John Nichols (printer)

John Nichols (2 February 1745 – 26 November 1826) was an English printer, author and antiquary.[1] He is remembered as an influential editor of the Gentleman's Magazine for nearly 40 years; author of a monumental county history of Leicestershire; author of two compendia of biographical material relating to his literary contemporaries; and as one of the agents behind the first complete publication of Domesday Book in 1783.

John Nichols
John Nichols
Born(1745-02-02)2 February 1745
Islington, London
Died26 November 1826(1826-11-26) (aged 81)
Occupationprinter; antiquary
NationalityBritish
Genrehistory
Notable worksLiterary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century;
History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester

Early life and apprenticeship

He was born in Islington, London to Edward Nichols and Anne Wilmot. On 22 June 1766 he married Anne, daughter of William Cradock. Anne bore him three children: Anne (1767), Sarah (1769), and William Bowyer (born 1775 and died a year later). His wife Anne also died in 1776. Nichols was married a second time in 1778, to Martha Green who bore him eight children. Nichols was taken for training by "the learned printer", William Bowyer the Younger in early 1757.[2] Nichols was formally apprenticed in February 1759 by Bowyer, whom he eventually succeeded.[2] On the death of his friend and master in 1777 he published a brief memoir, which afterwards grew into the Anecdotes of William Bowyer and his Literary Friends (1782).

Literary career

In 1788, he became editor of the Gentleman's Magazine and remained so till his death. In that periodical, and in his numerous volumes of Anecdotes and Illustrations, he made numerous contributions to literary biography. As his materials accumulated he compiled a sort of anecdotal literary history of the century, based on a large collection of letters. The Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century (1812–15, nine volumes), into which the original work was expanded, forms only a small part of Nichols's production.

Considered one of his most important works, Nichols's monumental History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester, was the most ambitious of the antiquarian county histories (extremely long, but the quality of the content is very variable), a massive compendium of historical notes, manuscripts and engraved plates printed by subscription after an exhaustive survey of the county, and published in eight parts not in chronological order to make up four volumes when complete, from 1795–1815.[3] It was followed by the Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century, consisting of Authentic Memoirs and Original Letters of Eminent Persons, which was begun in 1817 and completed by his son John Bowyer Nichols (1779–1863) in 1858. The Anecdotes and the Illustrations are mines of valuable information on the authors, printers and booksellers of the time.

Nichols and the printing of Domesday Book (1767–83)

Nichols co-operated with Abraham Farley in the production of the 1783 edition of Domesday Book, which he called in his Literary Anecdotes "the most invaluable as well as most antient Record in this or any other kingdom".[4] Between Farley's appointment as co-editor of the project in 1770 and the final publication of Domesday Book in two volumes in 1783, Nichols assisted Farley in printing and proof-reading the text, and also designed the special "record type" typeface that was to be used. This was a source of lasting pride to him; he would later say "on the correctness and the beauty of this important Work I am content to stake my typographical credit".[5]

The types created by Nichols for the Domesday project were destroyed, alongside much else of value, in a fire at his office in February 1808.[6]

Other works
  • A Collection of Royal and Noble Wills (1780)
  • A Select Collection of Poems (1780–82), with subsequent additions, in which he was helped by Joseph Warton and by Bishops Percy and Lowth
  • History and Antiquities of the Town of Hinckley, in the County of Leicester (1782)
  • Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica (1780–90)
  • The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth (1788), with Richard Gough

Nichols was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, a trustee of many City of London institutions, and in 1804 he was master of the Stationers' Company.

Heirs and successors

John Bowyer Nichols continued his father's various undertakings, and wrote, with other works, A Brief Account of the Guildhall of the City of London (1819).

John Gough Nichols (1806–73), John Bowyer Nichols' eldest son, was also a printer and a distinguished antiquary. He edited the Gentleman's Magazine from 1851 to 1856 and The Herald and Genealogist from 1863 to 1874, and was one of the founders of the Camden Society.[7]

It is understood that William Nichols Higton was given his middle name by his father, the artist John Higton, in honour of their friendship, and that Nichols was his godfather.

Bibliography

A full "Memoir of John Nichols" by Alexander Chalmers is contained in the Illustrations, and a bibliography in the Anecdotes (vol. vi.) is supplemented in the later work. See also Robert Cradock Nichols, Memoir of the late John Gough Nichols, F.S.A. (1874).

Sources

Primary sources
  • Nichols, John (1812). Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century. III. London: Nichols, Son, and Bentley. p. 261.

Secondary sources
  1. "Nichols, John (1745-1826)" . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
  2. Keith Maslen, ‘Bowyer, William (1699–1777)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004.
  3. "John Nichols History & Antiquities of the County of Leicester". Research Centre & Library. Leicestershire & Rutland Family History Society. Archived from the original on 4 February 2012. Retrieved 16 January 2012.
  4. Nichols 1812, p. 261.
  5. Nichols 1812, p. 264–265.
  6. Ellis, Henry, ed. (1816). Domesday Book: seu libris censualis, vocati Domesday Book, indices. Accessit dissertatio generalis de ratione huiusce libri. London: printed by Command. p. cvi.
  7. "Nichols, John Gough" . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
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