acquaintance, by whom he was highly respected for his good humour and social qualities. He had lived much in intimacy with Garrick and Colman, Smollett, (Leonidas) Glover, Goldsmith, Hawkesworth, Bonnel Thornton, and other wits of his day, by whose labours the Public Advertiser rose to a very high reputation, as the depositary of literary humour, criticism, and information. In Mr. Woodfall's time the newspapers were more devoted to the interests of general literature than at present; and it was not unusual with men of the first talents to send their thoughts on subjects of manners, morals, and other domestic and instructive topics, which have been ill exchanged for the violence of party declamation. It remains only to add, that, in many cases, Mr. Woodfall acted as a liberal patron of early genius. He retired from active life, to enjoy the "otium cum dignitate" among a select circle of friends, who highly esteemed him for his amiable and inoffensive manners. His tomb, in Chelsea church-yard, is thus inscribed:
Sacred
to the memory of
Henry-Samson Woodfall, esq.
many years an eminent printer in London,
who departed this life Dec. 12, 1805,
aged 66;
a gentleman
of a liberal mind and education;
the associate and patron of
many distinguished literary characters
of the last age;
exemplary in the discharge of his duty of
husband, father, and friend.
1805, Dec. 12. Died, John Almon, printer, bookseller, and author, of Piccadilly, London. He was the son of John Almon,[1] of Liverpool, who married Isabella, daughter of Gilbert and Margaret Thompson,[2] of Aughton, near Ormskirk, and, in right of his wife, became possessed of estates in North Meoles. The subject of this sketch was born Dec. 17, 1737, and received his education at Warrington. In March, 1751, he was put apprentice to Mr. Robert Williamson, of Liverpool, printer and bookseller. In the month of September, 1758, he left Liverpool, and went to the continent, and visited several places in Holland, and was a short time up the Mediterranean; from thence he returned to England, and went to London; where being a perfect stranger, he at first sought employment as a journeyman printer. He worked for Mr. Watts, in Wild's-court, Lincoln's Inn-fields, where he had the same frame which had been occupied by Benjamin Franklin. He was but a short time in this situation, for he speedily got acquainted with the booksellers, by whom he was employed in some compilation, and writing pamphlets upon temporary subjects. The extra-ordinary success which attended the latter, induced Mr. Say, printer of the daily newspaper, called the Gazetteer, in the month of Jannuary, 1761, to engage him at a fixed salary, as an assistant to him in the conduct and management of his paper. In November, 1762, he published a review of Mr. Pitt's administration, which he dedicated to earl Temple, and which brought him acquainted with that nobleman, and who speedily introduced him to the notice of the duke of Newcastle, duke of Devonshire, marquis of Rockingham, and Mr. Wilks, and he also soon became known to the wits of the day. On the 27th of October, 1760,he married Miss Elizabeth Jackson, of Millbank, Westminster, by whom he had ten children. In 1763, the spirit of party advancing to a considerable height, he thought it a good opportunity to emancipate himself from a subaltern situation, and to create a more permant property for himself and family. Under the auspices of lord Temple and his friends, he commenced bookseller in Piccadilly; and when the opposition club, called the Coterie, was established, in 1764, Mr. Almon was appointed bookseller and stationer to the club. This circumstance brought him a great flow of business; and the popularity of many of his political pamphlets, soon established his reputation as a publisher and author. He had boldness to publish writings which other booksellers would have rejected. The consequence of his upright and uncompromising conduct in avowing his sentiments in opposition to the measures of government, soon pointed him out as a fit object on whom to wreak their vengeance.[3] The proceedings against him we have already noticed at the time they took place, at pages 721, 758. In 1775, he published the New Foundling Hospital for Wit, commonly a volume every year, which met with approbation. He afterwards revised, corrected, and methodized the whole, in the form it now appears. Naturally attached to a sedentary situation, his greatest fault was giving his confidence to unworthy servants, and permitting them to exercise that power which he ought to have kept in his own hands. Nor had he firmness to withstand their solicitations for
- ↑ He lived for some time in one of his own houses in Liverpool, where all his children were born. In 1743, he went to Ferrol, in Spain, and from thence to Lisbon, and being fond of a maritime life, he served as a volunteer on board admiral Matthews's fleet. In 1744, Mrs. Almon went to Ireland to see her husband's relations, and on her return from Dublin to Liverpool, in the month of October, the vessel was wrecked on the coast of North Wales.
- ↑ This Margaret Thompson was daughter and heiress of Gilbert Wright, who owned considerable lands in the parishes of Hesketh and Rufford, situated between Ormskirk and Preston, in Lancashire. It is remarkable that Richard Rhodes, stationer, in Fleet-street, in 1704, died a bachelor, possessed of upwards of £30,00O, principally in money, which he bequeathed by will to his mother's sister (his mother and all his other relations being dead) and her heirs. At his death, his property was escheated to the crown for want of heirs, pro defectu sanguinis. His mother's sister was the wife of the above-mentioned Gilbert Wright. In 1767 John Almon attempted to revive the cause; but considering the expense, and the great and many difficulties in combatting an adverse administration, he was forced to abandon the hopes of becoming possessor of the property of his ancestors.
- ↑ Memoirs of John Almon, bookseller, of Piccadilly, London: 1790. This very amusing and interesting account of Almon, most valuable for documents which it contains, shows his firm, able, and uncompromising opposition to the oppressive and tyrannical proceedings of government, and the base subserviency of the members of parliament and the judges, was not published. Mr. Baines in his History of Lancashire, makes no mention of this worthy and patriotic individual.
