In com­mon with oth­er Euro­pean coun­tries, Guilds were formed where men had com­mon eco­nom­ic inter­ests and objec­tives and these had dif­fer­ent degrees of con­trol on their trades until the end of the 18th cen­tu­ry, or begin­ning of the indus­tri­al rev­o­lu­tion.

In Lon­don, the May­or and Cham­ber­lain leased sta­tions for trad­ing pur­pos­es around St. Paul’s and the name ​‘sta­tion­er’ might come from the sta­tions these traders occu­pied, but there is no defin­i­tive ori­gin of the term ​‘sta­tion­er’¹.

Early Days

By the four­teenth cen­tu­ry there were writ­ers of court­hand and text and illu­mi­na­tors, each exempt from jury ser­vice. By 1373 there was a dis­tinct guild of Writ­ers of Court Let­ter.

The sta­tion­ers applied for a char­ter (to the Crown) in 1542 and for per­mis­sion to form a guild, or a Liv­ery Com­pa­ny to the City of Lon­don. The colours award­ed were scar­let and brown-blue. The Char­ter was grant­ed on 4 May 1557 and the group became the Com­pa­ny of Sta­tion­ers.

Monopoly

The emerg­ing pow­er of the print­ing press was keen­ly lim­it­ed, includ­ing Hen­ry VII­I’s order that his Privy Coun­cil should exam­ine each book. Through the Sta­tion­ers’ Char­ter of 1557, it was for­bid­den for any per­son to prac­tice the art or mys­tery of print­ing unless he was a mem­ber of the Com­pa­ny; or held a Roy­al Let­ters Patent.

John Day was the first per­son to be admit­ted to the liv­ery of the Com­pa­ny and was War­den in 1564 and three lat­er years before being Mas­ter of the Com­pa­ny in 1580.

This 1557 Char­ter, by the way, was destroyed by the Great Fire of Lon­don.

to search take and car­ry away all press­es, let­ters and oth­er pryntinge instru­mentes sett up, used or employed . . con­trary to the intent and meaninge here­of; … and there­upon shall cause all suche print­ing press­es, or oth­er print­ing instru­ments, to be Defaced, melt­ed, sawed in peeces, bro­ken, or bat­tered

Star Cham­ber decree of 1586, allow­ing the Sta­tion­ers’ Com­pa­ny to inspect all print­ing offices. My rubri­ca­tion.

Stationers’ Company Register

The Char­ter for the Com­pa­ny also enforced that no oth­er per­son had a ​‘right to copy’ a book once a mem­ber of the Com­pa­ny had shown that they owned the text.

The usu­al way of show­ing own­er­ship of a text was for a entry to be made in the Com­pa­ny’s Reg­is­ter, which was estab­lished in 1595. This sta­tus — show­ing proof of pub­lish­er’s own­er­ship (not author!) — was includ­ed in the 1684 re-cre­ation of the orig­i­nal Char­ter.

An 1871 account of the Com­pa­ny explains there were two entrances to the Hall — one for Mem­bers which is ​‘very state­ly’, and anoth­er ​‘hum­ble’ entrance for those attend­ing to pay tolls and tax.

End of the Monopoly

By 1695 the monop­oly over the mys­tery of print­ing had end­ed. And the need to reg­is­ter books with the Com­pa­ny to evi­dence own­er­ship end­ed in Decem­ber 1923.

As the demand for more and more print­ed mate­ri­als grew, a wider range of boys entered the craft, dilut­ing what had been an almost ​‘hered­i­tary caste of men’². The num­ber of UK print­ers dou­bled between 1831 and 1851. Over time the unions took more of a role of lim­it­ing entry to the pro­fes­sion.

Organising the Company and Education

The Com­pa­ny is gov­erned by a Mas­ter, two War­dens, and a Court of Assis­tants. These were orig­i­nal­ly designed to enforce craft dis­ci­pline doc­u­ment­ed in the Orders, Rules and Ordi­nances of the Com­pa­ny.

A School — The Sta­tion­ers’ Com­pa­ny’s School — was opened in Fleet Street in 1861 but addi­tion­al space was need­ed and this moved to Hornsey in 1894, clos­ing in 1983. In 2014, the Sta­tion­ers’ began to sup­port the Sta­tion­ers’ Crown Woods Acad­e­my in Eltham.

Stationers’ Hall

The Guild was orig­i­nal­ly based at Peter’s Col­lege before buy­ing Aber­gaven­ny House in 1606. This was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666, but re-built by 1673.

Role Today

The Com­pa­ny’s orig­i­nal role has moved on, and the Com­pa­ny today seeks to pro­vide a forum for those in the com­mu­ni­ca­tions and con­tent indus­tries, with char­i­ta­ble activ­i­ties focussed on edu­ca­tion, train­ing her­itage and wel­fare.

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Location

Sta­tion­ers’ Hall, Lon­don

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Head­er Image: ​“Sta­tion­ers Hall” flickr pho­to by Matt From Lon­don https://flickr.com/photos/londonmatt/16589657873 shared under a Cre­ative Com­mons (BY) license