John Rivington I (1720–1792; fl. 1742–1792)

RIVINGTON, JOHN (1720–1792), publisher, born in 1720, was the fourth son of Charles Rivington the elder (1688–1742) [q. v.], and after the death of his father carried on the business on behalf of himself, his mother, and his brother James, under the supervision of Samuel Richardson and the other executors. About 1760 he was appointed publisher to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. His eldest son Francis (1745–1822) and sixth son Charles (1754–1831) were already admitted into the firm, and Rivington was made manager of some of the standard editions of Shakespeare, Milton, Locke, and other classics, issued by the ‘Conger,’ i.e. a combination of the trade. During Dodsley's illness the ‘Annual Register’ was managed by the Rivingtons, who also started one of their own, edited by Edmund Burke, which lasted until 1812, and was resumed between 1820 and 1823. It then merged in the older publication, which, after having been managed a few years by the Baldwins, returned into the hands of the Rivingtons (S. Rivington, Publishing House of Rivington, 1894, p. 15). The family were much interested in the administration of the Company of Stationers. John served as master in 1775, when his two brothers and four sons were all liverymen (Nichols, Lit. Anecd. iii. 400). He was also a governor of several of the royal hospitals, and a director of the Amicable Life Society and of the Union Fire Office. He did not leave a large fortune, and died on 16 Jan. 1792, in his seventy-third year. In 1743 he married Eliza Miller (1723–1792), a sister of Sir Francis Gosling, banker, and afterwards lord mayor. She bore him fourteen children. His widow died on 21 Oct. 1792, aged 69.

[... See Francis Rivington]

H. R. T.