William Bowyer (1663-1737)
Encyclopedia
William Bowyer the elder (1663 – December 27, 1737), English
printer
was apprenticed to a Miles Flesher in 1679, made a liveryman of The Stationers' and Newspaper Makers' Company in 1700, and nominated as one of the twenty printers allowed by the Star Chamber
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Bowyer originally settled in White Friars, where he remained until January 1712/3, when his printing-house and warehouse were destroyed by fire. Bowyer began printing again on his own in October 1713 in Temple Lane. By 1716, thanks to the grant of a royal warrant for a charitable collection, and the generous support of the London trade, Bowyer was well on his way to economic recovery. William Bowyer, the son, born in 1699, entered the business as a corrector in June 1722. Father and son worked side-by-side until the former’s death in December 1737 and their publishing house was considered the most learned of its time. Although they published such important, learned works as Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, they also published political pamphlets and advertising bills.
The four Bowyer ledgers, kept by father and son, are one of but four printing houses out of the seventy-four master printers in London in 1724, for which records are extant and offer the earliest example by over 20 years.
A main source for the lives of both father and son is John Nichols' Literary anecdotes of the eighteenth century.
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...
printer
Printer (publisher)
In publishing, printers are both companies providing printing services and individuals who directly operate printing presses. With the invention of the moveable type printing press by Johannes Gutenberg around 1450, printing—and printers—proliferated throughout Europe.Today, printers are found...
was apprenticed to a Miles Flesher in 1679, made a liveryman of The Stationers' and Newspaper Makers' Company in 1700, and nominated as one of the twenty printers allowed by the Star Chamber
Star Chamber
The Star Chamber was an English court of law that sat at the royal Palace of Westminster until 1641. It was made up of Privy Counsellors, as well as common-law judges and supplemented the activities of the common-law and equity courts in both civil and criminal matters...
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Bowyer originally settled in White Friars, where he remained until January 1712/3, when his printing-house and warehouse were destroyed by fire. Bowyer began printing again on his own in October 1713 in Temple Lane. By 1716, thanks to the grant of a royal warrant for a charitable collection, and the generous support of the London trade, Bowyer was well on his way to economic recovery. William Bowyer, the son, born in 1699, entered the business as a corrector in June 1722. Father and son worked side-by-side until the former’s death in December 1737 and their publishing house was considered the most learned of its time. Although they published such important, learned works as Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, they also published political pamphlets and advertising bills.
The four Bowyer ledgers, kept by father and son, are one of but four printing houses out of the seventy-four master printers in London in 1724, for which records are extant and offer the earliest example by over 20 years.
A main source for the lives of both father and son is John Nichols' Literary anecdotes of the eighteenth century.