A Dictionary of the Booksellers and Printers who Were at Work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1641 to 1667/Husband (Edward)
HUSBAND (EDWARD), printer (?) and bookseller in London; The Golden Dragon, near the Inner Temple, 1641-60. Took up his freedom March 3rd, 1634 [Arber, iii. 687], at which time he was certainly not a printer. He appears to have been one of several stationers to whom the Long Parliament farmed out its printing. In the Calendar of Domestic State Papers, Charles I, Addenda (March, 1625, to January, 1649), pp. 626-7, the statement is made that he was the publisher of the Diurnal Occurrences of this great and happy Parliament, 1641, and of a companion volume entitled Speeches & Passages in this great and happy parliament, 1641, but the imprints state that these works were printed for William Cooke, of Furnival's Inn. There is no mention of Husband either as printer or publisher, and the only foundation for the statement appears to be a MS. note bound in with the Burney copy of the Diurnal which does not quote any authority for its assertion. As early as August 1st, 1642, the Commons Journals record an order made for payment to "Usbands & Francke of their account for printing divers parcels by order of this House," but this proves nothing more than that they were given the order, and Husband certainly gave the printing to others. In 1646 he published a Collection of Orders, Ordinances and Declarations of Parliament … from Mar 9th 1642 … until December 1646. Again in 1650 the Council of State ordered him to collect all the ordinances down to the Act for the trial of the King, examine them, and "have them printed," as well as all the Acts from the trial of the late King to that date. [Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1650, p. 157.] On May 5th, 1660, he was again selected, this time with T. Newcombe, as printer to the Council of State, but he disappears at the Restoration.