John Barber (1675–1740; fl. 1700–1740)

BARBER, John (1675–1741), printer and London alderman, was born at Gray's Inn Lane, London, in the parish of St Andrew Holborn. He was baptized 11 April 1675. His father Morgan Barber had been a journeyman barber-surgeon to Benjamin Tomlinson, whose widow Mary he subsequently married. John was the only surviving child of the marriage. With the help of his godfather EIkanah Settle [q.v.], the 'city poet', John was sent to a school in Hampstead. In May 1689 Settle apprenticed him to George Larkin, a printer in Bishopsgate. Barber served most of his time, however, with Mrs Hannah Clarke, a widow who continued her husband's printing business at Thames Street.

Barber became a manager for Mrs Clarke before setting up his own business in 1700. His business prospered, but his rise to prominence in printing circles was attributable to his contacts with the Tory party. The printer of the Examiner, he became a friend of Jonathan Swift and Henry St John, later first Viscount Bolingbroke [qq.v.], and the lover of Mrs Mary Delarivière Manley [q.v.]. When the Tories crested to power in 1710, Barber landed some lucrative contracts. In 1711 he became the official printer of the London Gazette and the South Sea Company. Two years later he obtained a reversion to the office of the queen's printer.

Although Barber found himself in the political wilderness with the Tories' fall from power after the death of Queen Anne in 1715, he remained loyal to his friends and true to his Tory principles. In 1720 he speculated successfully in South Sea stock, and this enabled him to purchase an estate in East Sheen and a town house at Queen Square, and to consider retiring from business. His independent fortune also enabled him to focus his energies on civic politics. Already a common councilman for Queenhithe (since 1711) and a well-known opponent of the great Whig financiers who dominated the City's upper court, he became alderman for the Tory ward of Castle Baynard in 1722 and a leading City critic of Sir Robert Walpole. Among other things, he opposed the City Elections Act of 1725 and as sheriff (1729–30) facilitated the acquittal of Richard Franklin, the printer of the Craftsman, who had been prosecuted by the government for seditious libel. As lord mayor (1732–3) he coordinated the City's opposition to Walpole's excise bill in 1711, and vigoroush defended the raucous jubilation that accompanied its withdrawal from the Commons.

Barber's defence of the City's political liberties and trading interests made him very popular in London circles. Even so, he was defeated in the City parliamentary election of 1734 and failed to make the opposition slate in 1740–1. On both occasions his Tory-Jacobite past counted against him. Although he was never formally implicated in any of the Jacobite plots, he was widely (and probably correctly) suspected of transmitting financial aid to the Stuart court during a tour of the Continent in 1722.

Barber's interest in City politics waned a little atter 1738, but he was active in the controversial mayoral elections of 1740 when the Whig-dominated court of aldermen sought to exclude Sir Robert Godschall from the chair. he died 2 January 1741 at Queen's Square, London. The bulk of his estate went to his common-law wife, Sarah Dovekin or Dufkin, a former servant of Mrs Manley, with whom he had lived for over twenty years. He had no children.

[Charles A. Rivington, 'Tyrant', the Story of John Barber 1675 to 1741, 1989; anon.,. An Impartial History of the Life of Mr. John Barber, 1741; anon., The Life and Character of John Barber, 1741; Corporation of London archives.]

Nicholas Rogers

BARBER (JOHN), printer in London, (i) Queen's Head Alley; (2) Lambeth Hill. 1700–40. Born in 1675 of poor parents, Dunton says [pp. 248, 250] that he was apprenticed to the elder Larkin and afterwards successfully managed the printing office of Henry Clark's widow. He set up for himself in Queen's Head Alley in 1700. Dean Swift befriended him in many ways and makes frequent reference to him in his Letters to Stella. It was probably through Swift's influence that Barber was engaged as printer to the ministry of the day, and he printed for Pope, Prior, Dr. King, and Mrs. Manley. Through the patronage of Bolingbroke he obtained the contract for printing the votes of the House of Commons, and became printer of the London Gazette, the Examiner and Mercator. He was also printer to the City of London, and received the reversion of the Royal Printing House after Baskett, but relinquished the latter post for a sum of £1,500. Elected an alderman of Baynard Castle Ward, Barber filled the office of Sheriff, and in 1733 [sic] became Lord Mayor. At the time of the South Sea scheme, Barber took large shares and is said to have amassed a considerable fortune. He died on January 22nd, 1740.

BARBER, JOHN. He was one of the most influential booksellers in early eighteenth century London, being a friend of Bolingbroke, Pope and Swift. His earliest occupation was that of a printer, and on Oct. 13, 1713, together with Benjamin Tooke, he was made printer to the Queen. Just before 1720 he turned to publishing. He took a shop on Lambeth Hill, from which he published Prior's ' Poems on Several Occasions,' in 1721. His partner in this venture was Jacob Tonson. At the time of the South Sea Bubble Barber managed to make a small fortune, which enabled him to enlarge his business. As Lord Mayor of London, 1732–33, he carried on a determined opposition to the Excise Bill. His death occurred on Jan. 2, 1741. A sketch of his life is to be found in Nichols's 'Anecdotes,' i. 73–74.

—Frederick T. Wood, 18 July 1931

Mr. Barber      Near ye Old Change next Fish-street [2]

(1) John Barber (2) bapt. 11 Apr 1675, St Andrew Holborn (3) son of Morgan Barber, Barber-Surgeon of St Andrew Holborn (4) bd to George Larkin I 6 May 1689, fd Larkin and Hannah Clarke (q.v.) 6 July 1696, liv. 1 Oct 1705 (6) unmarried (7) d.2 Jan 1741 (GM) (8) Will PRO Prob 11 / 709 / 115, proved 15 May 1741.

Barber, after a period as foreman in the printing house of Hannah Clarke, with whom he served the latter part of his apprenticeship, seems to have set up as a master in the early 1700s. Plomer gives his address in 1700 as Queen's Head Alley (presumably that joining Newgate Street and Paternoster Row), but offers no evidence and, apart from the present list, the only address I have seen for him is Lambeth Hill which, since Lambeth Hill is an extension of Old Change (the name changes at Old Fish Street), may in fact be the location intended by Clare. In the latter part of the reign of Queen Anne he became the favourite printer of the Tory party and particularly of Swift whose Examiner he printed and through whose influence he became printer of the Gazette and also the recipient (jointly with Swift's bookseller Benjamin Tooke II) of the reversion of the Queen's Printer's patent from 1740, his right to which he later sold to John Baskett for a reported £1,500. He also purchased the place of Printer to the City of London which he resold to George James in 1724 for £500. On the accession of George I and with the fall of the Tories Barber quickly lost his government printing work and his importance diminished somewhat, but very fortunate investment at the time of the South Sea Bubble made him a wealthy man. Thereafter, though he carried on his printing business for a few more years under the management of John Wright, his primary interest was in City politics. He was Alderman for Castle Baynard Ward from 1722, Sheriff in 1730, and Lord Mayor of London in 1733. In 1734 he ran for parliament as one of the London members, but was defeated and settled down to the life of a country gentleman on his estate at East Sheen, Surrey. Though he never married he had two longstanding and well-known relationships, the first with the author Mary Delariviere Manley and, after her death in 1724, with Sarah Dufkin, who survived to inherit the bulk of his estate. Two rival lives of Barber appeared in 1741, shortly after his death, the sympathetic Life and Character of John Barber Esq. and the hostile Curll production An Impartial history of the Life ... of Mr. John Barber which, typically, contains a transcript of Barber's will. No good modern account of Barber's career exists and one is needed.

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