Print, Profit and People: Stories of the English Stock

Print, Profit and People: Stories of the English Stock

For over 350 years, from 1603 to 1961, the Stationers’ Company maintained a publishing business that transformed the fortunes of the Company and thousands of its members. The so-called ‘English Stock’ was a joint-stock company, established by a pair of letters patent granted by James I, that gathered together key printing monopolies— including, most famously, the production of almanacks—and shared the returns between Stationer-shareholders while also funding a welfare scheme to support poorer members. It proved to be one of the most successful publishing ventures in the history of the English book trade, and its importance to the development of the Stationers’ Company as well as the careers of many members of the London book trade over those three and half centuries cannot be overstated.

This exhibition brings together a selection of images to support our Archive Evening, and highlight the wealth of material available for research at the Stationers’ Company Archive. Click on the images to find out more. Text draws on information in the Stationers’ Company Archive, and on material in the bibliography below.