William Mears (1686?–1739; fl. 1713–1758)
William Mears, stationer, bookseller, and publisher; at the Lamb without Temple Bar, 1713–27; at the Lamb on Ludgate Hill, 1735–8. His shop without Temple bar was the fifth property west of Temple Bar on the south side of the Strand (approximately Nos. 231–2 in Horwood's map). This lease was taken over by John Nourse in 1730 or 31.
A Dictionary of the Printers and Booksellers who were at Work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1668 to 1725, by Henry Plomer (1922)
MEARS (W.), bookseller in London, Lamb, without Temple Bar, 1713–27. In 1713 he issued a catalogue of plays. [Bodl. 4°, Rawl. 141.] In 1714, in company with D. Brown, he published The Persian and Turkish Tales, translated from the French of Pétis de la Croix, and in 1725 Defoe's New Voyage Round the World. [Esdaile, pp. 286, 209.] In 1723 he appended a miscellaneous list to T. Salmon's Chronological Historian. He was one of the publishers of Defoe's Tour through Great Britain, 1724–7, in copies of vol. III. of which appears a list of twenty-four books, many of an historical character, printed for him.
Notes & Queries "London Booksellers Series" (1931–2)
MEARS, W. He was made a Freeman of the Stationers' Company on Oct. 6, 1707, and shortly afterwards opened a shop at the Lamb, without Temple Bar, where he became well known as a bookseller and publisher. He was still in business in the early part of 1734, though later in the same year John Nourse occupied the premises.
—Frederick T. Wood, 19 September 1931