William Bowyer the elder (166327 December 1737),

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

printer Printer may refer to: Technology * Printer (publishing), a person or a company * Printer (computing), a hardware device * Optical printer for motion picture films People * Nariman Printer (fl. c. 1940), Indian journalist and activist * James ...

, was apprenticed to a Miles Flesher in 1679, made a liveryman of The Stationers' and Newspaper Makers' Company in 1700, and nominated as one of the twenty printers allowed by the

Star Chamber The Star Chamber (Latin: ''Camera stellata'') was an English court that sat at the royal Palace of Westminster, from the late to the mid-17th century (c. 1641), and was composed of Privy Counsellors and common-law judges, to supplement the judic ...

. Bowyer originally settled in White Friars, where he remained until January 1712/3, when his printing-house and warehouse were destroyed by fire. Bowyer began printing again on his own in October 1713 in Temple Lane. By 1716, thanks to the grant of a royal warrant for a charitable collection, and the generous support of the London trade, Bowyer was well on his way to economic recovery.

William Bowyer William Bowyer may refer to: Politicians * William Bowyer (15th century MP), in 1411 MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme * William Bowyer (died 1602), MP for Stafford * William Bowyer (Keeper of the Records), MP for Westminster and Keeper of the Records in ...

, the son, born in 1699, entered the business as a corrector in June 1722. Father and son worked side by side until the former's death in December 1737 and their publishing house was considered the most learned of its time. Although they published such important, learned works as

Sir Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the great ...

Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (English: ''Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy'') often referred to as simply the (), is a book by Isaac Newton that expounds Newton's laws of motion and his law of universal gravitation. The ''Principia'' is written in Latin and ...

, they also published political pamphlets and advertising bills. The four Bowyer ledgers, kept by father and son, are one of but four printing houses out of the seventy-four master printers in London in 1724, for which records are extant and offer the earliest example by over 20 years.''Bowyer Ledgers'', xxiii. A main source for the lives of both father and son is John Nichols' ''Literary anecdotes of the eighteenth century''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bowyer, William English printers 1663 births 1737 deaths