The present list aims to draw attention to otherwise unsuspected bankruptcies affecting individuals or partnerships engaged in the book trades between 1731 and 1806. The sources used are derived from the fuller information in the main source, The London gazette, which I have not had the stamina to examine. Since 1985 I have had access to the cards compiled by Victor Berch of Brandeis University from a variety of newspapers of the period which include bankruptcy references in many years of the London gazette. These have been incorporated with the present list, and can be consulted with fuller detail in Exeter working paper no. 10, for example notices relating to the bankruptcy of Richard Martin in 1800 have been fully transcribed. Victor Berch also includes many references to insolvent debtors taken from the same source. This is an area of investigation that I had said might be fruitful in my original introduction in 1985.

For the period 1786 to 1806 I have used A list of bankrupts, with their dividends, certificates ... from Jan. 1, 1786 to June 24, 1806 ... transcribed from the 'London gazettes' ... (London: William Smith & Co., 1806). As the title indicates, this gives full listings not only of bankruptcies but also of certificates and dividends, together with the precise dates of the appearance of the advertisements in The London gazette. For the period 1772 to 1785 I have used Bailey's list of bankrupts, dividends and certificates from the year 1772 to 1793 (London: T.Wilkins, 1794). This list, compiled by the publisher of trade directories William Bailey, who lists his own bankruptcy in 1784, does not appear to be so exhaustive, and is certainly less precise with dates. For this period I have added supplementary information from periodicals, normally the Gentleman's magazine, abbreviated GM. For the period prior to 1772 my sole sources have been a selection of periodicals and newspapers, normally the Gentleman's magazine, supplemented on occasion by the London magazine (LM), Universal magazine (UM), Western flying post (WFP), and Sherborne mercury (SM).

Periodicals are a poor source for bankrupts. The relevant section, normally coyly headed "B-NKR-PTS", is often held over when space is required for more urgent material. Indeed from 1738 to 1741 the Gentleman's magazine omits the section on bankrupts entirely. The date given in this list is normally that of the periodical, not of the appearance in the London gazette, so a search backward for one or more months may be necessary at times to trace the notice. It may be suspected that the lists in the periodicals, sometimes several months delayed, could also have been compressed for purposes of copy fitting, with the consequent omission of individual bankruptcies. However cross-checking for the book trades leads me to suspect that the coverage in the present list is well over ninety per cent.

I am not qualified to explain the nature of bankruptcy and unravel its relationship to insolvency during this period but there is now a helpful guide to surviving records and their administrative context produced by the National Archives at Kew and available in June 2004 on the internet. Some businesses appear to survive undaunted through a series of bankruptcies - successive bankruptcies of the same person receive separate entire in this list, as do partners in bankrupt firms - and it would appear that some seized on bankruptcy as a device to continue trading. The comments of C.H.Timperley (A dictionary of printers and printing, London: H.Johnson, 1839, p. 483) on the bankruptcy of the Robinsons in 1804 is worth quoting:

Besides other unforeseen misfortunes, their exertions in trade were baffled in a single night, by the destruction of a printing office in which they happened to have property to a very large amount, by fire. Discouraged but not daunted, they met this misfortune with firmness, and for a long time struggled to free their vast affairs from the embarrassments which it had occasioned; but, finding their difficulties increase, instead of involving themselvers still deeper, by resorting to the usual means of upholdings a sinking credit, they met the evil day with resolution, and submitted their extensive concerns to an ordeal fatal to the credit of half the commercial world. They were declared bankrupts, and patiently investigated every account, and punctually fulfilled every engagement; a considerable surplus rewarded their labour and perseverance, and they rapidly emerged with the highest honour to theselves, their credit gathered strength from the shock, which a short time before had menaced its annihilation.

The following extracts from the section headed "Bankrupt" in The justice of the peace and parish officer by Richard Burn (14th edition, London: Printed by W.Strahan and M.Woodfall, for T.Cadell, 1780) may be of assistance in shedding light of some of the difficulties mentioned above:

Every person using the trade of merchandise ... who shall:
1. Depart the realm
2. Begin to keep his house, or otherwise absent himself (to defraud creditors)
3. Take sanctuary
4. Suffer himself willingly to be arrested for any debt ...
5. Suffer himself to be outlawed
6. Yield himself to prison
7. Willingly or fraudulently procure himself to be arrested, or his goods to be attached or sequestered
8. Depart from his dwelling house
9. Make any fraudulent grant or conveyance of his land or goods, to the intent or whereby his creditors shall and may be defeated or delayed for the recover of their just debts
10. Obtain any protection, other than such person as shall be lawfully protected by privilege of Parliament.
11. Prefer to any court and petition or bill against any of his creditors ... to enforce them to accept less ... or to procure time, or longer days of payment ...
12 Being arrested for debt shall lie in prison for two months or
13. Being arrested for 100 l. or more shall escape out of prison
shall be adjudged a bankrupt.

Yet nevertheless no commission of bankruptcy shall be issued on the petition of one or more creditors, unless the single debt of such creditor, or of two or more partners amout to 100 l; or of two such creditors petitioning amounts to 150 l; or of three or more to 200 l.

... the Lord Chancellor may on such complaint in writing ... by commission under the great seal, appoint such wise and honest discrete persons as to him shall seem good, to be commissioners.

Then the commissioners shall cause notice of such commission being issued to be given in the gazette, and likewise notice in writing to be left at the bankrupt's usual place of abode ... In which notice also shall be appointed a time and place of meeting of the commissioners; which meeting shall be at three several times within forty-two days, the last of which shall be on the forty-second day; within which time the bankrupt shall surrender himself, and discover his estate and effects.

A creditor may chuse whether he will come in under the commission or not: But if he chuses not to come in, he cannot proceed at law likewise for the same debt.

The first meeting shall be for chusing an assignee or assignees of the bankrupt's estate and effects ... They may direct how and with whom the money to be received shall ramain till divided ... The commissioners shall assign the estate and effects unto such person or persons as the major part in value of the creditors, according to the debts then proved, shall chuse. And the commissioners may from time to time appoint new assignees, if the major part of the creditors ... shall think fit. The Lord Chancellor, on petition of any creditors, may order former assignments to be vacated, and new assignment made of the effects not received; and the commissioners shall cause notice thereof to be given in the next two gazettes ...

... the bankrupt shall not be apprehended and committed, until he shall have made default in not surrendering and making discovery, after due notice ...

The bankrupt, after assignees shall be appinted, shall deliver up to them on oath ... all his books of account, papers and writings not seized by the messenger of the commission, and not before delivered up ... Such bankrupt ... shall ... be at liberty to inspect his papers, in the presence of the assignees ... the better to enable him to discover his effects. And in order thereto, he shall be free from arrest or imprisonment of his creditors ... provided he was not in custody at the time of his surrender ... And if the bankrupt be in prison ... then they shall attend him in prison ... to produce him his books and papers, in order to prepare his last discovery ... And the commissioners may examine him on oath ... touching his trade, dealings, estate and effects ... If he shall not ... surrender himself to the commissioners, and ... submit to be examined ... he shall be guilty of felony ... Also the commissioner may examine on oath the bankrupt's wife ... [and] every other person duly summoned.

[Other powers include the authority to dispose of the bankrupt's estate by sale or otherwise for payment of the creditors - the Robinsons' stock was sold for this purpose - the power "to break open the bankrupt's houses, doors, trunks and chests", the power to set one debt against another and only pay the balance. The rights of mortgagees, landlords, apprentices and others are also dealt with.]

The assignees shall keep books of account of all sums and effects received; which every creditor who hath proved his debt may inspect at all reasonable times.

The assignees shall, after four months, and within twelve months after issuing the commission, cause at least twenty-one days notice to be given in the gazette of the time and place the commissioners and assignees intend to make a dividend; at which time the creditors who have not before proved their debts may prove them ... The bankrupt surrendering and conforming shall be allowed [up to 10 l per cent] ... but the same shall not be paid to the bankrupt, till a final dividend shall be made: because until that time creditors may still come in to prove the debts.

But no discovery on oath sdhall entitle the bankrupt to the said allowance, unless the commissioners shall, under their hands and seals, certify to the Lord Chancellor, that he hath made a fulkl discovery of his estate, and in all things conformed himself ... and unless four parts in five in number and value of the creditors ... shall sign such a certificate. No bankrupt shall be intituled to such an allowance ... who hath lost in any one day the value of 5 l, or in the whole to the value of 100 l, in twelve months next before his becoming bankrupt, at cards, dice, tables, tennis, bowls, billiards, shovelboard, cockfighting, horse-racies, dog-matches, foot-traces, or other pstime or game ...

In 18 months after issuing the commission, the assignees shall make a second dividend, and shall cause notice to be inserted in the gazette of the time and place the commissioners intend to meet to make a second distribution. Which second dividend shall be final, unless a suit in law or equity be depending, or part of the estate standing out that cannot have been disposed of ...

If the bankrupt shll be taken in execution, or detained in prison, for debt owing before his bankruptcy, by reason that judgment was obtained before the certificate was allowed and confirmed; any judge of the court, on producing the certificate, may order him to be discharged withot fee.

And if the bankrupt's estate will pay 15 s in the pound, he shall be discharged from all the debts by him owing at the time he became bankrupt.

The commissioners shall, on lawful request of the bankrupt, declare how they have bestowed his land and goods, and pay to him the overplus, if any there be.

Ian Maxted
April 2003

Abbreviations

County abbreviations are based on those used by the British Book Trade Index project. In cases where there is only limited coverage outside England, the country abbreviations are normally used for Wales, Scotland and Ireland, rather than those for individual counties.