The Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers (until 1937 the Worshipful Company of Stationers), usually known as the Stationers' Company, is one of the livery companies of the

City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London fr ...

. The Stationers' Company was formed in 1403; it received a

royal charter A royal charter is a formal grant issued by a monarch under royal prerogative as letters patent. Historically, they have been used to promulgate public laws, the most famous example being the English Magna Carta (great charter) of 1215, bu ...

in 1557. It held a monopoly over the publishing industry and was officially responsible for setting and enforcing regulations until the enactment of the

Statute of Anne The Statute of Anne, also known as the Copyright Act 1710 (cited either as 8 Ann. c. 21 or as 8 Ann. c. 19), was an act of the Parliament of Great Britain passed in 1710, which was the first statute to provide for copyright regulated by the g ...

, also known as the Copyright Act of 1710. Once the company received its charter, "the company’s role was to regulate and discipline the industry, define proper conduct and maintain its own corporate privileges." The company members, including master, wardens, assistants, liverymen, freemen and apprentices are mostly involved with the modern visual and graphic communications industries that have evolved from the company's original trades. These include printing, papermaking, packaging, office products, engineering, advertising, design, photography, film and video production, publishing of books, newspapers and periodicals and digital media. The company's principal purpose nowadays is to provide an independent forum where its members can advance the interests (strategic, educational, training and charitable) of the industries associated with the company.

History

In 1403, the

Corporation of London The City of London Corporation, officially and legally the Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of the City of London, is the municipal governing body of the City of London, the historic centre of London and the location of much of the United King ...

approved the formation of a

guild A guild ( ) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular area. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradesmen belonging to a professional association. They sometimes ...

stationer Stationery refers to commercially manufactured writing materials, including cut paper, envelopes, writing implements, continuous form paper, and other office supplies. Stationery includes materials to be written on by hand (e.g., letter paper) ...

s. At this time, the occupations considered stationers for the purposes of the guild were text writers,

limner A limner is an illuminator of manuscripts, or more generally, a painter of ornamental decoration. One of the earliest mentions of a limner's work is found in the book ''Methods and Materials of Painting'' by Charles Lock Eastlake (1793–1865). ...

s (illuminators),

bookbinders A bookbinder is someone who binds books. Bookbinder may also refer to: *Alan Bookbinder (born 1956), British journalist and Master of Downing College, Cambridge *Elaine Bookbinder (born 1945), singer better known as Elkie Brooks * Roy Bookbinder ( ...

booksellers 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 librari ...

who worked at a fixed location (''stationarius'') beside the walls of St Paul's Cathedral. Booksellers sold manuscript books, or copies thereof produced by their respective firms for retail; they also sold writing materials. Illuminators illustrated and decorated manuscripts. Printing gradually displaced manuscript production so that, by the time the guild received a royal charter of incorporation on 4 May 1557, it had in effect become a printers' guild. In 1559, it became the 47th in

city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

livery company precedence. At the time, it was based at Peter's College, which it bought from

St Paul's Cathedral St Paul's Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in London and is the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London. It is on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City of London and is a Grad ...

. During the Tudor and Stuart periods, the Stationers were legally empowered to seize "offending books" that violated the standards of content set down by the Church and state; its officers could bring "offenders" before ecclesiastical authorities, usually the

Bishop of London A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...

or the

Archbishop of Canterbury The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Justi ...

, depending on the severity of the transgression. Thus the Stationers played an important role in the culture of England as it evolved through the intensely turbulent decades of the

Protestant Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

and toward the

English Civil War The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of re ...

. The Stationers' Charter, which codified its

monopoly A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situati ...

on book production, ensured that once a member had asserted ownership of a text or "copy" by having it approved by the company, no other member was entitled to publish it, that is, no one else had the "right to copy" it. This is the origin of the term "

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...

". However, this original "right to copy" in England was different from the modern conception of copyright. The stationers' "copy right" was a protection granted to the printers of a book; "copyright" introduced with the

, or the Copyright Act of 1710, was a right granted to the author(s) of a book based on statutory law. Members of the company could, and mostly did, document their ownership of copyright in a work by entering it in the "entry book of copies" or the Stationers' Company Register, though this entry was not a necessity for the holding of a copyright. The Register of the Stationers' Company thus became one of the most essential documentary records in the later study of

English Renaissance theatre English Renaissance theatre, also known as Renaissance English theatre and Elizabethan theatre, refers to the theatre of England between 1558 and 1642. This is the style of the plays of William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson ...

. (In 1606 the

Master of the Revels The Master of the Revels was the holder of a position within the English, and later the British, royal household, heading the "Revels Office" or "Office of the Revels". The Master of the Revels was an executive officer under the Lord Chamberlain. ...

, who was responsible until this time for licensing plays for performance, acquired some overlapping authority over licensing them for publication as well; but the Stationers' Register remained a crucial and authoritative source of information after that date too.) To be sure, enforcement of the rules was always a challenge, in this area as in other aspects of the Tudor/Stuart regime; and plays and other works were sometimes printed surreptitiously and illegally. In 1603, the Stationers formed the English Stock, a joint stock publishing company funded by shares held by members of the company. This profitable business gained many patents of which the richest was for almanacks including ''

Old Moore's Almanack ''Old Moore’s Almanack'' is an astrological almanac This article gives a list of various almanacs. Note that ''almanac'' can also be spelled ''almanack'', and some of the publications listed use this form. Wikipedia almanac-type data * L ...

''. The business employed out-of-work printers and disbursed some of the profit to the poor. In 1606, the company bought Abergavenny House in

Ave Maria Lane Ave Maria Lane is a street in the City of London, to the west of St. Paul's Cathedral. It is the southern extension of Warwick Lane, between Amen Corner and Ludgate Hill. On the feastday of Corpus Christi, monks would say prayers in a proces ...

and moved out of Peter's College. The new

hall In architecture, a hall is a relatively large space enclosed by a roof and walls. In the Iron Age and early Middle Ages in northern Europe, a mead hall was where a lord and his retainers ate and also slept. Later in the Middle Ages, the gr ...

burnt down in the Great Fire of 1666 along with books to the value of about £40,000. It was rebuilt and its present interior is much as it was when it reopened in 1673. The Court Room was added in 1748 and in 1800 the external façade was remodelled to its present form. In 1695, the monopoly power of the Stationers' Company was diminished, and in 1710

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

passed the

Copyright Act 1709 The Statute of Anne, also known as the Copyright Act 1710 (cited either as 8 Ann. c. 21 or as 8 Ann. c. 19), was an act of the Parliament of Great Britain passed in 1710, which was the first statute to provide for copyright regulated by the ...

, the first copyright act. The company established the

Stationers' Company's School The Stationers' Company's School was a former boys' grammar school, then a comprehensive school in Hornsey, north London. History The school started as the Stationers' Company's Foundation School. The Master from 1858 to 1882 was Alexander Kenne ...

at Bolt Court,

Fleet Street Fleet Street is a major street mostly in the City of London. It runs west to east from Temple Bar at the boundary with the City of Westminster to Ludgate Circus at the site of the London Wall and the River Fleet from which the street was na ...

in 1861 for the education of sons of members of the company. In 1894, the school moved to

Hornsey Hornsey is a district of north London, England in the London Borough of Haringey The London Borough of Haringey (pronounced , same as Harringay) is a London borough in North London, classified by some definitions as part of Inner Lo ...

in north London. It closed in 1983. Registration under the

Copyright Act 1911 The Copyright Act 1911, also known as the Imperial Copyright Act of 1911, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (UK) which received Royal Assent on 16 December 1911. The act established copyright law in the UK and the British Empir ...

ended in December 1923; the company then established a voluntary register in which copyrights could be recorded to provide printed proof of ownership in case of disputes. In 1937, a royal charter amalgamated the Stationers' Company and the Newspaper Makers' Company, which had been founded six years earlier (and whose members were predominant in

), into the company of the present name. In March 2012, the company established the Young Stationers to provide a forum for young people (under the age of 40) within the company and the civic City of London more broadly. This led to the establishment of the Young Stationers' Prize in 2014, which recognises outstanding achievements within the company's trades. Prize winners have included novelist Angela Clarke, journalist Katie Glass, and academic Dr Shane Tilton. The company's

motto A motto (derived from the Latin , 'mutter', by way of Italian , 'word' or 'sentence') is a sentence or phrase expressing a belief or purpose, or the general motivation or intention of an individual, family, social group, or organisation. Mot ...

is ''Verbum Domini manet in aeternum'',

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

for "The Word of the Lord endures forever". In November 2020 Stationers' Hall the home of the Stationers' Company were finally granted approval to redevelop their Grade 1

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

to bring modern day conference facilities, air-cooling and step free access to its historic rooms. It reopened in July 2022 for live events, weddings, and filming.

Trades

The modern Stationers' Company represents the "content and communications" industries within the City of London Liveries. This includes the following trades and specialisms: *Archiving (including librarian, curators, and book conservation) *Bookselling and distribution *Communications (including advertising, marketing, and PR) *Digital media and software *Newspapers and broadcasting *Office products and supplies *Packaging *Paper *Print machinery *Printing *Publishing (including digital publishing and design) *Writing (including journalism, broadcasting, and authorship)

Hall

Stationers' Hall is at

near

Ludgate Hill Ludgate Hill is a street and surrounding area, on a small hill in the City of London. The street passes through the former site of Ludgate, a city gate that was demolished – along with a gaol attached to it – in 1760. The area include ...

. The site of the present hall was formerly the site of Abergavenny House, which was purchased by the Stationers in 1606 for £3,500, but destroyed in the

Great Fire of London The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through central London from Sunday 2 September to Thursday 6 September 1666, gutting the medieval City of London inside the old Roman city wall, while also extending past the ...

, 1666. The current building and hall date from ''circa'' 1670. The hall was remodelled in 1800 by the architect Robert Mylne and, on 4 January 1950, it was designated a Grade I

. Stationers' Hall hosts the Shine School Media Awards, where students compete in the creation of websites and magazines.

Notable liverymen

Edward Allde Edward Allde (''Alde'', ''Alldee'', or ''Alday''; born c. 1560, died 1627) was an English printer in London during the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras. He was responsible for a number of significant texts in English Renaissance drama, includin ...

John Cleave John Cleave (born circa 1790) was a British, London based Chartist leader, a printer and newspaper publisher. Early career Born of Irish stock, as a young boy John Cleave went to sea and is first documented for his political activities as lat ...

Thomas Cotes Thomas Cotes (died 1641) was a London printer of the Jacobean and Caroline eras, best remembered for printing the Second Folio edition of Shakespeare's plays in 1632. Life and work Thomas Cotes became a "freeman" (a full member) of the S ...

George Eld George Eld (died 1624) was a London printer of the Jacobean era, who produced important works of English Renaissance drama and literature, including key texts by William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe, and Thomas Middleton. Eld w ...

Edmund Evans Edmund Evans (23 February 1826 – 21 August 1905) was an English wood-engraver and colour printer during the Victorian era. He specialized in full-colour printing, a technique which, in part because of his work, became popular in the mid-19th c ...

George Faulkner George Faulkner (c. 1703 – 30 August 1775) was one of the most important Irish publishers and booksellers. He forged a publishing relationship with Jonathan Swift and parlayed that fame into an extensive trade. He was also deeply involved with ...

* Richard Field *

Augustine Matthews Augustine Matthews ( fl. 1615 – 1637) was a printer in London in the Jacobean and Caroline eras. Among a wide variety of other work, Matthews printed notable texts in English Renaissance drama. Matthews became a freedman (a full member) ...

George Mudie (Owenite) George Mudie (1788 – unknown) was a Scottish social reformer, Owenite, co-operator, journalist and publisher. He founded one of the first co-operative communities in the United Kingdom and edited several publications in which he attacked t ...

Rupert Murdoch Keith Rupert Murdoch ( ; born 11 March 1931) is an Australian-born American business magnate. Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of local, national, and international publishing outlets around the world, including ...

Thomas Cautley Newby Thomas Cautley Newby (1797/1798 – 1882) was an English publisher and printer based in London. Newby published ''Wuthering Heights'' by Emily Brontë and both Anne Brontë's novels, ''Agnes Grey'' and ''The Tenant of Wildfell Hall''. He also ...

Nicholas Okes Nicholas Okes (died 1645) was an English printer in London of the Jacobean and Caroline eras, remembered for printing works of English Renaissance drama. He was responsible for early editions of works by many of the playwrights of the period, i ...

* Peter Short *

William Stansby William Stansby (1572–1638) was a London printer and publisher of the Jacobean and Caroline eras, working under his own name from 1610. One of the most prolific printers of his time, Stansby is best remembered for publishing the landmark first ...

John Trundle John Trundle (1575–1629) was a London publisher and bookseller. Trundle was born in Chipping Barnet, Herefordshire, but moved to London when regulations issued by the Star Chamber restricted printing to London, Oxford and Cambridge. He served an ...

* Sir Christopher Meyer *

William Hague William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

Young Stationers' Prize

The "Young Stationers' Prize" is an annual prize awarded by the Young Stationers' Committee to a young person under 40 years of age who has distinguished themself within the company's trades. Launched in 2014, the prize is a pewter plate (donated by the

Worshipful Company of Pewterers The Worshipful Company of Pewterers is one of the 110 Livery Companies of the City of London. It ranks 16th in the order of precedence of City Livery Companies and has existed since at least 1348. Like all the other City Livery Companies, the ...

) onto which each winner's name is engraved.

List of Young Stationers' Prize winners

As of December 2019 there have been seven winners of the Young Stationers' Prize: Katie Glass, journalist, 2014; Angela Clarke, novelist, playwright, and columnist, 2015; Ella Kahn and Bryony Woods, founders of Diamond Kahn & Woods Literary Agency (awarded jointly), 2016; Ian Buckley, managing director of Prima Software, 2017; Shane Tilton, academic and professor of multimedia journalism, 2018; Amy Hutchinson, CEO of the BOSS Federation, 2019.

References

External links

The Stationers' and Newspaper Makers' Company

Events Venue Website
{{Coord, 51.51425, -0.10147, display=title Livery companies 1403 establishments in England Printing History of copyright law 17th century in London Corporatism Charities based in London History of the City of London Organisations based in London with royal patronage