Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/505

PROVINCIAL BOOKSELLERS. 463 managing partner, opened shops in various places, placed his own servants in possession, and made them accept bills to a very large amount. These bills were discounted at the Manchester Bank, and when the crash came the bank was a creditor upon the estate to the amount of 120,000, while the London pub- lishers were indebted to the extent of 100,000, Among the shopmen in charge under Hay ward's system was Timperley, a printer, and a man of con- siderable literary ability. To pay the debts con- tracted through this wholesale acceptance of bills, he consigned his stock to an auctioneer, who, after dis- posing of it by auction, ran off with the proceeds of the sale. Timperley, heart-broken by misfortune, accepted a literary engagement with Fisher and Jackson, of London, and in their service he died. In early days he had been a soldier, had gone through many campaigns, had served at Waterloo, and had well earned his pension of a shilling per diem. He is now known chiefly as the author of the " Manchester Historical Recorder," and of " Timperley 's Typo- graphical Dictionary" one of the most accurate, laborious, and voluminous compilations ever made, and one to be gratefully remembered by all students of the history of the printing press in this country. Another worthy of typographical fame was Bent, who, after doing a large bookselling business among the Manchester Unitarians, then, at all events, the most cultivated portion of the inhabitants, started " Bent's Literary Advertiser," the first bookseller's organ, and which latterly has been incorporated in the Bookseller. The Bookseller was started in 1857 by Mr. Whitaker, and among its earliest contributors were many men of some note, especially Alaric Watts. From the first it