College
Merton College, Oxford
Merton College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the 1260s when Walter de Merton, chancellor to Henry III and later to Edward I, first drew up statutes for an independent academic community and established endowments to...
. However he was expected to join the family firm, which he did in 1913, after a spell as an apprentice publisher in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. He was tasked with expanding his father's publishing business.
The first Blackwell publication, Mensæ Secundæ: verses written in Balliol College
Balliol College, Oxford
Balliol College , founded in 1263, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England but founded by a family with strong Scottish connections....
by H.C. Beeching, was printed in 1897. Blackwell’s began the careers of many writers: in 1915 J. R. R. Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
's first poem, "Goblin's Feet", was published. To ensure everyone had access to literature, Blackwell's pioneered a series of cheaper books, from a one-volume Shakespeare to "3/6
£sd
£sd was the popular name for the pre-decimal currencies used in the Kingdom of England, later the United Kingdom, and ultimately in much of the British Empire...
novels". The publishing company was merged into the main company in 1921, and a scientific section was added in 1939.
Basil Blackwell also wanted to preserve fine printing. After rescuing the Shakespeare Head Press, he commissioned belles-lettres
Belles-lettres
Belles-lettres or belles lettres is a term that is used to describe a category of writing. A writer of belles-lettres is a belletrist. However, the boundaries of that category vary in different usages....
, including well-known classics such as the Pilgrim's Progress, the works of the Brontë
Brontë
The Brontës were a nineteenth-century literary family associated with Haworth in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. The sisters, Charlotte , Emily , and Anne , are well-known as poets and novelists...
s and a complete version of Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer , known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey...
's Canterbury Tales.
When Benjamin Henry died in 1924, Basil Blackwell took over from his father, running the firm, with the nickname
Nickname
A nickname is "a usually familiar or humorous but sometimes pointed or cruel name given to a person or place, as a supposedly appropriate replacement for or addition to the proper name.", or a name similar in origin and pronunciation from the original name....
"gaffer" for over sixty years.
In 1966, the Norrington Room was opened, named after Sir Arthur Norrington
Arthur Lionel Pugh Norrington
Sir Arthur Lionel Pugh Norrington , was a publisher, President of Trinity College, Oxford, Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, and originator of the Norrington Table.-Life:...
, the President of Trinity College
Trinity College, Oxford
The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity in the University of Oxford, of the foundation of Sir Thomas Pope , or Trinity College for short, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. It stands on Broad Street, next door to Balliol College and Blackwells bookshop,...
and extending under part of Trinity College. It boasts three miles (5 km) of shelving and at 10000 square feet (929 m²) merited an entry in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest single room selling books.
Recent history
The company has made a determined policy since the 1990s to spread out from its traditional Oxford base, and take on a much broader UK presence.This has included in 1995 becoming the first bookstore in the UK that allowed its customers to purchase online, with access to over 150,000 titles; and the opening in 1995 of a flagship store in London, at 100 Charing Cross Road
Charing Cross Road
Charing Cross Road is a street in central London running immediately north of St Martin-in-the-Fields to St Giles Circus and then becomes Tottenham Court Road...
, which is now one of the company's six flagship stores. The company took over the Heffers string of bookshops in Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
in 1999, and in 2002 acquired the academic bookshops of James Thin
James Thin
James Thin was, until 2002, the principal academic bookshop in Edinburgh, Scotland, with its main premises near the University of Edinburgh in Infirmary Street. It also had branches in other cities, including Perth and Dundee....
in Scotland.
Blackwell's now has over 60 retail outlets across the UK, including a number of specialist stores, with several medical outlets, and even a shop in Aberdeen
Aberdeen
Aberdeen is Scotland's third most populous city, one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas and the United Kingdom's 25th most populous city, with an official population estimate of ....
specialising in the oil industry.
The company is still in the hands of the Blackwell family. Support for its activities, including Blackwell's Online, is based at Beaver House in Oxford.
Both the Oxford and London flagship stores have won Bookseller of the Year at the British Book Awards
British Book Awards
The Galaxy National Book Awards are a series of British literary awards focused on the best UK writers and their works, as selected by an academy of members from the British book publishing industry...
.