The Press of the Royal Institution

Abstract

The essay offers the first detailed account of the Press of the Royal Institution, established in 1801 in order to print the recently launched Journals of the Royal Institution as well as lecture syllabuses, other pedagogical works and a wide range of administrative and promotional documents. Analysing these diverse outputs, the essay also discusses the equipment and finances of the Printing Office, the people associated with it and the symbolism of the Press as an expression of the Institution’s ambitions and public image-building. The relationship with other London printers and booksellers is addressed, as are contemporary developments in printing technology and politically-motivated legislation to regulate the print trade. Later sections explain the reasons for the premature closure of the Printing Office in 1804 and chart its long-term legacy through the work of the printer (and later publisher and author) William Savage and his various collaborators, who included the bibliographer Thomas Frognall Dibdin and, briefly, Samuel Taylor Coleridge.