Cottle, Joseph (1770–1853), bookseller and author, was born on 9 March 1770 in Barton Alley, Bristol, second of the seven children of Robert (d. 1800) and Sarah Cottle (1739–1813) from Trowbridge; Amos Simon Cottle was his elder brother. Robert, descended from a Cornish gentry family, was a tailor and draper in ...
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Cottle, Joseph (1770–1853), bookseller and author
Ralph A. Manogue
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Duncon, Samuel (1607–1680), haberdasher and pamphleteer
Frank Grace
Duncon, Samuel (1607–1680), haberdasher and pamphleteer, was the second son of John Duncon of Mendlesham, Suffolk; details of his place of birth and of his mother are unknown. In 1624 he was apprenticed to Edmund Kene, an Ipswich merchant and portman, or chief burgess. ...
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Gronniosaw, Ukawsaw [pseud. James Albert] (1710x14–1775), freed slave and autobiographer
Vincent Carretta
Gronniosaw, Ukawsaw [pseud. James Albert] (1710x14–1775), freed slave and autobiographer, was probably born in Bornu (now north-eastern Nigeria), the youngest of the six children of the eldest daughter of the king of Bournou (Bornu). Spiritually dissatisfied with the animist faith in which he was brought up, he soon alienated himself from his friends and relatives by his constant questions challenging their faith in physical objects, as well as by his growing belief in the existence of an uncreated creator. Increasingly '...
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Harris, Benjamin (c. 1647–1720), publisher and bookseller
Mark Knights
Harris, Benjamin (c. 1647–1720), publisher and bookseller, was born in London, the son of William Harris, citizen and barber–surgeon. Apprenticed to a bookseller on 6 April 1663, he gained his freedom from the Stationers' Company on 1 August 1670. His first known publication (with ...
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Johnson, Joseph (1738–1809), bookseller
Carol Hall
Johnson, Joseph (1738–1809), bookseller, was born on 15 November 1738 at Everton, near Liverpool, the second of two sons of John Johnson, a Baptist landowner and businessman who came to Everton from Cheshire in 1733. Johnson left for London in 1752, where two years later on 12 February 1754 he was apprenticed to ...
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Johnson, Joseph (1738–1809)
Maker: William Sharp
In
Joseph Johnson (1738–1809) by William Sharp (after Moses Haughton) © National Portrait Gallery, London
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Smith, Francis (d. 1691), bookseller and General Baptist minister
Beth Lynch
Smith, Francis (d. 1691), bookseller and General Baptist minister, was the son of Francis Smith, a Yorkshire farrier from Bradford. No further information has as yet been discovered about his family background or his birth details. On 3 May 1647 he was apprenticed to ...
