Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cawood, John
CAWOOD, JOHN (1514–1572), printer, was of an old Yorkshire family, as set forth in a book at the Heralds' office, which has the entry, ‘Cawood, Typographus Regius Reginæ Mariæ,’ and gives the arms and description of the De Cawoods of Cawood, near York. He was born in 1514, and apprenticed to John Raynes, printer, whose portrait, along with his own, he gave to the Company of Stationers of London, as noted in the warden's accounts, July 1561. Their place of business was the George Inn, St. Paul's Churchyard. When he printed for himself he was established at the sign of the Holy Ghost in St. Paul's Churchyard. The first book given to him in the Lambeth list of books is ‘a Bible and New Testament,’ 4to, 1549, but the authority is not stated. From 1550, however, to the year of his death, his successive publications, fifty-nine in number, are fairly recorded in the ‘Typographical Antiquities’ of Ames, Herbert, and Dibdin (London, 1819). In 1553, in the reign of Edward VI, Richard Grafton, being queen's printer, was employed to print the proclamation by which Lady Jane Grey was declared successor to the crown, by virtue of the measures of the Duke of Northumberland, her father-in-law; but on Queen Mary's accession, he was deprived of his office and imprisoned, and Cawood was put in his place with directions to print, at the salary of 6l. 13s. 4d., all ‘statute books, acts, proclamations, injunctions, and other volumes and things,’ in English, with the profit appertaining, and also with the right, on Reginald Wolfe's decease, to print and sell books in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, when he was to receive an additional 16s. 8d. per annum. On Queen Elizabeth's accession he was appointed printer to the queen, by patent 24 March 1560, on similar conditions, but jointly with Richard Jugge, who was made the senior. For this branch of the business he and his partner rented a room at Stationers' Hall for ‘xxs.’ a year.
Cawood was elected warden to the Stationers' Company in 1554, and was re-elected 1555–7. On 4 May 1556 this institution (a guild as early as 1463) received its first charter, granted to the ‘master and keepers or wardens and commonalty of the mystery or art of the stationers of the city of London,’ which gave remarkable rights over all literary compositions, and power to search for all books obnoxious to the stationers or contrary to law. This charter appoints Thomas Dockwray, master; John Cawood and Henry Coke, wardens; and ninety-four others free-men. At the suit of Cawood and others, 1 Feb. 1560, the lord mayor created the incorporated fellowship of the stationers into one of the livery companies of the city of London. Cawood was three times master, 1561, 1562, and 1566, and took great interest in the Stationers' Company. The registers show from time to time some thirteen valuable gifts from him, including the ‘patent, given by harolds [heralds], concerning armes to the stacyoners.’ His name is found but once on the black list, and that in 1565, ‘for stechen of bookes which ys contrarie to the orders of the howse,’ when he and sixteen others were fined 16s. 8d.
He was thrice married. By his second and third wives, whose names are unknown, he had no children. By his first wife, Joane ——, he had three sons and four daughters. John, bachelor of laws, fellow of New College, Oxford (d. 1570), was probably the John Cawood the younger who took up his freedom in the Stationers' Company 18 May 1565; Gabriel, also a printer, was master of the Stationers' Company 1592, 1599; Edmond (d. 1570); Mary, whose gifts to this company are recorded under 1608, 1613, married George Bishop, deputy-printer to the queen, and alderman of London, who died in 1610; Isabel married Thomas Woodcock, stationer; Susannah was wife of Robert Bullock; and Barbara, wife of Mark Norton. Cawood died 1 April 1572. He was buried at St. Faith's under St. Paul's, where a tomb was erected by his son Gabriel when church-warden in 1591. His epitaph, setting forth various family details, is preserved in Dugdale's ‘History of St. Paul's.’
[Timperley's Encyclopædia, pp. 318, 321, 350, 378, 411, 417, 453; Rymer's Fœdera, 29 Dec. 1553 Nichols's Lit. Anecd. iii. 551–2, 555, 559, 566, 568, 587; Nichols's Illust. iv. 176, 177, 195, 222; Ames's Typogr. Antiq. (Dibdin's, 1818), iv. 385; Wheater's Sherburn and Cawood (1882); Hansard's Typographia (1826), p. 246; Arber's Register of Co. of Stationers, i. 49, 61, 62, 86, 90, 129, 138, 165, 190, 223, 280, 428; Repertory, No. 14, fol. 287 b; Records of the Corporation of London; ‘W. Grafton, vi. A B C London,’ in Heralds' Office.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.59
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| ii | 40 | Cawood, John: for Rugge read Jugge | |
| 380 | i | 39 | for Whealer read Wheater and for 1812 read 1882 |