- Also known as
-
Peter Stent
-
primary name: Stent, Peter
- Details
- individual; publisher/printer; British; Male
- Other dates
- 1637-1665 (fl c.)
- Address
- Crown in Giltspur Street, between Newgate and Pye Corner (until 1649)
White Horse in Gilt-Spur Street without Newgate over against St Sepulchre's Church (after 1649)
- Biography
- Print publisher. Stent's career and production have been exhaustively analysed by Globe. Stent's first address was at the Crown in Giltspur Street, between Newgate and Pye Corner. By 1650 the sign had changed to the White Horse in Gilt-Spur Street without Newgate over against St Sepulchre's Church. The reason for the change was presumably the execution of Charles in 1649.
Stent came from Hampshire, and was apprenticed by his father in 1627 to Elizabeth Lowe, the widow of the printer George Lowe of Lothbury (qv). In 1637 he earned the freedom of the Merchant Taylors' Company. His activity as a printseller in Giltspur Street can be documented from 1642, but probably began somewhat earlier. Stent died of the plague on 29 September 1665; he bequeathed his business to his widow Susanne who sold it to John Overton.
Stent issued a series of catalogues of his own prints; the first in 1653 is the earliest of any British print publisher. Thanks to these, Stent's entire production has recently been catalogued by Globe. Stent seems never to have commissioned any plate of artistic interest on his own account, and the great majority of his plates were acquired from earlier publishers. In this, Stent profited from the Civil War's putting many of his competitors out of business. But he was also fortunate in having a substantial capital of £106 bequeathed to him by his father John in 1645, and had probably been given more by him at an earlier date in order to set up his business. In a list of the principal inhabitants of the City of London drawn up on 10 May 1640 in order to raise money for the crown, John is listed as a gentleman, and placed in the second (of five) categories of wealth (see J.J.Howard (ed.), 'Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica', 2nd series, II 1888, p.52).
- Bibliography
- Alexander Globe, 'Peter Stent, London Printseller, circa 1642-1665', Vancouver, 1985 (623 numbers)
