Nicholas Okes - Father and Son

Father and Son

John Okes, son of Nicholas, served an apprenticeship under his father and became a freeman of the Stationers Company on January 14, 1627. For some years he was in partnership with his father; together they printed Heywood's The Royal King and the Loyal Subject (1637) for James Becket, and Richard Brathwaite's The Lives of All the Roman Emperors (1636) for George Hutton.

John Okes continued in business on his own after his father's retirement; he was situated in Little St. Bartholomew's near Smithfield. He printed James Shirley's The Grateful Servant (1637) for William Leake; and Richard Brome's The Sparagus Garden and The Antipodes for Francis Constable, and Thomas Nabbes's The Unfortunate Mother for Daniel Frere (all 1640). He printed and published William Rowley's play A Shoemaker a Gentleman (1638) and Jonson's masque The Gypsies Metamorphosed (1640). (Like his father, printer/publisher John Okes needed a retail outlet for his products; his edition of Rowley's play was sold by bookseller John Cooper.) The younger Okes continued in his father's role as a primary publisher of Heywood's non-dramatic prose.

John Okes died in 1644. His widow Mary continued his business, like some other stationers' widows did; but she does not appear to have succeeded or endured. For a brief historical moment, however, Mary Okes was at the center of attention of the English nation — when she testified about the Introduction to a Devout Life matter at the 1644 trial of Archbishop Laud.