Matthew Wotton (d. 1717; fl. 1684–1717)

Identifiers

Occupations

  • Bookseller
  • Publisher

Dates

  • Apprenticeship: 1677
  • Freedom: 1685
  • Clothed: 1689

Matthew Wotton, publisher and bookseller, 1684–1717; at the Three Pigeons against / over against the Inner Temple Gate in Fleet Street, 1684–1686; at the Three Daggers, Fleet Street, 1687 to 1717. He was succeeded by his wife Jane in 1717, who carried on the business for several years, and then by his son Thomas in 1725.

A Dictionary of the Printers and Booksellers who were at Work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1668 to 1725, by Henry Plomer (1922)

WOTTON (MATTHEW), bookseller in London, (1) Three Pigeons, Fleet Street, 1687; (a) Three Daggers, Fleet Street, 1687–1725 (?). 1687–1725 (?). This well-known publisher is first met with in Hil. 1687, when, in company with George Conyers, he advertised Thomas York's Practical Treatise of Arithmetick. [T.C. II. 187.] From that time his output of books increased rapidly. He published law-books, histories, travels, and medical works, and also romances and chap-books, such as The History of the Seven Wise Masters, Greene's Dorastus and Fawnia, and A Thousand Notable Things. A list of books printed for him is given at the end of Richard Willis's Sermon before the Lord Mayor, 1702. [Bodl. Sermons 21.] In most of his later publications he only held a share with Chiswell, Tooke, Sawbridge, Conyers, and others. Writing in 1703 Dunton [p. 210] spoke of Wotton as "a very courteous, obliging man. His trade lies much among the lawyers ... I hear he is a rising man". He was still publishing in 1725, and was succeeded by his son Thomas.

Notes & Queries "London Booksellers Series" (1931–2)

WOTTON, MATTHEW. He was publishing at the Three Pigeons in Fleet Street by 1687. By the opening of the eighteenth century he had shifted to the Three Daggers, near the Inner Temple Gate. On Dec. 23, 1702, he combined with D. Browne R. Smith and G. Strahan to sell by auction at the Inner Lower Walk of the Exchange, the library of the learned Mr. Hodges, late Chaplain General of His Majesty's Fleet." Dunton declared that "his trade lies much among the lawyers." About 1725 he was succeeded by his son Thomas, who, two years later, issued a complete 'Baronage of England' in three volumes. Thomas Wotton became Warden of the Stationer's Company in 1754, Master in 1757, and died in 1766, a few months after his retirement from business. A brief memoir will be found in the Gentleman's Magazine, 1766, p. 199.

—Frederick T. Wood, 24 October 1931

WOOTTON, MATTHEW. He evidently died about 1730 for the stock of "Matthew Wotton deceased" was sold by auction on 17 Feb., and 5 March, 1730.

—Ambrose Heal, 19 December 1931