A Dictionary of the Booksellers and Printers who Were at Work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1641 to 1667/Cole (Peter)

by Henry Robert Plomer

COLE (PETER), bookseller and printer in London, (1) Glove in Cornehill neere the Royal Exchange, 1637-42; (2) Glove and Lyon in Cornhil neare the Royal Exchange, 1643; (3) Printing Press in Cornhill near the Royal Exchange, 1643-65; (4) Living in Leaden-Hall, and at the sign of the Printing Press, 1660-65 (1637-65). Took up his freedom January 11th, 1637/8, and was originally a bookseller, amongst his earliest publications being Captain John Underhill's Newes from America, 1638, 4^o, printed for him by John Dawson, who did most of his printing at this time. Some time in 1643 Cole himself added printing to his bookselling business. It appears from the Records of the Stationers' Company that, as agent for the Company, he had seized a press and letters in Bell Alley, over against Finsbury, and he gave his word that they should not be used in a disorderly way, but in June of the same year an order was made by the Committee of Examinations "that the keys of the room where the printing presses and materials of Peter Cole now are shall be restored to him, he entering bond in 1000li not to remove the said presses or dispose of them without first acquainting this Committee and the Master and Wardens of the Company of Stationers and have their consent thereto. And that hereafter he do not presume to print with the said presses any book, pamphlet or paper not licensed according to the Ordinance of Parliament of the 14th of this present June." [Domestic State Papers, Charles I, vol. 498, 96.] A list of 30 books, chiefly theological, printed and sold by him in 1651, will be found in F. Glisson's Treatise of the Ricketts, at the end of the Preface. His death is thus recorded by Smyth in his Obituary (p. 70): "Dec^r. 4. 1665. Peter Cole, bookseller and printer in Cornhill, hanged himselfe in his warehouse in Leadenhall; reported to be distracted." His will was proved on December 22nd. By this he left the bulk of his property to his brother Edward's children, but made special bequests to Elizabeth Ridley, the youngest daughter of John Ridley, citizen and stationer of London, and to Samuel Thompson. [P.C.C. 153. Hyde.]