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Windsor; and was the son and grandson of two eminent booksellers, resident, during the greater part of last century, in Fleet-street. As one of the court of assistants of the stationers' company, and an active member of the committee of the literary fund society, Mr. Williams acquired the esteem and friendship of many distmguished literary characters. In his social hours he was ever an agreeable companion, and occasionally entertained his friends with several excellent and chaste songs of bis own composition, which were much admired; particularly one allusive to the various branches of trade practised by the members of the company of stationers. The proximate cause of Mr. A^.'s death was the very reprehensible practice of permitting slides to be made in the public streets. On the lltb of January, in passing along Orange-street, Leices- ter-.square, he fell down on a slide, and received so severe an internal injurv, that it eventually proved fatal. As a husband, parent, and neigh- bour, no man could be more highly respected and beloved. On the day of his funeral, most of the shops in Eton were closed, and about fifty of the tradesmen followed his remains to the grave. Mr. Williams left a large family -, and the heads of Eton college promised a continu- ance of their patronage to his son and successor, Mr. Edward Pote Williams.
1838. Feb. A fire broke out at the Clarendon printing-office, at Oxford, and the damage was estimated at £2,000.
\83S, March S. Died, Henry Winchester, stationer, of London, alderman of the ward of Vintry in the city of London, vice-president of the society for the promotion of arts, manufac- tures, and commerce, president of the printers' pension society, See. &c. He was the elder son of Mr. William Winchester, of the Strand, stationer, who died in 1820, and with whom he was brought up in business. He was elected alderman of Vintry ward in 1826,* and served the office of sheriff in 1827. At the general election in September, 1830, he was returned to parliament for Maidstone, but the dissolution in the following year deprived him of his seat. He passed the year of his mayonilty in 1834 — 6, in great unpopularity, in consequence of his refusing to hold political meetings in common ball. His commercial affairs had been long involved in difficulty ; and, on the 1st of March, 1838, a commission of bankruptcy was issued against him. On that day week, he was no more. He died at a lunatic asylum, to which he had been removed, having unhappily brooded with such intense melancholy on his domestic calamities, as to have been bereft of his senses. He was sixty-one years of age. He married in 1803, Elizabeth, only daughter and heiress of John Ayerst, esq. of Hawkhurst, bywhom he left several children.f Alderman Winchester built a handsome mansion at Hawkhurst.
- His opponent was Mr. Wilde, brother to Mr. sergeant
Wilde ; and the legal defence of which, undertalien at the expense of the corporation, is said to have cost j£6,000.
} See Berry*s County Qeneatogien, Kent, page 80.
1838, April 12. Died, James Raussbau, printer. He was apprenticed to the late John Nichols, esq. in whose employ, and that of his successor, he ever after^varas remained ; and to whom he always proved himself a friend and faithful assistant. For the last twenty yean he nightly superintended the printing the Votes and proceedings of the house of commons ; in which arduous duty, it was his pride and satis- faction to gain not' only the approbation of his employers, but the patronage and good will of the principal clerks of the nouse of commons. He died in Canterbury-buildings, Lambeth, in tbe seventieth year of his age.
1838, April. Died, Jonathan Henry Kay, many years in the firm of Jonathan Kay and Sons, wholesale stationers, in Abchurch-lane, London, who had for some time retired from business. He was a member of the court of assistants of the stationers' company. He was the second son of the late Jonathan Kay, esq. of Hampstead, and uncle to sir John Kay, hart.
1838, Mav 6. Died, 3k^e& Ridoway, book- seller, and the well known pamphlet publisher, Piccadilly, London, aged eighty-three years.
18;J8, May 8. Died, John Clarke, the emi- nent law bookseller,in Searle-street, Lincoln's inn, London, in the seventieth year of his age. He was many years in business with his late father and his brother Walter, under the firm of Messrs. Clarke and Sons. Mr. John Clarke was in the court of assistants of the company of stationers, and was much r^ected.
1838, June. The London newspaper press association held their first anniversary meeting.
1838, July 6. Died, Alexander Airman, late printer of the Jamaica Royal Gazette. He was born of respectable parents, at Borrowstown- ness, in the county of Linlithgow, Scotland, June 23, 1755. He left his native country for South Carolina, at the age of sixteen, having previously made a voyage to Dantzic. After his arrival at Charleston, he apprenticed himself to Robert Wells,* a bookseller, and printer of a newspaper. The American revolution caused Mr. Aikman to leave that country ; and after some wanderings, he fixed his residence in Jamaica; where, in 1788, he established a news- paper, called the Jamaica Mercury, which title, two years after, the government patronage having been obtained, was changed to that of the Royal Gazette, under which title it still continues to be published. He likewise became printer of the house of assembly, and king's printer; and having resigned those offices to his son Alexander, he was for many years a member of the house of assembly, as representative of the parish of St. George. After his son's death, in 1831, he for a
- Robert Wells, txnkseller and printer, was a man of
high honour, tried integrity, and of considerable literary attainments. He was born Angust 10, 17X8, and died July 13, 1794.
Charles Wells, M. D. F. R. S. &c. his son, was born May 24, 17S7, and died September 18, 1417.
See Otntt. Mag. vol. Id, page 505, for a tablet set up in St. Bride's church, London, to the memory of the above, (her father and brother) by Louisa Susannah Aikman.
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