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Robert Manning and Thomas Howlatt: English Catholic Printing in the Early Eighteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2016

C.J Mitchell
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Extract

In seeking signs of vitality in the English Catholic Church of the early eighteenth century John Bossy notes first the publication of new books reformulating the position of Catholics in England, and also the growth of catechising, spearheaded by the introduction of several new editions of simplified catechisms. But he makes no mention of the problems, surely severe, which an underground organisation must face in printing and circulating its propaganda. The Church needed books rather than pamphlets or broadsheets, and the presses on which books were printed cannot have been either itinerant or easily hidden; rather, they would have needed the constant attendance of skilled compositors and pressmen, and a steady supply of bulky materials such as ink and paper.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , May 1984 , pp. 38 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1984

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References

Notes

1 John, Bossy, The English Catholic Community 1570–1850 (Darton, Longman and Todd, London, 1975), pp. 286, 272–3.Google Scholar

2 Gillow, 4, p. 453.

3 Ibid., 4, pp. 453–7. I omit the work Gillow lists fifth, Some queries, relating to a book entitled, A compassionate address, Printed for John Moore in Cornhill, 1717. Gillow later overturned his attribution of this work to Manning, writing in his own copy, now in the British Library: ‘By the Rev. Edward Hawarden, D.D. which somehow I omitted from my Biog. Dict, of the English Catholics, vol. III though I had the note by Dr. Haw. that the work was by him’. My thanks to Ronald Browne for drawing this to my attention.

4 British Museum General Catalogue of printed books, 263 vols. (London, 1959–66), together with its three Supplements, the most recent of which was published in 1978–9. The National Union Catalog pre-1956 imprints, 685 vols. (Mansell, London and Chicago, 1968–80) synthesises the catalogues of major libraries in the United States.

5 Anstruther, Seminary priests 3, p. 141; Gillow, 4, p. 453.

6 Philip, Gaskell, A new introduction to bibliography (Clarendon, Oxford, 1974), p. 133.Google Scholar

7 ‘Catchwords and press figures at home and abroad’, Book Collector 9 (1968), 304.

8 Gaskell, , New introduction, pp. 51, 108.Google Scholar

9 Sayce, R. A., ‘Compositorial practices and the localization of printed books, 1500–1800’, The Library, 5th series, 21 (1966), p. 13.Google Scholar See also McKerrow, R. B., An introduction to bibliography for literary students (OUP, Oxford, 1951), p. 190.Google Scholar

10 Sayce, , ‘Compositorial practices’, pp. 4, 43.Google Scholar

11 Ibid., p. 18.

12 E.g., in each gathering there are signatures only on the leaves of the first half (the second half being thus automatically in place, just as correctly arranging the front half of a newspaper suffices for the back half) as was the custom in Britain, whereas in the Low Countries printers always signed half plus one: ibid., pp. 27, 43.

13 See Nicholas Barker, ‘Typography and the meaning of words: the revolution in the layout of books in the eighteenth century’, Giles Barber and Bernhard, Fabian (eds.) Buch und Buchhandel in Europa in achtzehnten Jahrhundert (Wolfenbutteler Schriften zur Geschichte des Buchwesens Band 4), (Hauswedell, Hambourg, 1981)Google Scholar.

14 Gaskell, , New introduction, p. 133.Google Scholar

15 Even the three leaves of contents have the same ending with a catchword that does not tie in to the rest of the work.

16 Gillow, 4, p. 558.

17 Moral entertainments… By Robert Manning, 3, vols., London, printed for Thomas Meighan, 1742.

18 Public Record Office, London, SP 44/81/419. My thanks to Richard Goulden for help with this and other PRO references.

19 See my ‘Thomas Meighan: notes on the father of English Catholic bookselling’, Publishing History 10 (1981), p. 52.

20 Plomer, H. R. et al., A dictionary of the printers and booksellers who were at work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1726 to 1775 (Bibliographical Society,London, 1932), p. 134.Google Scholar

21 McKenzie, D. F. (ed.). Stationers’ Company Apprentices, 1641–1700 and 1701–1800 (Oxford Bibliographical Society, Oxford, 1974 and 1978)Google Scholar.

22 Charity and truth:… By H.E., Brussels: printed in the year of Our Lord, 1728. The true Church… The second edition corrected, Printed in the year MDCCXXXVIII.

23 E.g., The great concern of human life: or, a summary account of the fear of God, and keeping his commandments, London printed for J. Roberts,… MDCCXXIX.

24 McKenzie, Apprentices, 1701–1800, p. 404. Note too that Roberts was a prolific publisher, see Michael, Treadwell, ‘London trade publishers 1675–1750’, The Library, 6th series, 4 (1982), 106–7 Google Scholar, table 3, and that on at least one other occasion he found his name on a work which he had not printed: PRO, SP 35/52/104, examination of him on 18 September 1724.

25 Gillow, 3, pp. 172–4; Anstruther, Seminary priests, 2, p. 94.

26 See above, n.22.

27 Postscript: or, a review of the grounds already laid, Printed in the year 1720.

28 A poem on the nativity of our Blessed Saviour, London: printed by T. Howlatt in Silver Street Bloomsbury; for the author. 1719. An appendix to the Treatise of the homey-coat of the eye, and the cataract,… By Benedict Duddell, surgeon, London: printed by E. Howlatt,… 1733.

29 Michael, Treadwell, ‘London printers and printing houses in 1705’, Publishing History 7 (1980), p. 13.Google Scholar

30 In 1705 ibid.; in 1708 in reports of Justices of the Peace on persons suspected of being disaffected, papists and non-jurors, PRO, SP 34/26; in 1713 in an anonymous list in the British Library, Portland Loan 29/130, printed in Henry, L. Snyder, ‘The reports of a press spy for Robert Harley: new bibliographical data for the reign of Queen Anne’, The Library, 5th series, 22 (1967), 345 Google Scholar; in 1724 in the list compiled by Samuel Negus and reprinted in John, Nichols, Literary anecdotes of the eighteenth century, 9 vols., (London, 1812–15), 1.312Google Scholar.

31 The only occasion on which he seems to have been arrested was in 1721 for an edition of The political state of Great Britain by Abel Boyer, a Huguenot: PRO, SP 44/81/55.

32 McKenzie, Apprentices, 1701–1800, p. 181.

33 Ibid.

34 He had very close connections with the Parker family of printers, who do not seem to have been Catholics, and he dealt with Charles Ackers, an Anglican.

35 Plomer, H. R. et al., A dictionary of the printers and booksellers who were at work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1668 to 1725 (Bibliographical Society, London, 1922), p. 161.Google Scholar

36 Extended quotations in the eighteenth century usually had quotation marks at the start of each new line. In these three works extended quotations have quotation marks always on the outside margin of a page, so that on right-hand pages they are at the end of the line. See my forthcoming ‘Quotation marks and false imprints’ in The Library.

37 See Gaskell, , New introduction, pp. 161, 317–18.Google Scholar

38 Other than those discussed here the ESTC contains no work in English published in Rouen after 1702.

39 Sayce, , ‘Compositorial practices’, pp. 3–4.Google Scholar