Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Tisdale, John
TISDALE, TYSDALL, or TYSDALE, JOHN (fl. 1550–1563), printer and stationer, began to print in 1550 ‘at Knight-Rider strete, nere to the Quenes Waredrop,’ London. At a later date he had ‘a shoppe in the upper ende of Lombard strete, in Allhallowes churchyard nere unto gracechurche,’ at the ‘sygne of the Eagles foote.’ He was an original member of the Company of Stationers, and is mentioned in the first charter, 4 May 1556 (Arber, Transcript, vol. i. pp. xxviii–xxix), having been made free on 8 Oct. 1555 (ib. i. 34). The first entry to him in the ‘Register’ is in 1558 for a license ‘to prynte an A B C in laten for Rycharde Jugge, John Judson, and Anthony Smythe,’ which is the ‘first instance recorded in the “Register” of one printer printing for another’ (ib. i. 95). He began to take apprentices on 25 Dec. 1559 (ib. p. 119). One of his devices was an angel driving Adam and Eve out of Paradise; another was Abraham's sacrifice. He printed several of Bishop Bale's treatises. His last production is dated 1563, and the latest entry referring to him is one for taking an apprentice on 25 June of the same year (ib. i. 227). One John Tisdale, possibly a son, had a temporary partnership with John Charlewood [q. v.] ‘at the Saracen's Head, near Holbourn conduit: how long this lasted is uncertain, as nothing of their printing with a date’ is known (Ames, Typogr. Antiq., ed. Herbert, ii. 1093). Tisdale printed for Rafe Newbery and Francis Coldocke.
[Ames's Typogr. Antiq. (Herbert), ii. 766–770; the same (by Dibdin), iv. 345–53; Cat. of Early Printed Books in the British Museum, 1884; Watt's Bibl. Britannica, ii. 909.]