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VII. 



HUMFEEY POWELL, THE FIEST DUBLIN PKINTEK. 



By E. K. M'CLINTOCK DIX. 



(Plates V.-VIII.) 



Read June 22. Ordered for Publication June 24. Published August 25, 1908. 



Printing was introduced into Ireland first, as far as is known at present, at 

 Dublin by Humfrey Powell, who came over here assisted by a grant from 

 the King (Edward VI) in 1550. Very little is known about him and his 

 work ; still more is known than appears in the article on him in the 

 Dictionary of National Biography. 



In Mr. E. Gordon Duff's " Century of the English Book Trade," published 

 (in 1905) by the Bibliographical Society of London, Powell is stated to have 

 carried on business in London in the year 1548, when he printed some eight 

 books at a shop " above Holborn Conduit," some dated in that year, and some 

 undated. He probably printed some in 1549. 



The sum advanced to him by the King was £20, equivalent to a 

 substantial sum of our present currency. The authority for this statement 

 is an entry in the Acts of the Privy Council, under date July the 18th, 1550, 

 and runs as follows : — " A warrant to to deliver xxli. unto 



Powell, the Printer, given him by the King's Majestic for setting up in 

 Irelande." (See vol. iii. of the said Acts, p. 84.) 



Particulars of nearly all the works which he printed while in London 

 will be found in Mr. Ames' well-known work upon printing in the United 

 Kingdom, in the edition edited by Dibden. 



The cause of his going from London to Dublin is not indicated anywhere: 

 but the fact that he received this Eoyal Grant seems to indicate that he was 

 sent over to be the State printer in Dublin, which was the headquarters of 

 the English Government in Ireland ; and the few surviving specimens of his 

 press tend to confirm this conclusion. 



All that is extant of his printing here consists of (1) a folio edition of 

 the Book of Common Prayer, bearing date 1551, of which only two copies 



