in large quantities for cash only continued to be the main feature of the business, to which were afterwards added many publishing speculations. Besides Lackington the other members of the firm were Allen, who possessed a great knowledge of books acquired from early training with James Lackington, and Hughes. The latter was also lessee of Sadler's Wells. Subsequent partners were A. Kirkman, Mavor, a son of Dr. Mavor of Woodstock, and Jones. In 1822 the business was conducted under the style of Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Lepard. On the retirement of Lackington, Joseph Harding became the chief partner, and the business was removed to Pall Mall East by Harding and Lepard. Many well-known booksellers received their training in this famous house. ‘The last of the Lackingtonians,’ Kanes James Ford, died 11 Dec. 1886, at the age of ninety-four (Bookseller, 16 Dec. 1886).
The Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly was bought by Lackington, and let for miscellaneous exhibitions (Wheatley and Cunningham, London Past and Present, ii. 7). He was usually known as the ‘nephew’ of the elder Lackington, and Nichols speaks of him as ‘well educated and gentlemanly’ (Lit. Anecd. iii. 646). In his later years he was an official assignee of bankrupts in London. He married a daughter of Captain Bullock, R.N., and left two daughters. He died at St. John's Wood 31 March 1844, aged 76.
[Nichols's Illustrations, viii. 516; Timperley's Encyclopædia, 1842, p. 862; Sir E. Brydges's Autobiography, 1834, 2 vols.; also Reasons for Amendment of Act 54 Geo. III, c. 156; Gent. Mag. 1817 pt. ii. pp. 153–5, 1818 pt. i. p. 350, May 1844 p. 549.]
LACKINGTON, JAMES (1746–1815), bookseller, born 31 Aug. 1746 at Wellington, Somerset, was the eldest son of George Lackington, a journeyman shoemaker. His grandfather was a gentleman farmer at Langford, near Wellington. Young Lackington's father was a drunkard, but his mother was a woman of remarkable energy. The son showed his business capacity when ten years old as an itinerant meat pieman (Memoirs, 1792, pp. 57–65). In 1760 he was bound apprentice to George Bowden, a shoemaker at Taunton, and two years later became a professed methodist. He worked as a journeyman at Bristol and other places. While living at Bristol he bought books and read much. Although he could not write he composed ballads, which were sung about the streets. In 1770 he married his first wife, Nancy Smith. He went to London in August 1773, with the traditional half-crown, but without his wife. The following year he opened a bookstall and shoemaker's shop in Featherstone Street, St. Luke's, commencing with a sackful of old theological books, which he bought for a guinea, and a few scraps of leather. He was able to borrow five pounds from a fund started by ‘Mr. Wesley's people’ to assist deserving members of their body. The exercise of great industry and frugality, in which virtue his wife excelled, enabled him in six months to increase his stock in value from five to twenty-five pounds. He gave up his shoemaking and removed to 46 Chiswell Street, where his wife died a few months after. On 30 Jan. 1776 he married Dorcas Turton, who was a lover of books, and who became very helpful in the business. The reading of Amory's ‘John Buncle’ upset Lackington's methodism, and gave him a sceptical turn. The business prospered, and John Denis, an oilman and collector of books on alchemy and mystical divinity, brought in some capital. In 1779 the firm of Lackington & Co. produced their first catalogue of twelve thousand volumes, all described by Lackington. The partnership with Denis only lasted two years, but Lackington was afterwards joined by Allen, who had worked his way upwards from boyhood in the business, and the firm became famous as Lackington, Allen, & Co.
In 1780 Lackington determined to sell for cash only at the lowest possible price, and four years later published catalogues of twelve and thirty thousand volumes respectively. He broke through the trade custom of destroying all but a few copies of remainders, and sold the whole stock at little profit. From buying books in small quantities he rose to purchasing entire libraries, and was able to set up a carriage and a country house at Merton. His shop occupied a large block at one of the corners of Finsbury Square, with a frontage of 140 feet. It was known as ‘The Temple of the Muses,’ and was one of the sights of London. Charles Knight remembered a visit there in 1801. A dome, in which stood a flag, was a conspicuous object at the top of the building. In the middle of the shop was an immense circular counter. A broad staircase led to the ‘lounging rooms,’ and the first of a series of circular galleries around which books were displayed, growing cheaper and shabbier in condition as one ascended (Shadows of the Old Booksellers, 1865, pp. 282–3). Some years later the shop was destroyed by a fire. There is an engraving of 1789 (F. Crace, Catalogue, 1878, p. 492), and many later prints.
In 1787, and again in 1790, Lackington travelled through England to Edinburgh.
