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The Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers (better known as the Stationers' Company) is one of the Livery Companies
Livery Company

The 108 Livery Companies are trade associations based in the City of London, almost all of which are known as the "Worshipful Company of" the relevant trade or profession....
 of the City of London
City of London

The City of London is a geographically small city status in the United Kingdom within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which, along with Westminster, the modern conurbation grew....
. The Stationers' Company was founded in 1403; it received a Royal Charter
Royal Charter

A royal charter is a charter granted by a Monarch to create institutions or other forms of incorporated bodies . In the United Kingdom legal tradition a royal charter is in the form of letters patent....
 in 1557. It held a monopoly over the publishing industry and was officially responsible for setting and enforcing copyright
Copyright

Copyright is a form of intellectual property which gives the creator of an original work exclusive rights for a certain time period in relation to that work, including its publication, distribution and adaptation; after which time the work is said to enter the public domain....
 regulations until the passage of the Statute of Anne
Statute of Anne

The Statute of Anne was the first copyright law in the Kingdom of Great Britain , enacted in 1709 and entering into force on April 10, 1710. It is generally considered to be the first fully-fledged copyright law....
 in 1709.

Today, the Company mostly carries out ceremonial functions, and contributes to educational charities.






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The Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers (better known as the Stationers' Company) is one of the Livery Companies
Livery Company

The 108 Livery Companies are trade associations based in the City of London, almost all of which are known as the "Worshipful Company of" the relevant trade or profession....
 of the City of London
City of London

The City of London is a geographically small city status in the United Kingdom within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which, along with Westminster, the modern conurbation grew....
. The Stationers' Company was founded in 1403; it received a Royal Charter
Royal Charter

A royal charter is a charter granted by a Monarch to create institutions or other forms of incorporated bodies . In the United Kingdom legal tradition a royal charter is in the form of letters patent....
 in 1557. It held a monopoly over the publishing industry and was officially responsible for setting and enforcing copyright
Copyright

Copyright is a form of intellectual property which gives the creator of an original work exclusive rights for a certain time period in relation to that work, including its publication, distribution and adaptation; after which time the work is said to enter the public domain....
 regulations until the passage of the Statute of Anne
Statute of Anne

The Statute of Anne was the first copyright law in the Kingdom of Great Britain , enacted in 1709 and entering into force on April 10, 1710. It is generally considered to be the first fully-fledged copyright law....
 in 1709.

Today, the Company mostly carries out ceremonial functions, and contributes to educational charities. All its members work in the book or allied trades. In the order of precedence
Order of precedence

An order of precedence is a sequential hierarchy of nominal importance of items. Most often it is used in the context of people by many organizations and governments....
 of the Livery Companies of London, the Stationers' and Newspaper Makers' Company is forty-seventh.

History

In 1403, the City of London Corporation approved the formation of a Guild of stationers. At this time, stationers were either booksellers, illuminators
Illuminated manuscript

An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the Writing is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and Miniature ....
, or bookbinders
Bookbinding

Bookbinding is the process of physically assembling a book from a number of folded or unfolded sheets of paper or other material. It also usually involves attaching covers to the resulting text-block....
. Booksellers sold manuscript books that they or their employees had copied. They also sold the writing materials that they used. Illuminators illustrated and decorated manuscripts.

Printing gradually displaced manuscript production and, by the time that the Guild received a royal charter of incorporation on May 4, 1557, it was in effect a Printers' Guild. In 1559, it became the 47th livery company. It was based in Peter College, which it bought from St Paul's Cathedral
St Paul's Cathedral

St Paul's Cathedral is the Anglicanism cathedral on Ludgate Hill, in the City of London, and the seat of the Bishop of London. The present building dates from the 17th century and is generally reckoned to be London's fifth St Paul's Cathedral, although the number is higher if every major medieval reconstruction is counted as a new cathedr...
. During the Tudor
Tudor dynasty

The House of Tudor was a prominent European royal house that ruled the Kingdom of England and its realms from 1485 until 1603. Founded by Henry VII of England, who, though his paternal family was Welsh people ?his grandfather was Owen Tudor? was himself also a legitimized descendent of the royal House of Lancaster....
 and Stuart
House of Stuart

The House of Stuart, also known as the House of Stewart is an important European royal house. Founded by Robert II of Scotland, the Stewarts first became monarchs of the Kingdom of Scotland during the late 14th century....
 periods, the Stationers were legally empowered to seize "offending books" that violated the standards of content set by the Church and State; its officers could bring "offenders" before ecclesiastical authorities, including the Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury. Thus the Stationers played an important role in the culture of England as it evolved through the intensely turbulent decades of the Protestant Reformation
Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation was a Christian reform movement in Europe. It is thought to have begun in 1517 with Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses and may be considered to have ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648....
 and toward the English Civil War
English Civil War

The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Roundhead and Cavalier. The First English Civil War and Second English Civil War civil wars pitted the supporters of Charles I of England against the supporters of the Long Parliament, while the Third English Civil War saw fighting between supporters...
.

The Stationers' charter, establishing a monopoly
Monopoly

In economics, a monopoly exists when a specific individual or enterprise has sufficient control over a particular product or service to determine significantly the terms on which other individuals shall have access to it....
 on book production, ensured that once a member had asserted ownership of a text (or "copy") no other member would publish it. This is the origin of the term "copyright
Copyright

Copyright is a form of intellectual property which gives the creator of an original work exclusive rights for a certain time period in relation to that work, including its publication, distribution and adaptation; after which time the work is said to enter the public domain....
". Members asserted such ownership by entering it in the "entry book of copies" or the Stationers' Company Register
Stationers' Register

The Stationers' Register was a record book maintained by the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers of London. The company is a trade guild given a royal charter in 1557 to regulate the various professions associated with the publishing industry, including printers, bookbinders, booksellers, and publishers in England....
. The Register of the Stationers' Company became one of the most essential documentary records in the later study of English Renaissance theatre
English Renaissance theatre

English Renaissance Theatre is English drama written between the English Reformation and the closure of the theatres in 1642. It may also be called early modern English Theatre....
. (In 1606 the Master of the Revels
Master of the Revels

The Master of the Revels was a position within the United Kingdom Noble court heading the "Revels Office" or "Office of the Revels" that originally had responsibilities for overseeing royal festivities, known as revels, and later also became responsible for theater censorship, until this function was transferred to the Lord Chamberlain in...
, who was responsible for licensing the performance of plays rather than their publication, acquired some overlapping authority over publication as well; but the Stationers Register remained a crucial source of information after that date too.) To be sure, enforcement of the rules was always a challenge, in this area as in other aspects of the Tudor/Stuart regime; and plays and other works were sometimes printed surreptitiously and illegally (as often happens under regimes with strong censorship
Censorship

Censorship is the suppression of freedom of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable, harmful or sensitive, as determined by a censor....
 controls).

In 1603, the Stationers formed the English stock, a joint stock publishing company funded by shares held by members of the Company. This profitable business gained many patents of which the richest was for almanacks including Old Moore's Almanack
Old Moore's Almanack

Old Moore?s Almanack is an almanac which has been published in Britain since 1697.It was originally written and published by Francis Moore , a self-taught physician and astrologer who served at the court of Charles II of England....
. The business employed out of work printers and disbursed some of the profit to the poor.

In 1606, the Company bought Abergavenny House in Ave Maria Lane
Ave Maria Lane

Ave Maria Lane is a street in the City of London, to the west of St Paul's Cathedral. It is the southern extension of Warwick Lane, between Amen Corner and Ludgate Hill....
 and moved out of Peters College. The new hall burnt down in the Great Fire
Great Fire of London

The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through the central parts of London, England, from Sunday, 2 September to Wednesday, 5 September 1666....
 of 1666 along with books to the value of about £40,000. It was rebuilt. Its present interior is much as it was when it reopened in 1673. The Court Room was added in 1748 and in 1800 the external façade was remodelled to its present form.

In 1695, the monopoly power of the Stationers' Company was diminished, and in 1710 Parliament
Parliament of England

The Parliament of England was the legislature of the Kingdom of England. Its roots can be traced back to the early medieval period. In a series of developments, it came increasingly to constrain the power of the King of England, and went on after the Act of Union 1707 to merge with the Parliament of Scotland and form the main basis of the Pa...
 passed the Copyright Act 1709, the first copyright act.

The Company established a school in Bolt Court, Fleet Street
Fleet Street

Fleet Street is a street in London, England named after the River Fleet. It was the home of the List of newspapers in the United Kingdom until the 1980s....
 in 1858 for the education of sons of members of the Company. In 1894, the school moved to Hornsey
Hornsey

Hornsey is a district in London Borough of Haringey in north London in England. Whilst Hornsey was formerly the name of a parish and later a municipal borough of Middlesex, today, the name refers only to the London district....
 in north London. It closed in 1983.

Registration under the Copyright Act 1911
Copyright Act 1911

Copyright Act 1911 is an Act of Parliament of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which received Royal Assent on December 16, 1911. It rewrote Copyright law of the United Kingdom, as recommended by a Royal Commission in 1878....
 ended in December 1923; the Company then established a voluntary register in which copyrights could be recorded to provide printed proof of ownership in case of disputes.

In 1937, a Royal Charter amalgamated the Stationers' Company and the Newspaper Makers Company, which had been founded six years earlier, into the Company of the present name.

Stationers' Hall is near Ludgate Hill, in Ave Maria Lane. The building and hall dates from circa 1670; and was designated a Grade I listed building
Listed building

A listed building in the United Kingdom is a building or other structure officially designated as being of special architectural, historical or cultural significance....
 on 04 January 1950.

See also

  • Printing patent
    Printing patent

    The printing patent or printing privilege was a precursor of modern copyright. It was an exclusive right to print a work or a class work of works....


External links