A Dictionary of the Booksellers and Printers who Were at Work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1641 to 1667/Bentley (William)
BENTLEY (WILLIAM), printer in London; Finsbury, 1646-56. This printer is first heard of in 1646, when the Westminster Assembly of Divines proposed the issue of a new and cheap edition of the Bible. As no printer in London except Bentley would undertake the work, it was given to him, whereupon the Company of Stationers immediately issued an order that "no journeyman printer of the company who should work at the printing house in Finsbury should ever have any gift or pension whatsoever from the company." In the Act of 1649, and that of 1652, this printing house was specially mentioned as being exempt from their provisions, but, nevertheless, Bentley met with strong opposition from Hills and Field, who claimed the exclusive right of Bible printing as successors to Robert Barker and his assigns. In November, 1656, Bentley printed a broadside entitled The Case of William Bentley printer at Finsbury … touching his right to the printing of Bibles and Psalms [B.M. 669, f. 20 (24)], in which he undertook to furnish octavo Bibles with marginal notes better printed and corrected than any other edition at two shillings per volume as against the official price of 4s. 6d. He further stated that he had already finished five several editions. Two of these, dated 1646 and 1648, are amongst those in the collection of the British and Foreign Bible Society. In 1659 William Kilburne wrote a pamphlet entitled Dangerous errors in several late printed Bibles, which was printed at the Finsbury press, and was clearly written as a puff. See Field (John).