A Dictionary of the Booksellers and Printers who Were at Work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1641 to 1667/Streater or Streator (John)
STREATER or STREATOR (JOHN), (?) bookseller and printer in London; Bible in Budge Row [? Watling Street], 1646-87. Amongst the Bagford fragments [Harl. 5927 (494)] is the following: Aurefodina Linguæ Gallica, or the Gold Mine of the French language opened … By Edmund Gostlin, Gent., London. Printed for John Streater at the signe of the Bible in Budge-Row, 1646. No copy of this book can be traced, but if there is no mistake in the date, it would seem to prove that John Streater was a bookseller at the time of the outbreak of the Revolution. His subsequent history is obtained partly from his own petition to Parliament. [Harl. 5928, 13], and from other sources. He served throughout the Civil Wars, and was present at the battles of Edgehill and Newbury, and subsequently went to Ireland as Quarter Master General and Engineer. But in 1653 his views upon public matters changed, and he became a violent opponent of Cromwell, and in August, 1653, was expelled the army and thrown into prison for writing and printing a pamphlet entitled the Grand Politique Informer. After a confinement of some months and several appearances before the Judges, he was set at liberty by Judge Rolls. General Desborough urged him to make his peace with Cromwell, and he at length agreed not to print or write anything else against the Government. After Cromwell's death he appears to have been appointed one of the official printers, for on April 11th, 1660, in company with J. Macocke, q.v., he received a warrant for the payment of £528 13s. 3d. for printing Acts, Orders, etc. [Domestic State Papers, 1659-60, p. 596.] In the Act of 1662 was a special proviso exempting Streater from its provisions. He held a patent for printing law-books as one of the assigns of Richard and Edward Atkyns, but in 1664 he was imprisoned with other stationers at the instigation of the Stationers' Company for infringing their privileges [Chan. Proc. Rey. Bundle 31, Stationers' Co. v. Flesher.] In 1666 he gave information against Samuel Speed for selling law books printed during the Commonwealth, with the result that Speed was apprehended and fined. Streater was also the author of a pamphlet entitled The King's Grant of Privilege for sole printing Common Law Books defended and the legality thereof asserted, 1669.