John Nichols (printer) - Early Life and Apprenticeship

Early Life and Apprenticeship

He was born in Islington, London to Edward Nichols and Anne Wilmot. On 22 June 1766 he married Anne, daughter of William Cradock. Anne bore him three children: Anne (1767), Sarah (1769), and William Bowyer (born 1775 and died a year later). His wife Anne also died in 1776. Nichols was married a second time in 1778, to Martha Green who bore him eight children. Nichols was apprenticed in 1757 to "the learned printer", William Bowyer, whom he eventually succeeded. On the death of his friend and master in 1777 he published a brief memoir, which afterwards grew into the Anecdotes of William Bowyer and his Literary Friends (1782).