One of the oldest books I possess, bought at Kenny’s Bookshop many years ago, is a 1772 edition of The Book of Common Prayer, described by one historian as “the official doctrinal standard of the Church of England and most other churches in the worldwide Anglican Communion”.
My copy of this famous book is pocket-sized and its title page reads – The Book of Common Prayer/and/ Administration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church/According to the Use of the/ Church of Ireland/Together with the Psalms/of/David/Pointed as they are to be Sung or Said in Churches.
Written in faded ink on the title page is the name of one of its previous owners – Matthew O’Hea [illegible] Cottage, Clonakilty. O’Hea is certainly a West Cork name, but the identity of Matthew O’Hea remains a mystery. He was certainly a member of the Church of Ireland and he, or members of his family, will have shared in the unrest of the times. Clonakilty was the scene of turmoil in 1641, 1691, and 1798.
Matthew O’Hea’s copy of The Book of Common Prayer was published, printed, in Dublin by David Hay, described as the “assignee of the late Boulter Grierson, Printer to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty: 1772”. The Griersons were a Scottish family from Edinburgh. George Grierson arrived in Dublin in 1703 and purchased for £500 a premises in Essex Street, where he set up his printing house at The Sign of the Two Bibles. His son, George Abraham Grierson, writing in 1754, says that “immediately on his arrival he set about printing Bibles and Books of Common Prayer of most sorts and sizes, in order that the nation might be sufficiently supplied therewith”.
For three generations, members of the Grierson family ran the family printing business very successfully, having been granted the important patent of King’s printer. Historian Maurice Craig sets the Griersons in the context of 18th century Ascendancy Dublin. Though there was an abundance of talented and eminent writers during the first third of the century, London proved an irresistible temptation to authors like Burke and Goldsmith. This left a social gap, which was filled by families like the Greirsons, who achieved and maintained their status through their association with authors like Swift and Samuel Johnson, while they mixed socially with the Lord Lieutenant and the Dublin Castle administration.
Abraham Grierson, who died in 1755 at only 27 years old, was described in Boswell’s Life of Johnson as “a man of uncommon learning and great wit ... Dr Johnson ... often observed that he possessed more extensive knowledge than any man of his years he had ever known”. His half brother, Boulter Grierson took over the business. His wife was Mary Wilkinson of Bray, “a young lady possessed of every accomplishment requisite to make the marriage state truly happy, and a considerable fortune”. We may imagine the “considerable fortune” played no minor role in this union.
Boulter Grierson is described in the Dublin Gazette of 1764 as “Printer to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty and one of the Representatives in the Common Council for the Corporation of Stationers”. His death in 1771 was unexpected, and all his children, including his only son, George, were minors. His widow, who appears to have been a formidable woman, did the practical thing for a woman of that time. She remarried in 1772, as soon as the official period of mourning was over, David Hay, who is described as a printer, bookseller, and stationer, and perhaps most significantly, “assignee of the late Boulter Grierson”. Clearly this was a marriage designed to ensure the continuity of the Grierson printing business.
Unfortunately, David Hay died a little less thansix months after the marriage, in January I773. Young George would not come of age until 1784, so the twice-widowed Mary proceeded to run the business with considerable success. She is twice mentioned in the journal of the Irish House of Commons as “His Majesty’s Printer”, where she was praised for her editions of the Statutes and Journals of the House of Lords. When her son George came of age, she established her own book-selling business, specialising in maps. She died in 1807.
George Grierson took over the business in 1784 as King’s printer, but he seems to have lacked the solid Protestant work ethic of his forebears. In 1814, he was judged bankrupt, although the business limped on. He died in 1821 and was succeeded as King’s printer by his son, another George, and for a time he owned the Dublin Daily Express. But in June 1856, the business was finally sold and the Grierson printing dynasty came to an end.
Next week: Thomas Cranmer’s Legacy
Barnaby ffrench
