Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hatchard, John
HATCHARD, JOHN (1769–1849), publisher, was born in 1769, and served his apprenticeship with Mr. Ginger of College Street, Westminster. He afterwards became an assistant to Mr. Payne of the Mews Gate, and commenced business on his own account at 173 Piccadilly, London. The publication of a pamphlet, ‘Reform or Ruin,’ in 1797 was the commencement of a long and prosperous publishing career. Hatchard was appointed bookseller to Queen Charlotte and other members of the royal family; he issued the publications of the Society for Bettering the Condition of the Poor, and published the ‘Christian Observer’ from the first number in 1802 to 1845, when he retired from business. He died at Clapham Common, 21 June 1849, in his eighty-first year. His eldest son, the Rev. John Hatchard, was vicar of St. Andrew's, Plymouth, and his second son, Thomas, for some time his partner, succeeded as head of the house of Hatchard & Son, booksellers and publishers, 187 Piccadilly.
[Gent. Mag. August 1849, pp. 210–11; Nichols's Lit. Illustr. viii. 520–4.]