39 - The Stationers’ Company and the almanack trade

Summary

‘An Almanack-Maker’, wrote Richard Brathwaite, ‘is an annual author, no lesse constant in his method than matter.’ Designed as items to be replaced yearly, almanacks sold in huge numbers. Indeed, they had a nearly universal appeal, for while some almanacks had partisan political or religious affiliations, the vast majority did not. Moreover, since they were cheap to produce, it was possible to price them to suit almost everyone’s purse. The better almanacks, in effect yearbooks, provided useful information for professional men, merchants and the gentry, while the poorer classes and semi-literate could enjoy the crude woodcuts and learn the jingles.

The English Stock and its government

The original letters patent setting up the English Stock in 1603 granted the Stationers’ Company perpetual copyright in ‘all manner of Almanacks and Prognostications in the English tongue’ which it ‘shall and may at all times and from time to time for ever print or cause to be printed’ (my italics). This, the Company believed, established its exclusive right to print and publish almanacks in perpetuity.

The English Stock was funded by shareholding members of the Stationers’ Company and run by a stock board. Appointed by the Stationers’ Court, the stock board met fortnightly or monthly and consisted of the Master and Wardens, a paid Treasurer or Warehouse Keeper, the Clerk in attendance, and six Stock Keepers (two for each class of share: Court assistant, Livery and Yeomanry). While the Stock held a monopoly on a number of works, it was almanack sales that ensured its continuing prosperity. As Blagden notes, sales of almanacks allowed the Stock to earn the equivalent of its capital in just eight years, helping to maintain the numbers of those joining the Livery in the eighteenth century when the Liveries of other Companies were in decline.