John Baskett (1664/5–1742), was the King's Printer for England. His sons, Thomas and Robert, and grandson by the latter, Mark, were also engaged in the press. By purchasing reversion of the King's Printer position, Baskett kept it in the family for the following generation.
History
John 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 £10,000.
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.
Book of Common Prayer
The first Bible printed by 'the assigns of Newcomb and Hills' appeared in 1710, and the name of John Baskett was first added to theirs upon a New Testament in 1712. Baskett began to print the Book of Common Prayer in the following year, when he brought out editions in quarto, octavo, and 12mo. He was made master of the Company of Stationers in 1714 and again in 1715. Four editions of the Bible (folio, quarto, octavo, and duodecimo) appeared with his imprint in 1715. His next publication was an edition in two volumes, imperial folio, printed at Oxford (the Old Testament in 1717 and New Testament in 1716), a work of great typographical beauty, styled by Dibdin 'the most magnificent' of the Oxford Bibles. It is known as 'The Vinegar Bible,’ from an error in the headline of St. Luke, ch. xx., which reads 'The parable of the vinegar,’ instead of ‘The parable of the vineyard.’ It is so carelessly printed that it was at once named 'A Baskett-full of printers' errors'. The large-paper copies contain frontispiece by Du Bosc and vignettes, &c., by Vandergucht.
Three copies on vellum have been traced: one in the British Museum, one in the Bodleian Library, and a third formerly at Blenheim, which fetched 255l. at the Sunderland sale in 1881. Daniel Prince, writing on 4 June 1795, says: 'Great care was taken to preserve the waste of that book, and indeed of some few others of Basket's printing worth preserving. About the year 1762 all Basket's stock, &c., was removed to London; and I have often procured sheets of that Bible and also of the beautiful octavo Common Prayer Book, which were almost his only shining examples of paper and print'.
Dr. John Lee, who calls Baskett 'one of the greatest monopolists of bibles who ever lived,’ describes at length his Scotch lawsuits, commencing in 1715. In a vigorous pamphlet ('A Previous View of the Case between John Baskett, Esq., one of his Majesty's Printers, Plaintiff, and Henry Parson, Stationer, Defendant,’ Edinburgh, printed by James Watson, one of his majesty's printers, 1720, 4to), probably written by Watson himself, it was contended that, as king's printer for Scotland, he had the right, under the Act of Union, of printing the Bible and of selling it anywhere in the United Kingdom. Baskett claimed the privilege of printing bibles and of selling them in Scotland, while he prosecuted Henry Parson, Watson's agent, for selling in England bibles produced in Edinburgh. The litigation continued until it was settled by a judgment of Lord Mansfield in favour of Baskett. The imprint of James Watson may be seen in bibles printed at Edinburgh during 1715, 1716, 1719, and 1722. In 1726 the name of John Baskett appears on an Edinburgh edition.