THE ESTABLISHMENT OF PRINTING IN NORWICH
CAUSES AND EFFECTS 1660-17601

DAVID STOKER

That clause of the 'Act for preventing the frequent abuses in printing' of 16622 which severely restricted the provincial press was no new departure in English law; it was merely an amplification of the earlier Star Chamber decrees of 1586 and 1637 and the original terms of the Charter of the Stationers' Company. A more significant factor in the control of provincial printing was the economic forces which had ensured a highly centralised printing industry in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Most English provincial cities were simply not capable of providing sufficient business to support a local press at this time. There were, of course, exceptions to this rule, notably the university towns of Oxford and Cambridge and the archiepiscopal seat of York. The universities had had the legal right to print since 1558 and provided a particular market for books, and York, having proved to the satisfaction of local authority and central government that it could support and derive benefit from a press, was excluded from the terms of the 1662 act. Elsewhere in the provinces at this time there was no real incentive for printers to set up in business, and so when the 1662 Licensing Act temporarily lapsed between 1679 and 1685 there was no mushrooming of presses throughout the main provincial centres.

Economic conditions outside London were however changing quite radically at this time. The major provincial cities could provide sufficient work for a much wider variety of tradesmen in the last decade of the century than they could in the first. It was during the late seventeenth century that the provincial book trade really came of age, the direct result of an expansion in the number of people who could read during the first six decades, and in the awakening of a demand for news and political comment. By the end of the century conditions had changed sufficiently for certain of the larger cities to begin to be able to support a local press. For this reason the final lapse of the Licensing Act in 1695 was followed by the gradual introduction of printing to various cities. In 1695 William Bonny set up a press in Bristol, followed by Thomas Jones in Shrewsbury the following year, Samuel Barker in Exeter in 1698 and Francis Burges in Norwich in 1701.3

In the decades following the Restoration of the Monarchy, contemporary Norwich documents indicate that there was occasionally a need for certain small items of printing which might most conveniently be undertaken by a local printer. For example, in 1682 the Town Clerk had a ream of paper printed in Cambridge containing articles for officers in each parish to certify their Aldermen.4 Similarly, in 1687 the bookseller William Oliver was required to arrange for bye-laws to be printed for the Mayor's Court.5 At about the same time the clergy began to make use of printed forms for such things as marriage licence bonds and apprenticeship indentures for the poor children bound by their parishes.6 Those Norwich booksellers like Edward Giles, George Rose, and the Oliver family, who, in the late seventeenth century were beginning to finance the publication of small works, would no doubt have welcomed the opportunity of having their productions printed at Norwich, thereby saving the cost and trouble of transportation. However this intermittent demand from local officialdom and the established book trade could not possibly have provided enough work to support a press.

A much more important factor in providing a sufficient market for a successful printing business in the city was the growing demand for news. In Norwich, and probably equivalent provincial centres, at the turn of the century, no printer could have survived without a guaranteed regular commission. This work was in fact provided by the weekly local newspaper, the production of which dominated every printing business in the city. The successful introduction of local printing could therefore only come at a time when the populace were receptive to regular printed news publications. The development of a public appetite for such intelligence is a noteworthy feature of the latter part of the seventeenth century.

The interest in published news, particularly that of a political nature, probably stems from the years immediately prior to the Civil War, and first developed during a period when there was little control over much of the output of the press in England. However the Licensing Act of 1662 re-iterated the former controls and strongly militated against the kind of news publication which had been so popular before the Restoration. All printing had to be licensed; this took time and thereby discounted most of the news value and discouraged the publication of controversial subjects. Secondly, in January 1664 Roger L'Estrange, the licenser of the press, was granted a monopoly of news publications.7 Although unofficial printed news was never completely suppressed, the government policy did have the effect of radically changing many of the basic organs of news available to the more affluent members of the reading public in a city such as Norwich, transferring their allegiance to the manuscript newsletter once more, at the expense of the printed news book or newspaper.

Having both the advantage of currency and the lack of any rigid control on their contents, commercial newsletters quickly became very popular;8 being sent direct to individual subscribers in the country and to booksellers in the major towns. They also reached a far wider audience by being supplied to coffee-houses and inns where they might be read by patrons. Sir Thomas Browne, for example, makes frequent mention of newsletters in his correspondence - on one occasion referring to them as the 'coffie and common newes letters'9 - and they were evidently an everyday part of his life. Although they were manuscript, booksellers nevertheless played a part in their distribution, and the Norwich public continued to look to their booksellers as an obvious source for national news. In 1680 Browne complimented his son in a letter for sending him a vivid account of a comet which had been seen in London;

'It was the first account of it that came to Norwich, though some report there was that it had been seen. And therefore your description in what manner you sawe it was the more wellcome, and Mr Oliver the bookeseller would needs write it out that hee might gratifie his friends and customers with your account thereof. The newes letters mention 'd it, butt to little or no purpose or any information.10

When in 1663 the Mayor's Court recognised the need for the members to be provided with reliable accounts of the latest happenings throughout the country, they turned to the bookseller William Nowell and paid him one pound each quarter for his services.11 Nowell also profited by the newsletters in another way, he not only sold news but acted as a correspondent for the London 'news agents', supplying them with accounts of events in Norfolk, to be edited and collated for inclusion in those being sent to other parts of the country.12

The evidence available in Norwich suggests that for the twenty-five years following the Restoration, these newsletters were a more important means of disseminating information than any regularly printed 'official' publication (although perhaps as the latter were in no way controversial, they do not appear as often in judicial records). Inevitably newsletters were both expensive and in many ways unsatisfactory, and so as the censorship of the printing press weakened after 1685 they began to lose their popularity amongst the towns-people and be replaced by the emerging London newspapers.13 Copies of the London Gazette and other printed papers were being supplied to provincial coffee-houses by the 1 690s, quite possibly earlier.14 The need for a local newspaper in Norwich must have been readily apparent at this time, but would not be satisfied whilst printing was by law and long tradition confined to London and a few other places. When John Houghton produced his quasi-newspaper Collections for the improvement of husbandry and trade after 1692, which was aimed specifically at the provincial market, at least one Norwich bookseller recognised the need for such a publication. The colophon of this paper stated that it was sold not only by vendors in London and hawkers throughout the countryside, but also by George Rose in Norwich.15

By 1695 therefore, there were a number of indications that a Norwich printing office might indications enough business to survive if it included the publication of a newspaper, particularly as the city was still the largest in the kingdom outside the capital. These points can be set against certain disadvantages which may partially explain the six year wait before any man ventured to reintroduce the trade to the city. Although Norwich was remote from London and carriage costs were high, because of the relative proximity of Cambridge the city was not as remote from a printing press as Bristol, Exeter or Shrewsbury. For a new press to become established it would need all the advantages possible over competitors in London or elsewhere, and the cost of carrying books was not so high that it alone would guarantee the survival of a local press. Secondly in Norwich there may have been a problem in obtaining paper supplies in the 1690s, there being no mill situated nearby. The cost of transporting paper long distances to the provincial printer would have been almost as much as the cost of transporting the printed books from the London printer to the provincial stationer. However, when at the very end of the century paper-mills were established in Norfolk at Castle Rising and Taverham,16 this problem was largely overcome and the balance of advantage began to be in favour of the establishment of a local printing office.

In November 1692 Francis Burges, the son of a minor London clergyman, began an apprenticeship with Freeman Collins, a prosperous London printer.17 The boy was no doubt an intelligent and industrious pupil who gained the full confidence of his master. In December 1699, after the customary seven year apprenticeship, he became a freeman of the Company of Stationers thereby gaining the right to be his own master.18 Burges realised that his chances of founding an entirely new and successful printing business in London at this time were not great, and he had no prospect of either inheriting a business from his father or eventually taking control of his master's business. In London the demand for printed material was still expanding, but at nothing like the same rate that it had been expanding fifty years earlier, and there was still fearsome competition from established concerns. The young Burges therefore looked further afield, noting the emerging presses in some provincial cities, and resolved to set up in business in Norwich.

'I likewise observed, when at London, how usefull it [printing] was to abundance of traders in divers respects, concluded this a fet place or as able to mantane a printing house as Exeter Chester Bristoll or Yorks &c.19

Probably with his master's financial assistance, Francis Burges leased an office near the Red Well in the parish of St Andrew, and after having obtained the requisite materials he began printing there on 27 September 1701, fully believing that he was the first man ever to practise the trade in Norwich.20 The immediate reaction of the Norwich booksellers to the new press was favourable. Before any work had emerged from the Red Well printing office, he had gained several commissions for the production of small works such as sermons, catechisms and combination papers. The following year he was also employed to print treatises for, and at the expense of, local clergy and he financed other pieces himself. However, this work alone was not sufficient to maintain him and his wife, and so soon after opening his press (probably in November 1701) he began to print the first truly provincial weekly newspaper in England, the Norwich Post.21

From the very beginning the printer was conscious that he was breaking into a new field and so needed acceptance not only by members of the book trade but also by both the city authorities and the community as a whole. He could not really have afforded to antagonise anyone in power but rather needed their good will. For this reason the very first book he printed was a kind of primitive essay in public relations. Some observations on the use and original of the noble art of printing was a history which also set forth the advantages that the trade had brought to mankind. The preface explained some of Burges' reasons for setting up in business in Norwich, simultaneously flattering the local population and discounting possible objections.

.... and that it being an Honour, as well as an Advantage to ye place where it comes, doubted lettle, of its exceptation, it grately promoting traid, and the Nature of printing being to Refine and when so, to publish it to every ones advantage.22

Re went on to promise that he would be able to dispatch business at least as soon, as well, and as cheaply as if sent to London, pointing out that paper could be obtained cheaply at Taverham and that Norwich 'could vend an impression or two, as has been lately experienced.23

For five years Burges therefore carried on and built up a fairly successful business entirely without any competition. The Norwich Post and probably a variety of jobbing work provided a steady income which was periodically supplemented by the printing of small books (at least thirty titles of which still survive).24 In the early days the printer also acted as a kind of small scale bookseller, probably selling items exchanged in London for his own productions,25 but later he appears to have given this up, selling only his own publications and possibly patent medicines. At first his finances were uncertain and he was therefore equipped with only limited quantities of several worn types. By 1703 he was able to purchase a new english bodied fount of roman and italic which was thereafter the basis of most of his work. Unfortunately this story of moderate success was brought to a sudden and premature end in November 1706 when the thirty year old printer died, leaving his widow Elizabeth and a journeyman to run what was rapidly becoming a thriving business.26

Local officialdom naturally kept a very close watch on the actions of the early Norwich printers, in much the same way as they had always controlled the dissemination and circulation of literature within the city; but this is not to say they were therefore automatically against local printing, for they certainly were not. So long as the individual printer was prepared to impose self-restraint, and there would be no possible civil disturbance resulting from, or aggravated by the local press, the magistracy and the church were in favour of the trade and willing to offer it their patronage.

Francis Burges clearly recognised the necessity of remaining on the right side of authority in the early days when his work must have been viewed with a certain amount of suspicion. From the very beginning he declared that he would take care not to meddle with libels.27 Fortunately he could afford to keep his promise, for there was enough work forthcoming to keep him in business without venturing into forbidden fields. As a result he was able to overcome any prejudice and suspicion from the authorities and obtain some useful commissions to do work for the Corporation. The Mayor's Court began to insert official notices and advertisements in the Norwich Post from the latter part of 1702,28 and the members greatly extended their practice of ordering that certain sermons preached before the Court should afterwards be printed. This press really achieved complete respectability when in 1706 Burges was employed to print the visitation articles for John Moore the Bishop of the Diocese.

In spite of all the evidence about the uncertain state of early provincial printing, it is certain that if the press of Francis Burges had been left without any competition it would have been not only economically viable but had the capacity of eventually being a considerable financial success. However, the work of Francis Burges had not gone unnoticed; his early death gave two of the shrewdest businessmen in Norwich, simultaneously, the idea of stepping into the shoes of the dead man. Within a few weeks two more presses appeared in the city along with two journeymen printers recruited from London, each producing a range of small publications and one more provincial newspaper. It appears that neither of these entrepreneurs (Samuel Hasbart a distiller and Thomas Goddard a bookseller) had foreseen the possible existence of the other as a competitor. Also neither of them realised that the widow Burges would decide to continue her husband's business. Therefore by the beginning of 1707 the situation in Norwich had completely changed. The success of Francis Burges had been built up on the basis of his local monopoly, whereas now there were three competitors fighting for the work that had kept only one comfortably in business. Inevitably the whole tenor and content of matter printed in Norwich changed markedly, and there followed twelve eventful years as the three (and later four) presses fought with one another for survival. Eventually by 1720 the two strongest businesses emerged as stable concerns, and their rivals disappeared. Samuel Hasbart set up his printing office next door to his distillery in Magdalen Street within a month of the death of Francis Burges.29 In London he had engaged the services of a twenty-three year old apprentice printer who had not completed his full term but who was nevertheless a competent journeyman. This was Henry Crossgrove, a colourful and unusually well educated man of Irish extraction who was to play a very large part in the history of the Norwich book trade in the next four decades.30 The first issue of Hasbart's weekly newspaper, the Norwich Gazette, came from his office on 7th December 1706, followed by a variety of small books, sermons, licences, receipts, political speeches and broadsheet accounts of executions, murders, suicides and disasters. By 21st December the printer was advertising that he could also supply chapmen and hawkers at wholesale rates.31

A month after the first issue of the Norwich Gazette, the paper was complaining that 'on saturday last an Anonymous and ill-designing Person clandestinely Printed A Counterfeit ignorant News-Paper, intituled the Norwich Postman   '.32 The writer went on to claim that as this paper merely contained the news received on Tuesdays and Thursdays it could beat the Norwich Gazette to the streets. This third newspaper was the enterprise of Thomas Goddard, a young bookseller who had been the apprentice of the notable bookseller George Rose in the closing years of the previous century. Whilst Hasbart was setting up his press, Goddard was making similar preparations to convert his own premises on the edge of the Market Place near to the Guildhall. He engaged the services of Sherard Sheffield, a London journeyman, as his printer, and set on his own fourteen year old apprentice, William Chase, as an assistant.33 Comparatively little is known about this business as few copies of the newspaper have survived but it is almost certain that this press also undertook the printing of a variety of ephemeral material like its competitors as well as a few local sermons.34

It was in this way that a bitter fight developed between the three printing businesses, and in particular through the words of their newspapers, each one struggling for survival by drawing attention to its own work and detracting from that of its competitors. All concerned found themselves in an almost intolerable situation which seemed only likely to last sufficiently long for the weakest of the rivals to be driven out of business. The passing of a year still saw each of the three enterprises struggling, and so Hasbart decided that it was time for him to take a more direct action. In an open letter to Elizabeth Burges he neatly summed up the plight of the Norwich printing trade and offered his own ideas to remedy the situation.35

'Mrs. Burges, THE Printing Business in this Town, as your Husband well experienced, is no more than what One Man can sufficiently perform; You Yourself having given away half the Profit your Husband had by selling a Whole Sheet for a Peny, whereas your Husband never sold a Half Sheet for less: S6 that 'tis plain, while there are Three of Us, no one can boast of the Gain that is now made. I would be glad to have the Whole in my own Hands, and in order to it do offer you the real Value of what Letter and Stock you have in that Way, and to find Employment for you Man (or Men) into Bargain as soon as you please to discharge them. But as your Husband first set up the Trade here, and left you in Possession of it, you may possibly have taken too great a Liking to the Business to accept of this Offer; if so, I am willing to part with my Materials and Man to you upon the same Terms' If you object that complying with me will do you no Service, there being another still to contend with, who may possibly be rather strengthen'd than weaken'd by my laying down, I farther offer as a Recompense for the Damage you have sustain'd by having Two to contend with all this while, which you are sensible may be made appear was not my Fault at first, let such Friends as you can best confide in name what Method they think most adviseable and likely to bring the other Person to reasonable Terms, and I will be oblig'd to join with you in it: In the mean time, till a more likely Expedient can be found out, I propose this, Let You and I join in Partnership for seven Years; (which if we do, I believe no Rational Man will advise that other Person otherwise than to lay down as soon as it be known) and to take off all Jealousie or Apprehension that you or any for you may conceive, that my Design herein should be more for my own private Interest than for yours in the End, I will before we enter into Partnership oblige myself in Bond under what Penalty you please, to lay down the Business wholly when ever you require it of me, you first paying me or giving Security to pay me for my Types, &c. and to provide employ for my Man as above. If you do not think fit to accept of this Proposal, or in a short Time offer a more fair one of your own, you will find the Profit of the Business grow still less by the Example you first set, for there is a Necessity that some of us lay down. I therefore desire you will advise with those you can best trust, whether what I offer be reasonable.

I am Your Friend, Samuel Hasbart.'

Elizabeth Burges was neither willing to sacrifice her independence nor to admit defeat, as Hasbart had assumed. After printing the above letter, Hasbart added the following comment;

'Now whereas the said Mrs E. Burges, Printer of the NORWICH POST, has directly refus'd to accept the said Proposals without giving any Reason, This is to inform the Publick, that the whole Sheet of News will be sold for a Half-peny, and Advertisements taken into the NORWICH GAZETTE for nothing after this present Date, provided they observe the following conditions:

1.    That they put them into no other Norwich News.

2.    That each Advertisement exceeds not 70 words.

3.    That they are not trifling impertinent ones.

4.    That they always send them by Friday noon at latest.

But observe, all Persons shall pay to have them put in here, if they put them in any other News-paper.'

The refusal of Elizabeth Burges to consider any kind of agreement undoubtedly came as a blow to the distiller, who was left with expensive printing equipment and a journeyman to employ, but with no prospect of any increase in his profits. Despite his subsequent open challenge to all his competitors in the form of free advertising, Hasbart began to lose interest in his printing activities and he gradually began to concentrate on other more successful aspects of his business. Almost imperceptibly editorial and operational control of the printing press, and in particular the newspaper, switched from the proprietor to the printer. Although Samuel Hasbart continued to have a financial stake in the Norwich Gazette, in all other respects the printing business was in the control of Henry Crossgrove by the end of 1708.

Irrespective of any change in the control of the Norwich Gazette the three businesses were in exactly the same chronic situation after Elizabeth Burges had refused to come to terms as they had been one year before. Each one was forced to look for any way of supplementing its meagre profits. During 1707 and 1708 in particular several attempts were made by each newspaper to gain ground over its rivals, such as the Gazette's production of an edition of the newspaper specifically for the neighbouring town of Yarmouth.36 This was followed by an edition of this paper on Wednesdays as well as Saturdays.37 but both of these projects failed, along with other similar measures taken by the Norwich Post and the Norwich Postman.38 Then in the spring of 1708 came the first major alteration of the dramatis personae. Goddard's printer, Sherard Sheffield, disappeared from the scene quite suddenly and for reasons unknown. He may have become disillusioned, or perhaps his master could no longer afford to employ him, but rather than be left without a printer, Goddard entrusted his now sixteen year old apprentice with the production of the Norwich Postman.39 In this way the Chase family began a connection with Norwich newspapers which was to last well into the nineteenth century.40

The death of Elizabeth Burges in the autumn of 1708 must have seemed likely to ease the competition and provide at least a partial solution to the remaining printers,41 but the Red Well printing office and the Norwich Post did not close. For some reason the business passed back to Freeman Collins, the prosperous master of Francis Burges.42This man continued to run the Norwich business using at first the imprint of 'the executor of E. Burges' and then later his own name. Collins appears to have run the Norwich business from London, sending his most trustworthy employees to manage the day-to-day work. (One such employee was very probably the young Edward Cave, later to be celebrated as the founder of The Gentleman's Magazine.43) Despite these changes in personnel, the essential situation in 1709 and in the subsequent years was still basically the same. Competition remained as bitter as ever, but perhaps by this time each business had established for itself a reasonable and reliable readership which was enough just to keep it running.

The first alteration in the range of local newspapers came in 1712, not directly as a result of the competition, but rather because of the government's Stamp Act which imposed a duty of at least one halfpenny on each copy of a newspaper and thereby doubled the price. Thomas Goddard's Norwich Postman disappeared at some time after July 1712, but was replaced within a year or two by another paper from the same printer and publisher.44 This was the Transactions of the Universe or Weekly Mercury printed in the format of a quarto pamphlet and so evading most of the duty payable. This paper probably began life in 1713, changing its name to the Weekly Mercury before 1722 and again to the Norwich Mercury in 1726. A direct descendant of this newspaper still survives under the same title.

The Norwich Post also disappeared after July 1712, but before 1714; quite probably its demise coincided with the death of Freeman Collins in the autumn of 1713.45 Collins' widow, Susanna, then took over her husband's business interests in London and Norwich, and realising that a provincial printing business was not viable without the regular production of a newspaper, she appears to have resurrected the Norwich Post but with the new name of the Norwich Courant. No copies of the Norwich Courant are now known to have survived, but a nineteenth century commentator described it as 'a wretchedly printed newspaper'.46 It did however continue the tradition of its predecessor in fiercely attacking all opposition; and in a few days will be published, 'Memoiers of the Infamous Life and Inglorious Actions of Mr. Scandal, alias Crossroge, with his Flight from Redcross Alley, near Cripplegate London.’47

Susanna Collins is reputed to have been a woman of almost unbearable perverseness,48 a judgement which is reflected in the large number of printers who were connected with her Norwich printing office before she eventually disposed of it. Cave left soon after the death of Freeman Collins and the business was continued by John and H. Collins probably during the second half of 1714 and 1715. By 1716, tax returns for the property list Samuel Collins, and in 1717 another Freeman Collins, whilst Susanna was running the main business in London.49 When she did finally abandon all interest in Norwich printing at Michaelmas 1717,50 both the printing office and the proprietorship of the Norwich Courant passed to another of her husband's former apprentices, Benjamin Lyon.

The year 1717 also saw the final break between Thomas Goddard and his young printer William Chase, although the two men appear to have parted on good terms and frequently collaborated with one another in later life. Chase set up a printing and bookselling business in Cockey Lane, having been granted his citizenship the year before.51 Goddard thereafter concentrated on his large and profitable bookselling business, although he appears to have never totally renounced his interest in the trade of printing. There is no evidence to suggest that Thomas Goddard ever attempted to maintain a full-time printing business after 1717 but nevertheless there are surviving a few small items which are known to have been printed by his press up to the 1730s.52

The battle between the three full-time printing businesses and their newspapers did not reach a climax until 1718 when a dispute between the printer and the first proprietor of the Norwich Gazette acted as a catalyst to the eventual decline of the Norwich Courant.53 By this time Samuel Hasbart had almost completely lost his control of the Norwich Gazette, and to all intents and purposes the paper belonged to Crossgrove, although it was still being printed on premises owned by Hasbart. The exact financial relation­ship between the two men remains obscure. After twelve years of battling against competition, Crossgrove had built up a reasonably secure business, and unlike his competitors, he had steered his newspaper through the difficult years following the introduction of Stamp duty to emerge unchanged and almost unscathed. It appears that in 1718 Hasbart decided that he once again wanted a larger stake in the profits of the newspaper which he had founded, and so offered Crossgrove the renewal of a lease for his printing office at the inflated rent of thirty pounds a year for a period of twenty years. Crossgrove refused to accept these terms, moving into cheaper premises near to St Giles' church, and so the two men parted company on bad terms, each feeling that he had been cheated by the other. Samuel Hasbart, left without any stake in a Norwich printing business, resolved to start again and produce another newspaper in the Tory interest, in direct competition to the Norwich Gazette of Henry Crossgrove.54 A friend in London at first approached the printer Thomas Gent with an offer of a partnership in this venture. Gent could not accept but recommended to Hasbart another man, Robert Raikes, who accepted and came to Norwich in the spring of 1718.

The chronic competition between the three established Norwich news­paper printers was therefore made worse by the appearance of a fourth. Understandably Hasbart's plan was a disaster; there simply was not enough potential custom for a newly established newspaper in a local market which was already saturated. Both Henry Crossgrove and Benjamin Lyon poured scorn on the lack of success of this venture, and within three months the new paper had collapsed and Robert Raikes had moved to St Ives to try his luck at printing a newspaper there. Nothing is known to have survived from this short-lived press and even the name of its newspaper is now lost.55

It is possible that the added competition of a fourth newspaper may have been instrumental in forcing Benjamin Lyon's Norwich Courant out of business. Lyon was one of the most vociferous critics of Hasbart and Raikes, no doubt because he saw that his own business was on the brink of financial disaster. Nothing more is known of the fate of Lyon and the Norwich Courant after the demise of Hasbart's second paper, and probably it did not survive for very long.56 By 1720 at the latest there were only two regular printers left in Norwich, each one sufficiently stable and successful to remain in business without the ever present fear of financial disaster. These were William Chase, whose Norwich Mercury supported the Whig party, and Henry Crossgrove, whose Norwich Gazette supported the Tories.

A number of notices in surviving copies of the Norwich Gazette between 1706 and 1718 suggest that the competition between the rival printers had the effect of forcing them to undertake any work which might enjoy a ready sale, even if such printing might be considered libellous or seditious.57 By the time the printers began to cross the municipal and other authorities the trade had become sufficiently established and proved itself sufficiently useful in other respects to protect it from any direct suppression. During this period printers found that they were able to take more liberties with the political content of their productions than before. The process was gradual and occasionally checked by a printer being called before a magistrate and warned, or his premises searched.58 Probably individuals knew that they would not get away with widely overstepping recognised limits, but if some of the works were as bad as Crossgrove claimed, the Norwich printers were able to get away with more than contemporary printers in London before about 1712. Crossgrove was not however the most impartial judge of his fellow tradesmen and was himself never averse to flouting authority when it suited his purpose. However although the publication of such politically sensitive material is noteworthy, at no time did it represent more than a small proportion of the total output from the presses.

It has been argued that the Stamp Act of 1712 was an attempt by the central government to curb the growing power of the press in both the capital and the provinces,59 and this act certainly came at a time when news printing in Norwich was beginning to get out of control. The Stamp duty was certainly a set-back for the proprietors of provincial newspapers but, as has been shown, it had no lasting effect on those in Norwich. The death of queen Anne in 1714 marked the establishment of a new dynasty and was therefore followed by a period of political uncertainty. The Stamp Act had proved itself to be a failure and so the government and local authorities seem to have made a concerted effort to use their powers to exert more control over the press outside London. In Norwich this was reflected by the arrest of Crossgrove in 1715 for High Treason, but in this case the charge was so preposterous that the printer was soon dismissed.60 Similarly in 1717 Benjamin Lyon was arrested and brought before the Norwich Quarter Sessions on a charge of printing a libel61 (unfortunately there is no surviving record of the outcome of the case). Finally in 1718 Crossgrove was once again in trouble with the Attorney General for copying seditious reports from a London paper; however after asking for clemency and promising to reform he was released from custody.62

In Norwich, this period of increased watchfulness on the part of authority had its effect roughly at the same time that economic forces were solving the problem of there being too many printers in the city. After 1720 there was less pressure on the two remaining printers to risk their livelihoods by producing controversial items, and so after a few years of conflict with authority, the Norwich press settled down once more to a comparatively peaceful existence. Subsequently local control was not noticeably relaxed, and later in their careers both William Chase and Henry Crossgrove were to find themselves imprisoned for short periods as a result of items in their newspapers, but in these cases the arrests were more likely the result of inadvertently incurring the displeasure of the Mayor or Magistrates rather than deliberately taking the risk by publishing anonymous political pamphlets.63

For a quarter of a century after the demise of the Norwich Courant nearly all the commercial printing in the city was shared by the rival presses of Chase and Crossgrove, and although their respective newspapers continued to be the most significant aspect of their printing, each man was able to win progressively more commissions for other work from all sections of the community. The Mayor's Court in particular tended to find the services of the printing press more useful as time went on. After the tentative encouragement given initially to Francis Burges, the Court found that it was expedient to have an increasing number of items printed. It soon became the practice to advertise regularly orders of the Court and new bye-laws in the local newspapers.64 Later printers were commissioned to supply a whole range of printed matter including assizes of bread and ale, combination papers, abstracts of acts of parliament, forms, and announcements. In fact the demand for all kinds of stationery used by the Corporation officials increased steadily during the first half of the eighteenth century.65 Before 1720 this work seems to have been shared equally among all the competing printers, but in later years Crossgrove's heterodox political views tended to alienate him from the most powerful members of the Aldermanry and the Common Council. This resulted in the more profitable work being given to Chase, although the advertisements from the Mayor's Court continued to appear in both newspapers. Throughout the 1730s and the 1740s Chase and his family were being paid an average of about twenty-five pounds a year for this work, although the figure varied considerably and in the financial year 1728/9 he submitted bills totalling more than ninety pounds.66 The contract to print and supply stationery to the Corporation had therefore become a worthwhile prize at this time.

The twin empires of Chase and Crossgrove ended in 1744 when both men died.67 Chase was succeeded firstly by his widow Margaret, and then by his son William, who continued to print the Norwich Mercury until his own death in 1781.68 Crossgrove was succeeded by his son-in-law Robert Davy who printed the Norwich Gazette until about 1750 and then changed its name to the Norwich Journal.69 Although this newspaper disappeared about 1753 Davy continued in business as a jobbing printer for a number of years afterwards; he became converted to Methodism about 1751 and was instrumental in the production of many propaganda pamphlets and tracts for the sect in Norwich.70 The Norwich Mercury was therefore left the only newspaper in the city for eight years up to 1761 until John Crouse, formerly an apprentice of the second William Chase, founded a newspaper which was later to become the Norfolk Chronicle.71

The establishment of full-time printing businesses which did not have the support of a regular weekly newspaper was a development of the latter part of the eighteenth century and is therefore outside the scope of this article. There were however other printers in the city before 1760 and their presses are of interest, if not of importance, in the story of early Norwich printing. Before about 1750 it would have been difficult for a full-time printer to survive without supplementing his income from other work, and even the two successful newspaper proprietors also undertook a whole range of sidelines. It has been shown that Thomas Goddard, the first proprietor of the Norwich Postman later continued to undertake some 'jobbing' work with the equipment he owned, until the late 1730s, but this was only a very small sideline to his successful bookselling business. Similarly there are a number of items bearing the imprint of Thomas Eldridge, an eccentric auctioneer, spirit and tobacco merchant, patent medicine vendor and part-time bookseller.72 It is however quite possible that, despite the statements of the imprints, these items (and possibly those bearing Goddard's name) were in fact printed by one of the other printers in the city. It is fairly certain however that between 1753 and 1763 another small press started in the city. The printer in this case was Robert Newman, a former schoolmaster who had as hop near the Red Well, possibly in the same premises used by Francis Burges. Newman printed a few small items including a booklet of the maxims of Sir Matthew Hale.73

The one remaining press in the city at this time was that set up by the Reverend Francis Blomefield at his house in St Giles' parish. Blomefield was unable to find a suitable printer for his great history of Norfolk, and so resolved to print it himself at his Rectory at Fersfield. It is said that his first press was burnt down when he was only half way through the production of his second volume, and it is known that he removed his printing office to Norwich at some time between 1743 and 1745. From his Norwich press Blomefield completed his second volume and three quarters of the third volume of his history as well as the second half of his smaller work Collectanea Cantabrigiensia' before he died from smallpox in January 1752.74 In many respects the period around 1760 marks a watershed in the history of Norwich printing, for by this time the trade had become firmly established as an integral part of the life of the city. All the first generation of printers and most of their businesses had finally disappeared to make way for new personalities, and yet one of the major businesses of the latter part of century, that of John Crouse, had only just started. Undoubtedly the provincial printing press played a key role in the remarkable economic and cultural development of the first half of the eighteenth century,75 but it would be difficult to begin to assess the effect that printing had on a city such as Norwich at this time. However it would be safe to say that by 1760 almost every aspect of society had in some way been influenced by the printing press. The early Norwich newspapers undoubtedly encouraged commercial enterprise in a variety of ways, giving publicity to such things as auction sales and giving city tradesmen the opportunity of advertising their wares over a far greater area. Similarly cultural and leisure pursuits such as plays, race meetings, assemblies and shows were encouraged and advertised. The press in Norwich therefore materially assisted the development of a kind of cultural identity outside that of the capital, and in this way no doubt had an indirect effect on the founding of such things as the Norwich triennial Music Festival or the Norwich School of Painting, both of which had their origins in the late eighteenth century.

It has been shown that the Corporation had a very interesting role in both fostering, and at the same time controlling, the development of the printing trade within the city of Norwich. It was the duty of local authority to maintain law and order, which was assumed to involve the curtailment of the dissemination of unacceptable ideas. Whilst it was accepted by the Mayor and Magistracy that there should be some real control over the conduct of the local printers, they did not want to extinguish entirely a trade which was simultaneously providing aids to the good government and to commerce of the city.

Up to 1760 the establishment of printing in Norwich had perhaps the effect of sowing many seeds which were later to bear fruit in terms of commercial, political and cultural development; but it is entirely wrong to consider individual workmen or businesses in these terms. Like any other workmen, the pioneer printers in Norwich aimed only to make a fairly good living for themselves and their families. Those that could do this continued in business and prospered, those that were unable to do this either changed their occupations or moved elsewhere. Individual workmen could not afford to take into account any higher ideals when making decisions about the future direction of their careers.

Trans. Cambridge Bibliographical Soc. VII, 1977

NOTES

1.     In so far that early Norwich printing is dominated by the first newspapers in the city, parts of this story have been told before by G.A. Cranfield (The development of the provincial newspaper 1700-1760 Oxford, 1962), R.M. Wiles (Freshest advices Columbus, Ohio, 1965) and particularly by Trevor Fawcett ('Early Norwich newspapers' Notes and queries 1972). This article does however attempt to broaden the treatment of the first printers as well as to include a fair proportion of new material. No attempt has been made to discuss the content of the first provincial newspaper as this subject has already been most adequately covered.

2.     14.Car.II. c.33, hereafter cited as the 'Licensing Act'.

3.     Berry, W.T. & H.E. Poole Annals of printing (London, 1966) pp.127-142. Printing was first introduced to Norwich by the Dutch refugee Anthony de Solempne in 1567, but for various reasons the trade soon disappeared.

4.     Norfolk Record Office, Mayor's Court Book 25 (1677-1695) fol. 105.21.1.1681/2.

5.     Ibid. fol.221.17.8.1687.

6.     Based on an examination of various classes of document in the Norfolk Record Office.

7.     Clair, Colin A history of printing in Britain (London, 1965) p. 155.

8.     Manuscript news publications were not entirely out of the scope of control by authority. Thomas Corrie, the Norwich Town Clerk personally censored newsletters received in the city's coffee houses; see Hill, R. The correspondence of Thomas Corrie (Norfolk Record Society Vol.27, 1956).

9.     British Library, Sloane MS. 1847 fol.137, published in Browne’s Works edited by G. Keynes (London, 1964) Vol.4 p. 119.

10.   Ibid. fol.121, Works Vol.4 p.119.

11.   N.R.O. Mayor's Court Book 23 (1654-1666) fol. 202.31.10.1663.

12.   Hill, R. (op. cit.) p.10. An example of a newsletter from Nowell dated 11.3.1664 is in the Public Record Office, Calendar of State Papers Domestic 166~5 (London, 1863) p.85. Similarly a newsletter addressed to Nowell is recorded in Calendar of State Papers Domestic 1666-7 (London, 1864) p.l67.

13.   This statement is based on the evidence of contemporary references in the Norwich City and Quarter Sessions records between 1660 and 1690. R.M. Wiles (op. cit.) p.10 suggests that newsletters increased in popularity rather than diminished, particularly during the first years of the eighteenth century, but there are very few references to them in Norwich after 1675.

14.   Elizabeth Oliver, the widow of the Norwich bookseller William Oliver, held an auction in 1689 which was advertised in the London Gazette. The sale was organised by Edward Millington who advertised regularly in the London Gazette.

15.   Wiles, R.M. (op. cit.) p.6.

16.   Stoker, D. 'The early history of paper-making in Norfolk' Norfolk Archaeology Vol. XXXVI p.243.

17.   McKenzie, D.F. Stationers' Company apprentices 1641-1700 (Oxford, 1974) No.908.

18.   Ibid.

19.   B.L. Harleian MS. 5910 II fol.152. This is John Bagford's transcription of the introduction of Burges' first printed book; all copies of the original apparently having been lost. The spelling is Bagford's.

20.   Ibid.

21.   In a letter to Browne Willis in 1706, Thomas Tanner commented 'the Norwich papers are the principal support of our poor printer here, by which, with the advertise­ments, he clears nearly 50s every week, selling vast numbers to the country people. Bodleian Library, Browne Willis MS xcv fol.259.

22.   B.L. Harleian MS 5910 II fol.152.

23.   The Norwich historian John Chambers also saw a copy of Burges' Some observations on the use and original of the noble art of printing and printed excerpts in his A general history of the county of Norfolk (Norwich, 1829) Vol.2 pp.1286-7.

24.   A list is given in Stoker, D. A history of the Norwich book trades 1560-1 760 (Library Association thesis, 1975) Vol.2 pp.494-7.

25.   A list of books sold by Burges but not printed by him is given in John Jeffery's Commemoration sermon (Norwich, 1706).

26.   Chambers, J. (op cit.) Vol.2 p.1178.

27.   Ibid. Vol.2 p.1287

28.   N.R.O. Chamberlain's Accounts 1702/3.

29.   Norwich Gazette 7.12.1706.

30.   Plomer, H.R. A dictionary of the printers and booksellers.... 1668-1725 (Oxford, 1922) p.88.

31.   Norwich Gazette 21.12.1706.

32.   Ibid. 4.1.1706/7.

33.   Plomer, H.R. (op. cit.) pp. 128-

34.   For example, Baldwin, R. A sermon preach'd at the Arch-Deacons Visitation (Norwich, 1706)

35.   Norwich Gazette 20.12.1707. See also Cranfield, G.A. (op. cit.) p. 40.

36.   Ibid. 17.5. 1707.

37.   Ibid. 5.3.1707.

38.   Norwich Post 15.5.1708.

39.   Norwich Gazette 8.5.1708.

40.   See Stedman, Rex Vox populi; the Norfolk newspaper press 1760-1900 Library Association thesis, 1971)

41.   Norwich Gazette 25.9.1708.

42.   The author of this article suspects that Elizabeth Burges was the daughter of Freeman Collins; such a relationship would explain the apparent connection between the Burges family and Collins after the expiry of Burges' apprenticeship. No evidence to support or dismiss this theory has however been found.

43.   Stoker, D. 'Edward Cave and the Norwich Post' University of East Anglia Bulletin Vol.VII. No.2 1975, p.1

44.   Although the last surviving copy of the Norwich Postman is dated July 1709, the Norwich Gazette makes reference to 'Goddard's news' until July 1712; Fawcett, T. (op. cit.) p.364.

45.   Stoker, D. 'Edward Cave and the Norwich Post' p.2.

46.   Chambers, J. (op. cit.) Vol.2. p. 1291.

47.   Ibid. Vol.2. p.1291.

48.   Samuel Johnson's obituary of Edward Cave in the Gentleman's Magazine (February 1754).

49.   N. R.O. Window and Land Tax Papers, St Andrew's parish.

50.   Norwich Gazette 21.9.1717.

51.   Millican, P. The freemen of Norwich 1 71~1 752 (Norfolk Record Society, Vol.23, 1952). Chase paid taxes on his new premises from Easter 1718 (N.R.O. Window and Land Tax Papers, St Andrew's parish). It was perhaps at this time that the newspaper became the Weekly Mercury.

52.   Notably An alphabetical draught of the polls of Sir Edward Ward Bart, Miles Branthwayt and of Horatio Walpole Waller Bacons Esqs. (Norwich, 1735) and the questionnaire used by Francis Blomefield to gather material for his history (see Stephen, G.A. 'Francis Blomefield's queries in preparation for his history of Norfolk' Norfolk Archaeology Vol. xx 1921 pp.1-9.

53.   Norwich Gazette 29.3.1718, 19.4.1718 and subsequent issues.

54.   Gent, Thomas The life of Mr Thomas Gent printer of York (London, 1832) p.77.

55.   Plomer, H.R. (op. cit.) p.246. Sec also Fawcett, (op. cit.) p.364.

56.   A bookseller and printer named B. Lyon is known in Bath in 1729. Plomer, H.R. A dictionary of printers and booksellers. .. 1 726-1 775 (Oxford, 1932) p.160.

57.   For example Norwich Gazette 8.5.1708 and 11.2.1710.

58.   Norwich Gazette 3.5.1707.

59.   Cranfield, G.A. (op. cit.) pp.17-21.

60.   Williams, J.B. 'Henry Cross-grove, Jacobite, journalist and printer' The Library, 1914. pp.206-18. Early in 1714 there had been an unsuccessful attempt by several local officials to have the printer arrested (ibid. p.212).

61.   N.R.O. Norwich Quarter Sessions Minutes 11.11.1717.

62.   Crossgrove's letter to Mr Secretary Delafaye 2.1.1718/9, P.R.O. S.P.D. 35, vol. 15(1). He may have escaped prosecution because of the failure of the government to secure convictions in a few similar cases, see Cranfield, G.A. (op. cit.) pp.142-5 and Hanson, L. The government and the press, 1695-1763 (Oxford, 1936) p.56.

63.   Norwich Mercury 2.8.1729 and Cranfield, G. (op. cit.) p.150.

64.   Records of the payments for such advertisements are to be found in the Chamberlain's Accounts for the period (N.R.O.).

65.   N.R.O. Miscellaneous Chamberlain's Vouchers 21b (3) is a very detailed account from the printer and bookseller William Chase (II) to the City for the period 1757-9.

66.   Chamberlain's Accounts for the appropriate Mayoral year.

67.   Norwich Mercury 2.6.1744 and Norwich Gazette 15.9.1744.

68.   N.R.O. Norwich Consistory Court Wills, 50 Poynter 1781.

69.   Wiles, R.M. (op. cit.) p.471.

70.   Stoker, D. History of the Norwich book trades 1560-1760 Vol.1 pp.269-271, Vol.2 pp.394, 529-532.

71.   For an account of the career of Crouse see Stedman, ~ (op. cit.).

72.   For example An authentick history of the city of Norwich (Norwich, 1738).

73.   Hale, Sir Matthew The great audit: or good steward 13th ed. (Norwich, 1759).

74.   See Dictionary of National Biography article on Blomefield.

75.   See Plumb, J.H. The commercialisation of leisure in eighteenth century England (Reading, 1973).