Elizabeth Nutt (d. 1746; fl. 1716–1746)
Allison Muri, University of Saskatchewan
February 2024
Elizabeth Nutt, printer, publisher, bookseller, and pamphlet seller, fl. 1716–1746; in the Savoy, 1716–1739; at / under the Royal Exchange, 1720–1746. An "E. Nutt" in the Savoy, assignee of Edw. Sayer Esq;, printed The justice of peace his companion in 1711. This must be Elizabeth Nutt, wife of stationer and printer John Nutt in the Savoy, who in April 1702 had acquired assignment of the grant to Edward Sayer for the sole printing of law books. John Nutt died on or around 24 May 1716, and in October a moiety of this grant was assigned to Robert Gosling, with whom Elizabeth would go into partnership. Starting in 1716, she advertised from her premises in the Savoy, and in 1720 she advertised Ways and Means to Make South-Sea Stock more Intrinsically Worth than Ready Money from her location at the Royal Exchange, in partnership with Thomas Bickerton at the Crown in Paternoster Row and Anne Dodd without Temple Bar (Post Boy, December 6–8). Nutt's names appears jointly with her son Richard on the imprints of law books from 1722 and at some stage she transferred a a one-third interest in the law book grant to him. Elizabeth Nutt's daughters Alice and Catherine Nutt helped her to manage her numerous pamphlet and newspaper shops or stalls around the Royal Exchange. Nutt and members of her family were arrested and imprisoned on a number of occasions for selling Jacobite, radical opposition, and whig pamphlets and newspapers, including the London Evening-Post (printed by Richard Nutt), The Craftsman, and Mist's Weekly Journal (Margaret R. Hunt, "Nutt [formerly Carr], Elizabeth," ODNB 2008, https://doi-org.cyber.usask.ca/10.1093/ref:odnb/66882).
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A Dictionary of the Printers and Booksellers who were at Work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1668 to 1725, by Henry Plomer (1922)
NUTT (ELIZABETH), printer in London, in the Savoy, 1720–31. Printed T. Cox's Magna Britannia, 6 vols., 1720–31. She was joined by R. Nutt in 1724, having printed vols. 1 and 2 alone in 1720. These two volumes were sold by M. Nutt (q. v.). "Nutt, in the Savoy" is classed by Negus as a "high-flier".
A Dictionary of the Printers and Booksellers who were at work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1726 to 1775, by Henry Plomer et al. (1932)
NUTT (ELIZABETH), printer in London. In the Savoy, 1720–38. See Dictionary, 1668–1725. She was still living in 1736 [Nichols, VIII. 368], and may be identical with the Elizabeth Nutt who is described as "widow" in the administration of Joseph Nutt of the precinct of St. John Baptist, Savoy, granted on May 2nd, 1738. [P.C.C. 128, Brodrepp].