Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/352

312 THE RIVINGTONS, THE PARKERS, In 1853 the firm removed their place of business from the ancient house in St. Paul's Churchyard, and consolidated it at 3, Waterloo Place, retaining nothing but some warehouses in Paternoster Row. In 1862, after an interval of thirty years, they re-acquired the agency of the Cambridge " Press " a famous manu- factory of Bibles, Prayer Books, and Church Services ; and in the next year, 1863, they opened branch houses at both Oxford and Cambridge an extension of business that, after a long life of 160 years, says something for the vitality of the firm. In treating of the Parkers, it will be necessary to bear in mind the essential fact that there were two distinct families of that name, both engaged in the publication of religious books, and both interested in the " Bible Press "the one at Oxford and the other at Cambridge ; and though its chief interest, as regards later years, will be centred in the younger (publishing) family, who began life in London, it will be necessary, according to our general plan, to give a preliminary glance at the elder family, whose name is more intimately connected with the University of Oxford. The first of the Parkers with whom we need con- cern ourselves was Dr. Samuel Parker, sometime Bishop of Oxford. The product of a changeable age, he was a very Vicar of Bray. While at the University of Oxford, he affected to lead a strictly religious life, and entered a weekly society then called the " Gruel- lers," because their chief diet was water gruel ; and it was observed "that he put more graves into his porridge than all the rest." Formerly a noncon- formist, having once taken orders, he became chaplain