The Sun.
London, England, 1859-09-05 00:00:00

THE HOUSE OF LONG3L4N AND CO.

The retirement of Mr. Brown, and the death of a
former partner, Mr. Orme, have naturally directed
attention to this, with one exception, the oldest
house in the trade in London. Like some of our
other well-known institutions, its origin is lost
in obscurity, although, unlike many of them,
we are able to trace the founder, or, at any rate,
the first of the dynasty, in the person of Mr.
Thomas Longman. When the house commenced
business we know net ; the first time we find the
name is ou the title-page of " An Inquiry into our
Ideas of Beauty and Virtue," published in 1725 by J.
Osborn and I'. Longman; and the same year we
find a book of Whiston's bearing the same names.
At this time the sign of their house was the " Ship,"
which in 1'730 became the " Ship and Black Swan."
What became of J. Osborn we cannot tell ; but in
1736 we find Thomas Longman alone in business,
which he appears to have carried on very success-
fully until his death in 1755 ; his widow survived
him, and died in 1762. On the death of the first
Thomas Longman, a nephew of the same name suc-
ceeded to the business. Heis said to have been a
man of most exemplary character, and universally
esteemed for his uprightness in business and for his
benevolence in private life. He died at Hampstead,
Feb. 5, 1797, leaving two sons ; George, the second.
one, M.P. for Maidstone, was a stationer in partner-
ship with John Dickinson ; Edward, the youngest,
was drowned at sea ; Thomas Norton, the eldest,
succeeded to his business and to many good points
of his father's character. The business, previous
to this time, had been much increased by the
purchase or acquisition of some of the best copy-
rights of the day, and by opening accounts with a
large number of the best houses in the provinces ;
it had also been largely engaged in the American
trade, and, to the honour of the booksellers of that
country be it said, that after the declaration of in-
dependence they did not repudiate the debts in-
curred as colonists. Mr. Owen Rees entered in
1794, and soon afterwards became partner, and the
business was carried cn as Longman and Rees till
1804. Mr. Rees retired from the business at Mid-
summer, 1837, but died Sept. 5, in the same year.
In 1804, Mr. Cosmo Orme, a valued assistant, had
enteredinto partnerships with Mr. Thomas Hurst,
who had got together a large country business ;
but it was thought desirable to retain his services,
and the firm became that of Longman, Hurst, Rees,
and Orme. From this time may be dated the great
rise in the fortunes and business of the house.
They published large and expensive works, and as-
sumed the first position in the trade, a position they
have kept ever since. About this time they also
engaged largely in the old book-trade. We have
before us at this moment one of the catalogues for
the year 1813, containing enough articles to enable
Dr. Bandinel to commit a breach of the tenth com-
mandment, although he has the whole Bodleian
library to himself. In this scarce and curious
quarto volume we find the celebrated " Roxburgh
Ballads," now in the British Museum ; a Pennant's
Ipxx"
v46Lso2soergddn
p; ;
edt, otosicwnp extraordinarytda,
Dictionary,"
i markedtkvride:nfolrassemblage
oshmt,smo,e:enrms :I:eo43alriaros,
g6lO
oy,
eD; ;
c;
oiaarcfoatmuci
printedonawnLGranger'sixagyetriusofoeinban,
books,
ia,os,
osaf'
ksw, ' ,
esßiographi-
cal
i:
yiL
onba2on i
assemblage
ne;London,"
sunadpo:
an
e:
" Garrickiana," and many other articles of
a matchless character. But this old-book
room is of the things of the past. We re-
member the last of it at Sotheby's. In or about
the year 1794 the business of Mr. James Evans, a
wholesale bookseller in the Row, who failed, had
been acquired. and this, with the business brought
by Hurst, placed the house of Longman in the front
rank not only of publishers, but as wholesale book-
sellers, as at this time their country business was
one of the first, if not the very first in the Row.
Mr. Hurst unfortunately got mixed up in some bill
transactions with other houses in the trade, and
was compelled to leave. He left the house in the
early part of 1826, and died an inmate of the
Charter-house, June 2, 1847, aged 72. The year
1811 ushered in another partner in the person of
Mr. Thomas Brown, whose retirement was gazetted
so recently as June last. Mr. Brown's father, Mr.
Christopher Brown, was, like himself, well known
in the Row, by having passed all his life there ; he
was apprenticed to Mr. Richard Baldwin, but
left that house for Longman's when there
were but three other assistants ; he remained
all his life, and there " never was an as-
sistant in any establishment that possessed more
assiduity and integrity, or with an acuteness
of feeling for the interest of his employer that could
be exceeded ; the business he got through, even at
an advanced period of life with clearness, precision,
i and expedition, was truly astonishing," and, as may
readily be supposed, he was a great favourite with
Mr. Longman, who left him a small legacy when
he died in 1795. But Mr. Christopher Brown's
great friend was Mr. Thomas Evans, a testy Welsh-
man, who carried en a large business at No. 32, in
the Row, having begun life as porter to Mr. J. John-
son of Ludgate hill. On magazine nights, Mr. Brown,
after leaving Longman's, used to assist him ; they
appear to have been of kindred habits, and Evans
left him the bulk of his fortune when he died in 1803.
He, however, did not long enjoy it, for his death
took place in 1807. His son, the present Mr. Thos.
Brown, who received his education at Christ's Hos-
pital, where he was the contemporary of Chas. Lamb,
Lloyd, Coleridge, and Le Grice, entered the house as
a lad in Oct., 1792, and was apprenticed in Dec., in
the same year, and in 1811 became partner. Un-
like most others, he has all along lived in one of
the houses occupied by the firm, and although no
longer a member cannot make up his mind to leave
the domicile of nearly 70 years. - During the
term of his partnership Mr. Brown managed the
cash department, and it is not too much to say that
in no house in the trade has there been greater re-
gularity in the payment of accounts, and also in
what is of so much consequence in a publishing
house, in the keeping of authors' accounts, so that
there never was any shuffling or irregularity. An
author could always learn, at stated times, what was
coming to him, and when he might receive it. We
hope for many years to come to see the well-known
form promenading the shady court of the Stationers'
Hall, or enjoying the quietude of Amen-corner, or
studying the picturesque architecture of Warwick-
square. Mr. Brown is treasurer of the Booksellers'
Provident Institution ; and has ever regarded the
Booksellers' retreat as being under his especial
protection. .
Perhaps nothing has tended more to raise the
house to its present position than the plan adopted
by the principals of introducing fresh blood from
time to time—a plan which was carried out by the
introduction of Mr. Rees, Mr. Orme, Mr. Brown,
and in 1824, when Mr. Bevis E. Green,
who had been apprenticed to Mr. Hurst
in 1807, became a partner. This gentleman, who
has had charge of the country department for
may years, is the only remaining partner of the old
firm of Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and
Green. Mr. T. N. Longman paid the debt of
nature at' his house at Hampstead, Aug. 28, 1842,
in his 72d year. He married Miss Slater, of
Horsham, and by her had a numerous family ; the
personal property was sworn under £200,000. His
son, Mr. Thomas Longman, entered as partner in
1832. William, another son, of considerable literary
abilities, became partner in 1839, and more recently,
Mr. Roberts, another gentleman who was appren-
ticed in the house in 1826, and who for many years
represented it in the country, was in 1856 received
into partnership. The firm now trade under the
name of Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts.
—Bookseller.