A Dictionary of the Booksellers and Printers who Were at Work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1641 to 1667/Austin, or Austen (Robert)
AUSTIN, or AUSTEN (ROBERT), printer in London, (1) Old Bailey, 1643; (2) Addlehill, Thames Street, 1649–50. 1642–56. Took up his freedom November 7th, 1636. [Arber, iii. 688.] He is chiefly worthy of notice as the printer of Geoige Wither's Campo-Musa, 1643, and the same author's Vox Pacifica in 1645. In 1643, in company with Andrew Coe, he printed some numbers of a news-sheet entitled A Perfect Diurnal of the Passages in Parliament. There was another publication bearing a very similar title, A Perfect Diurnall of some Passages in Parliament, of which Francis Coles and Lawrence Blacklock were the publishers. Both claimed precedency, but the Stationers' Company apparently refused to recognise the Perfect Diurnal of Austin and Coe, as no entry of it is found in the registers, whereas that of Coles and Blacklock was regularly entered and continued to run for several years. Austin was also interested in other news-sheets. On November 3rd, 1643, he started Informator Rusticus, or The Country Intelligencer, which does not seem to have got beyond its first issue. In the following January he began another, entitled Occurrences of certain speciall and remarkable passers in Parliament and the affaires of the Kingdome, which was still in existence in 1646.