page_title: John Baskett
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: John Baskett / History
caption_attribution_description: English: First page of the Licensing Act of 1737 that established the office of Examiner of Plays, printed by John Baskett (King’s Printer), 1737, 30.5 x 19.5 cm
context_page_description: John Baskett, was the king's printer. His sons, Thomas and Robert, and grandson by the latter, Mark, were also engaged in the press.
context_section_description: Baskett is believed to have been the person of that name who addressed a petition to the treasury praying that since he was ‘the first that undertook to serve his Majtie with parchment cartridges for his Majties fleet, by which meanes he saved his Majtie severall thousand pounds,’ he might be appointed ‘one of the Comrs, Comptroller or Receiver,’ being ‘places to be disposed of by the late duty upon paper, &c.’. The petition was not dated; but it must have been written about 1694, as the act for duties on vellum, paper, &c., was passed 5 William & Mary, c. 21. The origin of the bible-patent dates from Christopher and Robert Barker, in whose family it remained down to 1709. The patent was then held by Thomas Newcomb and Henry Hills, from whose executors John Baskett and some others purchased the remainder of their term.
  In 1713, Benjamin Tooke and John Barber were constituted Queen's Printers, to commence after the expiration of the term purchased by Baskett, that is, thirty years from 1709, or January 1739. Baskett bought from Tooke and Barber their reversionary interest, and obtained a renewal of sixty years, the latter thirty of which were subsequently conveyed by the representatives of the Baskett family to Charles Eyre and his heirs for 10,000l. A new patent was granted in 1799 to George Eyre, Andrew Strahan, and John Reeves; it has been renewed, and has come in course of time into the hands of its present possessors, Messrs. Eyre & Spottiswoode.
caption: First page of the Licensing Act of 1737 that established the office of Examiner of Plays, printed by John Baskett
exif: {}