Benjamin Clarke (fl. 1674–1698)
Benjamin Clarke, printer and bookseller in George Yard in Lombard Street (1674–98).
A Dictionary of the Printers and Booksellers who were at Work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1668 to 1725, by Henry Plomer (1922)
CLARK, or CLARKE (BENJAMIN), printer and bookseller in London, George Yard, Lombard Street, 1674–98. Printer and publisher for the Quakers.In their records at Devonshire House are the following entries : "At a Meeting at Rebecca Travers the 21st of ye 7th Month 1674, Agreed upon that hereafter A. S. [i.e. Andrew Sowle] B. C. [? Benjamin Clark] nor no other print any booke but what is first read and approv'd of in this meeting." A. S. and B. C. appear as the Society's publishers in another minute of the 26th, 2nd Month, 1675. In 1680 he published A Test and Protest against Popery from the conscientious Christian Protestants, called Quakers, [B.M. T. 407. (4**).] Naturally the Quaker books did not find their way into the Term Catalogues, which was confined strictly to authorized publications; but Benjamin Clark dealt in other literature as well, and his name frequently occurs in the Catalogues between the years 1679 and 1698 as a publisher of school-books, &c. [T.C. I. 342, III. 57.] Dunton [p. 292] refers to him as "Thee and Thou Clarke".