Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bynneman, Henry
BYNNEMAN, HENRY (d. 1583), printer, was apprenticed to Richard Harrison, printer, on 24 June 1560. His master died in 1562, and he apparently served the remainder of his apprenticeship with Reginald Wolfe. He became a liveryman of the Stationers' Company 30 June 1578. He seems to have opened a shop in Paternoster Row as early as 1566. He afterwards moved to the sign of the Mermaid in Knightrider Street, and finally to Thames Street, near Baynard's Castle. Archbishop Parker encouraged him in many ways, allowed him to open a shed at the north-west door of St. Paul's, at the sign of the ‘Three Wells,’ and asked Burghley to allow him to print ‘a few usual Latin books for the use of grammarians, as Terence, Virgil, Tulley's offices, &c., a thing not done here in England before or very rarely’ (Strype, Parker, i. 552). In 1580 Bynneman was called to the bar of the House of Commons for having published in behalf of Arthur Hall, M.P. for Grantham, a libel on Sir Robert Bell, the late speaker of the house, and on other members. The book was suppressed. Bynneman gave his testimony against Hall. Hall alone was punished (D'Ewes, Journals of Parliaments under Elizabeth, pp. 291–309). Bynneman died in 1583.
Bynneman's publications were very numerous and of varied character. His name first appears in print on the title-page of Robert Crowley's ‘Apologie or Defence,’ in 1566. The ‘Manuall of Epictetus’ in English was his second publication, followed by the second volume of Paynter's ‘Palace of Pleasure’ in the same year. Bynneman was the publisher of George Turberville's ‘Booke of Faulconrie’ (1575) and ‘Noble Arte of Venerie’ (1575); of George Gascoigne's ‘Poems’ (1575–6), and of Gabriel Harvey's Latin works (1577–8). He printed the first edition of Holinshed's ‘Chronicles’ in 1574, and had licenses for printing several Latin and Greek books. In 1583 ‘the first foure bookes of Virgil's “Æneis,”’ by Richard Stanihurst, bears his imprint.
His usual device is a mermaid in an oval cartouch, with the motto ‘Omnia tempus habet;’ but he often employed in his earlier publications the device of a brazen serpent, which was the property of his master, Reginald Wolfe; in his later books he often used ‘a doe passant on a half wreath,’ with the motto ‘Cerva charissima et gratissima hinnulus prod.’
[Ames's Typographical Antiquities (ed. Herbert), ii. 965 et seq.; Arber's Transcript of Stationers' Registers, i. passim; Bullen's Cat. of Books in Brit. Mus. before 1640; Bigmore and Wyman's Bibliography of Printing, 96.]Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.47
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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