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 f ...

. 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, but ...

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 ...

, 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 ...

of stationers. At this time, the occupations considered stationers for the purposes of the guild were text writers, limners (illuminators), bookbinders or booksellers 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 de ...

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 Anglicanism, 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 ...

. During the Tudor and

Stuart Stuart may refer to: Names * Stuart (name), a given name and surname (and list of people with the name) Automobile *Stuart (automobile) Places Australia Generally *Stuart Highway, connecting South Australia and the Northern Territory Northe ...

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 Episcopal polity, authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or offic ...

or the Archbishop of Canterbury, 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 Kingdom of England, England's governanc ...

. The Stationers' Charter, which codified its

monopoly A monopoly (from 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 situation where a speci ...

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 Jonso ...

. (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 Chamberlai ...

, 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 which has been published in Britain since 1697. It was written and published by Francis Moore, a self-taught physician and astrologer who served at the court of Charles II. The first edi ...

''. 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: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. ...

passed the Copyright Act 1709, the first copyright act. The company established the Stationers' Company's School 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 n ...

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. It is an inner-suburban, for the most part residential, area centred north of Charing Cross. It adjoins green spaces Queen's Wood and Alexandra Park to the ...

in north London. It closed in 1983. Registration under the Copyright Act 1911 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 Young may refer to: * Offspring, the product of reproduction of a new organism produced by one or more parents * Youth, the time of life when one is young, often meaning the time between childhood and adulthood Music * The Young, an American roc ...

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 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 Stationers' Company was formed in ...

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. Mo ...

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 ...

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 I ...

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. 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 th ...

, 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 * John Cleave * Thomas Cotes * George Eld *

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-19t ...

* George Faulkner * Richard Field * Augustine Matthews * George Mudie (Owenite) *

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 *

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 * John Trundle *

Sir Christopher Meyer Sir Christopher John Rome Meyer (22 February 1944 – 27 July 2022) was a British diplomat who served as the Ambassador to the United States (1997–2003), Ambassador to Germany (1997), and the chairman of the Press Complaints Commission (20 ...

William Hague William is a masculine given name of Norman French 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 conq ...

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) 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 Shane Tilton is an American academic and associate professor of multimedia journalism at the Ohio Northern University. He was the former director of the Center of Society and Cyberstudies, which is an international thinktank designed to study an ...

, 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