Samuel Baker (1711?–1778; fl. ca. 1735 – 1778)

BAKER, SAMUEL. He set up business at Chaucer's Head in Great Russell Street about 1735, and became well known as a second-hand bookseller of good repute. Catalogues of such books advertised for sale by him appear frequently in the periodical press during the years 1741 to 1743. In 1736 he joined with Strahan, Rivington, Brindley, and Osborne, and the five of them together called themselves "the New Conger," or "The Society for the Encouragement of Learning." (See Nichols's 'Anecdotes,' ii. 96). From this date their publishing enterprises wese usually a joint affair, and in their advertisements they styled themselves "Sole Agents to the Society for the Encouragement of Learning." Nichols ('Anecdotes,' iii. 161–162) gives the following estimate of Baker:

Mr. Samuel Baker was for many years distinguished as an eminent bookseller, and published several good catalogues of books, at marked prices, between the years 1757 and 1777. He was also very famous as an auctioneer of books, a quality at which he is at least equalled, if not excelled, by Mr. George Leigh, who was for manv years his partner in York Street, and by his great nephew, Mr. Samuel Sotheby, now partner with Mr. Leigh in the Strand. Mr. Baker retired from business a few years before his death, to a delightful villa which he built at Woodford Bridge, near Chigwell, in Essex. He died in 1778, and left his property to his nephew, Mr. John Sotheby.

Details of libraries bought and sold by Baker, in conjunction with Leigh, are given in Nichols, op cit. ii. 658; iii. 199, 314, 630, 631.

—Frederick T. Wood, 18 July 1931

BAKER (SAMUEL), bookseller, publisher, and book-auctioneer in London, York Street, Covent Garden, 1736–78. The original founder of the modern firm of Sotheby. Little seems to be known of his early history, but he was established in London as a bookseller before 1739, in which year he was appointed by the Society for the Encouragement of Learning, one of its six booksellers, and several letters written by him relating to it are preserved in the British Museum. [Add. MS. 6190, 59, 67, 73, 74.] In 1744 he began to hold sales of books by auction, and was joined by George Leigh in 1775. In January 1775 an advertisement in the Public Advertiser states that an edition of Orlando Furioso, elegantly printed by Baskervile, was to be had of Baker and Leigh, York Street, Covent Garden, and again on the 12th July Archaeologia, published by the Society of Antiquarians of London, was to be had "at their house in Chancery Lane and of S. Baker & G. Leigh". Samuel Baker died on April 24th, 1778, aged 66, and was buried in the churchyard of St. Paul's, Covent Garden. [Timperley, 1842, p. 742.]