# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Salisbury, Thomas (1567?-1620?)

​SALISBURY or SALBERYE, THOMAS (1567?–1620?), printer and Welsh poet, born about 1567, is described in his indentures of apprenticeship to Oliver Wilkes, stationer, dated 9 Oct. 1581, as son of Pierce Salberye of the parish of Clocaenog, Denbighshire, ‘husbandman’ (cf. John Williams, Records of Denbigh, p. 184, and art. Salisbury, William, (1520?–1600?)). He was admitted freeman of the Stationers' Company on 16 Oct. 1588, and in 1593 printed for Henry Salisbury [q. v.] his ‘Grammatica Britannica.’ In 1603 he printed, jointly with Simon Stafford, a version of the Psalms written in the strict Welsh metres by William Myddelton [q. v.] Salisbury, who edited the work for the press, dedicated it to James I, and wrote, in his address ‘to the reader,’ ‘I have also begun the printing of the Psalms in the like kinde of meeter in Brytish, as they are usually sung in the Church of England, and have prefixed apt notes to sing them withall, which I hope to see fully finished ere long.’ A part of this free-metre Psalter, which was of Salisbury's own composition, was (according to an entry in Rowlands, Cambrian Bibliography, p. 75) published in the same year (1603), with an introduction by Maurice Kyffin [q. v.]; it was described as printed by Stafford for T. S. ‘There are also divers other good things ready for the press’ (Salisbury continues in his address), ‘as namely, the Brytish Testament, lately corrected by the reverend Father in God, the Bishop of St. Asaphe [William Morgan [q. v.] ]; a Treatise of the government of the tongue, and another Treatise of repentance, penned by Master Perkins [see under Perkins, William]; a preparative to Marriage and divers other sermons of Master Henry Smithes.’ All the works published by Salisbury are of a decidedly protestant character. A letter from him (assigned to 22 June 1611), addressed to Sir John Wynn of Gwydyr, ‘from my house in the Cloth Fair in London,’ has been printed in the ‘Cambro-Briton’ (1820, i. 255). He is said to have died about 1620.
John Salisbury (fl. 1695), printer, probably Thomas's grandson, was described by John Dunton (Life and Errors, p. 287) as ‘a desperate hyper-Gorgonic Welchman.’ He was the first printer and editor of the ‘Flying Post’ [see Ridpath, George, (d. 1726)]. The first number was issued on 11 May 1695 (Timperley, Dictionary of Printing, p. 578). Dunton says that Salisbury ‘did often fill it [the ‘Post’] with stol'n copies.’ In 1697 he published in it a false and malicious paragraph, evidently intended to throw suspicions on the exchequer bills, he being ‘the tool of a band of stockjobbers in the city, whose interest it happened to be to cry down the public securities.’ A warrant was issued against him by the speaker of the House of Commons, and a bill was at once introduced to prohibit the publishing of news without a license, which was, however, negatived (Macaulay, Hist. of England, ch. xxii.; Commons' Journal, 1 and 3 April 1697; Luttrell, Diary, iv. 203–5). Salisbury also went to law with the Company of Stationers, ‘to keep himself from the livery.’ He died, according to Dunton, before 1705. Dunton writes that ‘he wou'd hector the best man in the trade.’
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