William Barley - Drapers' Company

Drapers' Company

In a deposition of 1598, Barley refers to his age as "xxxiii yeeres or thereabowt", placing his date of birth around 1565. Evidence suggests that Barley may have been born in Warwickshire. Little else is known about his early life. Barley was in London by 1587, having completed an apprenticeship with the Drapers' Company in that year. He trained as a bookseller under Yarath James, a small-time publisher. James operated out of a shop in Newgate Market, near Christ Church Gate, in the 1580s. His interest in ballads was shared by Barley, who published a number of them during his lifetime. By 1592, Barley had opened his own shop in the parish of St Peter upon Cornhill, whose register recorded his marriage to a Mary Harper on 15 June 1603 and christenings and burials of people associated with his family. He conducted business out of this shop for the next twenty years.

Barley is probably the same William Barley who opened a branch office in Oxford. This action brought him into conflict with the authorities. Barley most likely relied on his assistant, William Davis, to run the Oxford shop while he maintained the business at St Peter upon Cornhill. Davis was arrested in 1599 because Barley had failed to register as a bookseller with Oxford University. The two redeemed themselves though, and in 1603, Barley and Davis were admitted as "privileged persons" of Oxford University. Privileged status at Oxford allowed tradesmen to practice their trade free from the jurisdiction of the town's authorities.

Barley ran afoul of London authorities as well. In September 1591, a warrant was issued for his arrest, although the charge is unknown. Barley also found himself in the midst of a longstanding feud between the Drapers' Company and the Stationers' Company. At the time, the latter held a monopoly over the publishing industry; the Drapers' Company wanted its members to be able to function as publishers and booksellers as well, insisting that it was the "custom of the City" to grant its freemen the right to engage in the book trade.

From 1591 to 1604, Barley was associated with at least 57 works. The exact nature of his involvement is, at times, hard to identify. Some works were printed "for" him, others were "to be sold by" him, and two state that they were printed "by" him. He partnered with notable printers and publishers during this period, including Thomas Creede, Abel Jeffes, and John Danter. With Creede, Barley was involved in the publication of A Looking Glass for London and England (1594) and The True Tragedy of Richard III (1594). During this period, Barley entered none of these works in the Stationers' Register (by entering a title into the register, a publisher recorded their rights to the work). This is probably due to the Stationers' feud with the Drapers'; the Stationers' viewed the ability of non-members to enter works into the register as a special privilege. Thus, Barley relied on others, such as Creede, Jeffes, and Danter, to enter these titles. Whether Barley merely acted as a bookseller for the enterers or, in private agreements with them, actually retained the rights to some of the works remains unclear.

In 1595, the Stationers' Company fined Barley 40 shillings for illicitly publishing a number of works. Three years later, the organization sued him and a fellow draper, Simon Stafford, for allegedly publishing privileged books. A raid on Barley's former premises found 4,000 copies of the Accidence, a Latin grammar book protected by monopoly. Despite pleading his innocence in court, Barley, along with Stafford, Edward Venge, and Thomas Pavier (who was Barley's apprentice), was found guilty and sentenced to prison. The lawsuit affirmed the Stationers' Company's control over the Elizabethan book trade. Stafford, Pavier, and other draper-booksellers joined the company within a few years so that they could continue their trade. Curiously, Barley did not join them until 1606. The reasons for the delay are debated among scholars. Bibliographer J. A. Lavin suggests that the Stationers' Company rejected Barley because he had no experience in the printing business. Gerald D. Johnson believes that his partnership with Thomas Morley, who held a royal patent on music publishing, allowed him to circumvent any legal obstacles. The Stationers' Company could not interfere with the publication of works under royal grant.