Exeter Printers, Booksellers, and Libraries. By H. Tapley-Soper, F.R. Hist. S.. HE Printing and Bookselling trades of Exeter have passed through many vicissitudes-the changes and alterations inherent of a long and interesting connection. To Devonshire belongs the honour of being the fifth County to set up a printing press in England. We owe this to the enterprise and zeal for learning of the monks of the Benedictine Abbey of Tavistock, who set up about the year 1525 the eighth printing house England had seen. Little is known of this early press and only two works from it now exist. The Abbey was dissolved in 1539, and it has been suggested that part of the materials passed into the hands of the Rev. John Williams of Exeter, who, in his will dated 1567 bequeathed to his cousin "all such stuff as tools concerning my printing with the matrice, with the rest of my tools concerning my press." No examples of the work of Williams or his relative are known to exist, and it must have been nearly a century after this that Exeter had a public printing press. Three 17th Century Exeter printers are known to have existed T. Hunt, 1645; J. Baker, 1688; and S. Darker, 1698. In the former years one of the travelling presses of the Civil Wars was set up in Exeter in the Royalist interest. Hunt's name is perpetuated as the Printer of Thomas Fuller's Good Thoughts in Bad Times, Exeter, 1645, a copy of which can be seen in the British Museun.. In very few localities did printing spread so rapidly as in Exeter, and there is no doubt that ever since Hunt's time, or shortly afterwards, Exeter has possessed its own printing presses, a good many of them being easily identified by the works which have come down to us. Perhaps the most famous printer was Andrew Brice, who flourished early in the 18th Century, and is known as the author and printer of the Grand Gazetteer, or Topographic Dictionary which took him 11 years to compile and print, and was one of the earliest and most important Gazetteers published in England. At the present time Exeter is considered a cheap centre for printing. The Art is practised on a large scale by upwards of 20 printers, the most important firms being Messrs. Townsend & Sons, Southwood & Co., and W. Pollard & Co. It is more difficult to fix the date of the earliest publishers or booksellers, but there is a good reason for supposing that the trade was firmly established in the City even earlier than the printing Art. A tract bearing the title Vocabula magistri Stanbrigii, primum jam Edita sua saltem editione was printed abroad for one " Martin Coeffin, dwelling at Exeter." John Stanbridge, the writer of this useful little work, died in 1510, and it is probable that this edition of his grammar was printed as early as 1500. Other works are known to have been printed for Coeffin about this time, but no details of his life can be found. However, I think he can be safely regarded as the father of the Exeter bookselling trade. In 1723, Dr. Wm. Stukeley, in his Itinerarium Curiosum, writing of Exeter, says: They drive a great trade here for woollen manufacture in cloths, serge stuffs, etc. All along the water side innumerable tenters or racks for stretching them. Here is a good face of learning too; I saw a printed catalogue of an auction of books to be sold there." Again, in the 1748 edition of Defoe and Richardson's Tour thro' the whole Island of Great Britain, we read that the High Street “is full of shops well furnished and all sorts of Trades look brisk..... There are many booksellers." By the early part of the 19th Century the booksellers' establishments had considerably increased in number and importance, and were at this time used as newsrooms or meeting places by the scholars and gentry of the County. It is only reasonable to suppose that these gatherings gave birth to the idea which afterwards took the form of the many Literary and Philosophical Institutions, which in the latter part of the 18th and early part of the 19th Centuries sprang up throughout the County, and eventually led to legislation for their provision out of the public purse by the passing of the first Public Libraries Act in the year 1850. To give a list of the Exeter booksellers since the days of Coeffin would be as impossible as it is undesirable, and to select any for special comment is almost an equally-hopeless task. As far as is known, none have merited fame. The names of many are familiar because they appear on the title-pages of old books, but not one of the older establishments has continued to the present day. Perhaps the most noteworthy establishment was that founded in 1799 by Mr. Curzon, the father of the lately-deceased Frank Curzon of Leeds, one of the Founders of the Exeter Literary Society and many similar institutions in London and Yorkshire, and until a few years ago the Organizing Secretary of the Yorkshire Union of Institutions and Village Libraries. · The elder Curzon was a scion of the house of Scarsdale which is the family name of the present Baron Scarsdale and Lord Curzon of Kedleston. His establishment was in High Street and was the gossiping centre of Exeter. At the present day there are several new and secondhand booksellers in Exeter of quite a respectable age. It might also be mentioned that Mr. Elkin Mathews, the well-known London publisher, commenced business in Exeter, his shop being in the Close. Mr. John Lane of Vigo Street is a West Countryman, and his establishment in London bears as a sign the name of one of Exeter's greatest worthies-Sir Thomas Bodley, founder of the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Mr. James G. Commin's shop is at 230 High Street, where he established it himself in 1880. Here, he has built up a high-class business, principally through his attention to, and knowledge of, West Country Literature, of which he always holds a large stock in addition to a general stock of good editions of standard works. To the publication of works on local history and topography Mr. Commin has given considerable attention. Had it not been for his interest in these subjects, and his considerate treatment of local writers, many valuable monographs on local matters which now enrich the West Country literature, would never have progressed further than the typewriter stage. The sale of modern local literature, however worthy the subject and able the writer, is strictly limited, and except by those with a very intimate knowledge of the trade little more than the return of the cost of production and perhaps some very lingering, if not dead, stock can be hoped for. Mr. Commin also has a keen eye for rare and valuable editions, his greatest find being a good specimen of Tyndale's Pentateuch, which realized about £950 at auction. Mr. Commin was born in Exeter, where he gained his earliest experience of the trade. He was afterwards with Messrs. Sotheran & Co., of London. His brother, Mr. H. G. Commin, is in the bookselling trade at Bournemouth. As a member of the Board of Governors of the Royal Albert Memorial University College, Museum, and Public Library, and of the Committee of the Exeter Literary Society, Mr. Commin has done considerable Educational work. He has been chairman of the College, Library, and Museum Committees, and has lectured on W Children's Books," Dr. Johnson," "The Early Pictorial Press," Famous Pictures," etc., before the Literary Society. In 1903, he was elected an Alderman of the City Council. He now has his two sons to assist him in the business, one having previously acquired a knowledge of the trade in London. His chief pastime is angling. Messrs. Drayton's establishment is at 201, High Street. The firm was founded in 1838 by Mr. G. F. Drayton, who died six months afterwards. From this date it was carried on by his widow, Mrs. Sarah Drayton, who was assisted by her two boys and traded as S. Drayton & Sons, under which style it has continued to the present date. The present head of the business is Mr. H. G. Drayton, the son of the younger of the two brothers mentioned above; his father died about eleven years ago. Mr. Drayton's shop is situated next to the City's ancient Guildhall, and although it is an old building it is commodious, with two windows and a convenient passage at the side for the display of the secondhand dealer's inevitable cheap box. Mr. Drayton deals in all classes of second-hand books, makes rather a speciality of theology, for which he has a separate room on the first floor, and does a little in local books and prints. He also conducts a popular and up-to-date circulating library Mr. Drayton is a great lover of music and is a regular singer at the Oratorio Society. The establishment of Mr. J. A. Martin, Ye olde Booke Shoppe," will be found in Martin's Lane, sometimes called "Luxury Lane," which is an old footpath of this ancient City; narrow, and dark, with the eaves of the opposite houses almost embracing. Passing through from the High Street, it connects the Close, and suddenly and almost unexpectedly it opens up a most delightful view of the Cathedral. Mr. Martin's shop is situated at the lower corner. It is small and old, and embodies that untidy and piled-up appearance which was the delight of the bookworms who frequented the now departed Booksellers Row of London-the sort of shop in which one can imagine there are rare and unknown editions lurking in every corner. Martin does a general trade in cheap standard works and remainders. He was born at Hampton-on-Thames; his father was a Balaclava hero. Mr. Martin was appren " Mr. |