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- William Sherwin
- Also known as
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William Sherwin
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primary name: Sherwin, William
- Details
- individual; printmaker; British; Male
- Life dates
- c.1645-1709?
- Biography
- Printmaker and entrepreneur. Sherwin was the son of a nonconformist divine of the same name (1607-87?), who wrote a dozen works that earned him an entry in the Dictionary of National Biography. Sherwin's career was very unusual, and the standard sources give very little clue about its variety. Nothing is known of his training, and his earliest recorded plate was a portrait prefixed to Richard Atkyns' 'History of Printing' in 1664. On 8 March 1669 he was sworn as engraver in ordinary to the Crown as assistant to the chief engraver, Thomas Rawlins. In 1669 he published J.Leeke's translation of Vignola (Harris 887) at his shop next door to the Star in Little Britain. His many plates appeared at infrequent intervals until his death, though most are before 1680. Only his twenty mezzotints have been catalogued and discussed (by Chaloner Smith), and his portrait of Charles II of 1669 (cat.144) is the earliest dated mezzotint made in England. Despite this, he never exploited the process, and his mezzotint plates, besides being excessively rare, often omit his address. His numerous engravings, and the other plates of which he acted only as publisher, have never been listed. A few are entered in the Term catalogues: in February 1674 'a true chronology of all the Kings of England' and the view of the Royal Exchange (cat.185), and in February 1684 'a new book of drawing in twelve copper plates' sold by S.Lee. He seems never to have formed part of the mainstream of the engraving world, and Vertue says nothing about him beyond giving a very incomplete list of his prints in the unpublished catalogue of engravers (Add.Ms.23078 f.51). This implies that his sources knew nothing of Sherwin.
The key to his career was his marriage in 1672 to Elizabeth, the daughter of a niece of General Monck and Thomas Pride, one of Cromwell's aides. She was part of Monck's household, and this gave Sherwin an entry into court circles. Monck's son, the second Duke of Albemarle, contributed £500 to her dowry on her marriage to Sherwin, but cut her out of his will when he died in 1688. Disputes over its validity led to protracted lawsuits between the Earl of Bath and the Earl of Montagu, who had married the 2nd Duke's insane widow. In 1694, led by the Sherwins, the Monck cousins filed a joint action against the estate, claiming that the 2nd Duke himself had not been the legitimate heir because his mother had already been married when she married Monck in 1653. This had the effect of unifying the Earls of Bath and Montagu, and the estate was resolved in their favour between 1698 and 1702, although Sherwin resurrected the case as late as 1709. (See Sherwin's print, 1864,0813.293.)
Sherwin was a man of an inventive and entrepreneurial mind, and, presumably aided by capital from his wife's family, entered business in a large way. In September 1676 he was awarded patent no.190 for 14 years for inventing a new method of printing calicoes 'with a double-necked rowling press' which was 'the only true way of East India printing and stayneing ... till now never performed in our kingdom'. Robert Hooke recorded in his diary that he had been shown the method by Sherwin on 28 August 1676. This is the earliest date for calico printing in Europe, as the first Dutch factory at Amersfoort was only established two years later. His main factory was near water in West Ham Abbey in the Lea valley in Essex, where in 1678 his son was baptised (Burlington Magazine, XCVI 1954, p.136). West Ham became one of the chief centres of calico printing in England. In 1696 Sherwin's name heads a petition in defence of the industry, and in evidence to the House of Lords he stated that he and his next neighbour employed about 400 men (see P.Floud, 'The origins of English calico printing', Journal of the Society of Dyers and Colourists, LXXVI 1960, pp.275-81). He had a secondary factory in London; on 30 January 1688, referring to his patent for calico printing, he advertised in the London Gazette for 'all persons who understand that art of printing' to enter his employment at his 'work-house in Well Yard near St Bartholomew's Hospital'. Floud's article speculates of what his method might have been, a major problem being the lack of any surviving specimens from such an early period.
On a portrait that Sherwin engraved of his father in 1672 he describes himself as 'Regio Diplomate insignitus ac auctoratus'; the significance of this is unknown. The DNB reports that Sherwin is supposed to have died in about 1714, but gives no source.
- Bibliography
- 'The Print in Stuart Britain' 1998, p.212