reader at the Inner Temple, and in May of that year surveyor of the court of wards and liveries. In September 1547 he, with Lord St. John, was appointed to inquire into the state of the crown revenues, and in the following February was made custos rotulorum of Berkshire. In 1549 he was a commissioner in the western counties for the sale of dissolved chantries. He was serjeant-at-law in 1552, and treasurer of the Inner Temple in 1557–8. In 1559 his name appears as a commissioner in an inquiry about to be held as to the revenues from episcopal lands. In August 1564 he was selected by the privy council to exhort the clothiers of Reading to continue their trade, and not, by its stoppage, throw a large proportion of the inhabitants out of employment (State Papers, Domestic Eliz. vol. xxxix. No. 43).
He made his will on 6 July 1580 (Prerog. Court of Canterbury, Darcy Register, fol. 9). The only person of his name mentioned is his ‘cousin’ Francis, son and heir of Sir William Keilway or Kelloway, knt., deceased. He refers to his dwelling-houses in the Temple, in Fleet Street, at Stepney, and at Shawlingford, Berkshire. He constitutes Sir Thomas Bromley, knt., the lord chancellor, one of his executors, and leaves him one of his best horses or geldings. He died at Exton, Rutland, on 21 Feb. 1581, and was buried there. An only child, Anne, was then the wife of ‘John Harrington, esq.’ His property lay chiefly in Warwickshire (Inquisitiones Post Mortem, 23 Eliz. pt. i. No. 50).
The legal reports with which his name is associated were first published in 1602, under the title ‘Relationes quorundam casuum selectorum ex libris Rob. Keilwey Arm. qui temporibus felicissimæ memoriæ Regis Henrici Septimi et inclitissimi Regis Henrici 8vi emerserunt et in prioribus impressionibus relationum de terminis illorum Regum non exprimuntur in lucem editæ anno 44o illustrissimi regni serenissimæ Reginæ Elizabethæ.’ The work was reprinted in 1633 and 1688.
[Entries in the Patent Rolls at the Public Record Office, under the dates of the different appointments; Masters of the Bench of the Inner Temple, privately printed, 1883; Strype's Annals, I. i. 55; Strype's Memorials, III. ii. 181.]
KEIMER, SAMUEL (fl. 1707–1738), printer, was born of ‘parents of repute … in the parish of St. Thomas's, Southwark,’ and was apprenticed to Robert Tookey, printer, Christopher's Court, Threadneedle Street, London. Keimer, like his only sister, Mary, was at first an adherent of Jean Cavalier and of the French protestants in 1713, but after his marriage he joined the quakers. About the same date he hired a shop, but, failing to pay his way, was imprisoned in the Fleet (Brand Pluck'd from the Burning, passim). While in prison he wrote in doggerel verse ‘A Search after Religion among the many Modern Pretenders to it,’ London [1718], sm. 8vo, and ‘A Brand Pluck'd from the Burning exemplify'd in the unparallel'd case of Samuel Keimer,’ London, 1718, sm. 8vo. The latter contains a curious account of the quarrels of the French protestants and of prison life, and includes a letter from Daniel Defoe, which is unnoticed by the latter's biographers. On his release from prison, Keimer left his wife in England and went to America. In 1723 he opened a printing-house in High Street, near the Market-house, in Philadelphia. Andrew, son of William Bradford (1663–1752) [q. v.], had introduced the art into Pennsylvania, and he and Keimer were then the sole printers in the colony. Keimer only had ‘an old shatter'd press and one small worn-out font of English.’ His friend Bradford introduced Benjamin Franklin to him, and Franklin found him, with his worn-out type, and without manuscript, setting up an elegy of his own composition on ‘Aquila Rose, … Clerk of the Assembly and a pretty poet’ (Life of B. Franklin by himself, ed. J. Bigelow, 1874, i. 129). Keimer himself, who had been bred a compositor, knew nothing of press-work, and was without any business aptitude. Franklin became his foreman. A small pamphlet, ‘A Parable,’ said to be the joint work of Keimer and Franklin, gave so much offence to the quakers that the printer was denounced and disowned at their monthly meeting of 29 Sept. 1723. Keimer printed a few more pamphlets, and sold soap, candles, and other articles. After an interval during which Franklin visited England and Keimer took a larger house, the business increased, and Franklin on his return from England again became a journeyman with Keimer. The latter issued a spurious edition of Jacob Taylor's ‘Almanac’ in 1726, of which all but the calculations was compiled by himself; and in 1727 he printed Titan Leeds's ‘Almanac,’ the cause of a quarrel between him and Bradford. Franklin subsequently entered into partnership with Hugh Meredith and opened an establishment in Philadelphia in rivalry with his former master. But Keimer was engaged for some years upon an edition of Sewel's ‘History of the Quakers,’ which he finally completed with the help of Franklin in 1728. In order to forestall Franklin's intention of bringing out a newspaper, Keimer on 24 Dec. 1728 produced the first number of ‘The Universal Instructor in all Arts and Sciences
