Sir Basil Henry Blackwell (29 May 18899 April 1984) was born in

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. He was the son of

Benjamin Henry Blackwell Benjamin Henry Blackwell (10 January 1849 – 26 October 1924) was an English bookseller and politician who founded the Blackwell's chain of bookshops in Oxford. Blackwell was born at 46 High Street, St Clement's, Oxford, the son of librarian B ...

(18491924), founder of Blackwell's bookshop in

, which went on to become the Blackwell family's

publishing Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

and

bookshop Bookselling is the commercial trading of books which is the retail and distribution end of the publishing process. People who engage in bookselling are called booksellers, bookdealers, bookpeople, bookmen, or bookwomen. The founding of librar ...

empire, located on Broad Street in central Oxford. The publishing arm is now part of

Wiley-Blackwell Wiley-Blackwell is an international scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly publishing business of John Wiley & Sons. It was formed by the merger of John Wiley & Sons Global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business with Blackwell Publish ...

. He was educated at

Magdalen College School, Oxford Magdalen College School (MCS) is a public school (English independent day school) in Oxford, England, for boys aged seven to eighteen and for girls in the sixth form. It was founded by William Waynflete about 1480 as part of Magdalen College ...

and

Merton College, Oxford Merton College (in full: The House or College of Scholars of Merton in the University of Oxford) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the 1260s when Walter de Merton, ...

. He was the first person in his family to attend university. He is remembered as the bookseller who helped break the infamous "Ring" who colluded to close off open competition in auctions, "taking bread from the mouths of the widows and orphans" of Oxford scholars. In 1913, he began working with his father at Blackwell's. Upon his father's death in 1924, he took over the company and remained working there for decades. He was made a

Knight Bachelor The title of Knight Bachelor is the basic rank granted to a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not inducted as a member of one of the organised orders of chivalry; it is a part of the British honours system. Knights Bachelor are ...

in 1956 by

Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during ...

, the only bookseller ever to receive that honour. In 1959, he was elected to an honorary Fellowship at Merton. In 1970 he was given the honorary Freedom of the City of Oxford. In 1979 he was awarded a Doctorate of Civil Law

honoris causa An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hono ...

at the

Encaenia Encaenia (; ) is an academic or sometimes ecclesiastical ceremony, usually performed at colleges or universities. It generally occurs some time near the annual ceremony for the general conferral of degrees to students. The word is from Latin, mean ...

. Blackwell was a prosecution

witness In law, a witness is someone who has knowledge about a matter, whether they have sensed it or are testifying on another witnesses' behalf. In law a witness is someone who, either voluntarily or under compulsion, provides testimonial evidence, e ...

in the 1966 private prosecution attempt to bar the book ''

Last Exit to Brooklyn ''Last Exit to Brooklyn'' is a 1964 novel by American author Hubert Selby Jr. The novel takes a harsh, uncompromising look at lower class Brooklyn in the 1950s written in a brusque, everyman style of prose. Critics and fellow writers praised ...

'' from UK publication.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Blackwell, Basil 1889 births 1984 deaths English publishers (people) People from Oxford People educated at Magdalen College School, Oxford Alumni of Merton College, Oxford Knights Bachelor 20th-century English businesspeople Presidents of the Classical Association