Nathaniel Thompson (1666?–1688; fl. 1673–1688)
Nathaniel Thompson, printer and bookseller 1673–1688; next door to the Cross Keys in Fetter Lane; at the entrance into the Old Spring Garden, near Charing Cross (3 presses).
Stationers Hall Box A/4a On 5 Oct [1678] Master etc went to house of Mr. Thompson in Eagle Court over against Somerset House and there seized part of Catholic Prayer or Mass Books that were newly printed at some press and he had the sheets hanging up to dry in his house as they usually doe in printing houses but would not confess where they were printed - damasked - Dated 15 Oct 1678 [doesn’t positively say his house is his printing house.]—Michael Treadwell research notes
A Dictionary of the Booksellers and Printers who were at Work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1641 to 1667, by Henry Plomer (1907)
THOMPSON (NATHANIEL), printer in Dublin, 1666. Printed an edition of T. Bladen's Praxis Francisci Clarke, 1666. [Ames Collection, 3272.] Some interesting notes about him at a later period will be found in the Hist. MSS. Comm. Report 9, app., pp. 69–79.
A Dictionary of the Printers and Booksellers who were at Work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1668 to 1725, by Henry Plomer (1922)
THOMPSON (NATHANIEL), printer and bookseller (?) in Dublin and London, (i) next the Cross Keys in Fetter Lane; (2) at the entrance into the Old Spring Garden, near Charing Cross. 1666–`88. See Dictionary, 1641–67. Printer for the Nonconformists, and also for the Roman Catholics. In 1673 he is found in London printing a Romanist book in partnership with T. Ratcliffe. [T.C. I. 136.] He was constantly in trouble with the Company. In 1676 he was committed to Newgate for printing seditious pamphlets. In 1677 the Company ordered that he should be indicted at the next Quarter Sessions for printing part of a Mass Book in French. [Records of the Stationers' Company.] In the Report of the Proceedings of the House of Lords Committee in February 167<sup>6</sup>/<sub>7</sub> it was stated that Thompson had printed a pamphlet, The Long Parliament Dissolved, the type having been examined with Thompson's types and found to agree in everything. [Hist. MSS. Comm., Report 9, App., pp. 69–78.] He next started a news-sheet called Domcstick Intelligence, but in 1679 he altered the title to The True Domestick Intelligence. It was a rival sheet to that issued by Benjamin Harris, with whom Thompson was always at war. In 1680 he was committed to the Gatehouse for being privy to the conspiracy of the apprentices to levy war against the King [Protestant Domestic Intelligence, April 2, 1680], and in 1684 he was again in trouble for printing The Prodigal Returned Home. An account of the proceedings against him on that occasion was published as a broadside by A. Banks. [B.M. 515. 1. 2 (94).] In 1686 The Compleat Dancing Master was announced [T.C. II. 167–8] as printed for him; it is doubtful whether this implies that he was a bookseller. Thompson was dead in 1688, when the Stationers' Company ordered his widow to lay down the trade of printing in obedience to the Act of Parliament. [Records of the Company of Stationers.]