HISTORY OF THE PRINTING PRESS IN DERBYSHIRE. 139 
down to us—the generality of the survivors being undated and 
bearing some such an imprint as “London: Printed for the 
benefit of the Travelling Stationers.” 
Sundry specimens of old printed matter serving to whet 
curiosity, are occasionally to be found amongst the odds-and-ends, 
which accumulate in the cock-loft to a fearful extent, whenever a 
house has been occupied by successive generations of one family. 
Old newspapers have an especial knack of escaping the hand of 
Time, and old school-books are not infrequently cherished as 
memorials of their former possessors. Of the literature of the 
kitchen and the nursery, specimens are few and far between. 
‘The personal research upon which this incomplete sketch has 
been founded has extended over more years than I care to count ; 
but, as will be seen from the foregoing observations, many points 
of importance must necessasily have escaped observation, and the 
outline here given is one which the kindness of friends who possess 
specimens of old Derbyshire printing will, I trust, enable me to 
fill-in at some future time. 
The earliest reference to printed matter which, from its nature, 
one is justified in thinking may have heen “ worked-off” in the 
Borough of Derby, is to be found in a slashing preface to the 
Rev. Henry Cantrell’s Zhe Royal Martyr a True Christian, the 
imprint of which runs thus :— 
“London, Printed for George Afortlock at the 
Phenix, Henry Clements at the Half Moon 
in St Paul’s Chuich-yard; and John Hodges 
Bookfeller in Derby, 1716.” 
The writer, who was the first Vicar of St. Alkmund’s, Derby, 
mentions certain “ Pamphlets which represent the Injuries of the 
Burgesses of Derby,” and a “small treatise consisting chiefly of 
Collections from the Bp. of Sarum’s Sermons, and Bp. of Oxford’s 
Charge, Anno 1710,” by “ Mr. Shaw, a Dissenting Teacher in 
Derby.” If these works emanated from a local press, the date of 
the introduction of printing into Derby must be removed further 
back than 1719, the year which has lately been adopted by 
