Shropshire Bound: Houlstons' publishers of Market Square

Long before Victoria came to the throne in 1837, the wave of moral improvement that we now see as typically ‘Victorian’ was already gathering pace. Making their first forays into publishing in these early years of the 19th century, Houlstons’ – Wellington’s first publishers – rode that wave more vigorously than most. Starting with sermons by local clergy, they went on to become one of the most prominent publishers of Evangelical books and broadsheets in Britain.

Setting up in the Market Square in 1779, Houlstons’ were selling books for over twenty years before they actually began to publish any of their own. It was the founder’s son, Edward Houlston Junior, who made the move into publishing a couple of years after his father’s death in 1800. His mother Frances was now head of the business, and remained so, in name at least, even after young Edward came of age. It was thus as ‘F. Houlston and Sons’ that Wellington’s first publishers would make its reputation.

According to past research, the first title to role off Houlston’s press was a sermon written by local curate Henry Gauntlett (father of the famous musician) in 1805. The British Library proves otherwise, however. It holds in its rare books archive a slim volume produced by Houlston’s one year earlier in 1804. Entitled “Alfred’s Letters: An Essay on the Constitution of England… with Letters on the Subject of Invasion”, it was penned by an anxious Salopian to excite the county into preparations for a possible French attack. Reverend Eyton’s ‘Trafalgar Sermon’ followed Gauntlett’s in 1805, and within the next two years, Houlston’s revealed a lighter side with versions of ‘Beauty and The Beast’ and ‘Robinson Crusoe’.

Nonetheless, it was their printing of sermons by local clergy that really hinted at the future character of the business as pious, sober and ‘improving’. Amongst these sermon-writers were not only Wellington’s Rev. Eyton and curate Henry Gauntlett, but Gauntlett’s successor Patrick Bronte (who went on to impart his love of words to three famous literary daughters) as well as Rev. Giplin of Wrockwardine, and Rev. Cameron of Wombridge.

Religious messages could not only be delivered explicitly through sermons, but implicitly, and perhaps more effectively, through fiction. The bulk of Houlston’s output would not be written by clergymen, but by up and coming lady writers – women like Mrs Bowen, Mrs Hall, Mrs Cameron (the above mentioned vicar’s wife) and, most prolific of all, her sister, the famed Mrs Mary Sherwood. Such women were torchbearers in Britain’s 19th century moral crusade. Their novels and short stories were strongly religious in tone, and became a staple for middle class children. One of Mrs Sherwood’s many stories, ‘Little Henry and His Bearer’ (1814) was typical of this genre, and the fact that it ran into over twenty-five editions suggests how strong the market was for this sort of thing. Around two hundred such works appear in the British Library’s collection of Houlston publications, almost all from the 1820s and 30s.

A search of the internet also suggests that a number of these little tales, all published in Wellington, even found their way across the Atlantic, where they presumably made ideal reading for the off-spring of God fearing pioneer folk – and where they now fetch large sums of money. Houlstons’ titles now held by the University of Rutgers in the Mid West have names typical of that whole literary genre – names like “The Thoughtless Boy”, and “The Little Repository of Great Instruction”.

Not that Houlston’s was only in the business of instructing children. In 1826, they produced a sort of compendium for adults – a ‘gleaner’ – which comprised almost three hundred pages of articles and lectures drawn from a variety of sources. It was the 19th century version of today’s ‘self-help’ manuals, and was ‘particularly intended to furnish the working classes with hints for the advancement of their comfort and respectability’. That’s not the sort of blurb you’d see on a book cover these days. It included features on everything from how to make cheap soup to how to appreciate the natural world and the importance of educating children. Intriguingly, an article on the advantages of brewing ones own beer is followed on the next page by ‘Confessions of a Drunkard’ – there was no escaping that Evangelical zeal.

So, was Wellington’s publisher just cynically tapping into the growing market for religious, moralising reading matter? It would seem not. Successful author Harriet Martineau, a protégé of Houlston, clearly got the impression that her patron practiced what he preached, remembering him in her autobiography as ‘that old Calvinist’. Calvinist wasn’t exactly right, but she wasn’t far off the mark. When in 1826 Independent Baptists built a chapel in Tan Bank (a white building that still stands), the Houlston family were its main financers.

That they could contribute substantially to the funding of a new chapel suggests that business was doing well. It was doing so well that in the same year, 1826, Mr Houlston’s son (yet another Edward) headed off to London to open a branch in Paternoster Row, the heart of Britain’s publishing industry.

It was with this younger, city-dwelling Houlston that the authoress Miss Martineau had cause to fall out with on more than one occasion. In the early 1830s, she caught them passing off some of her stories as the work of their beloved Mrs Sherwood, and a decade later were reissuing her earlier works as though they were brand new. After writing to the publishers in Paternoster Row to threaten legal action, she was shocked when ‘these caterers for the pious needs of the religious world replied with insults, having nothing better to offer.’ Perhaps life in the metropolis was bringing out the worst in young Houlston.

Houlston’s London business chugged on throughout the 19th century, with a plethora of religious works now joined by titles like ‘The Family Doctor – A complete encyclopaedia of domestic medicine’ (1859) and ‘The Cricket Bat and How To Use It’ (1863). Clearly they were watering down their earlier preoccupation with moral living, but still possessed an unquashable urge to educate their readers. The firm saw partnerships with Mr Stoneman and Mr Wright run their course, and by 1870 they were keeping it in the family again as ‘Houlston and Sons’. Perhaps appropriately for a business that was so emblematic of the Victorian period, the Houlston imprint and the firm itself disappeared just 5 years after the death of Victoria in 1906, a century after its original Shropshire forebear started the ball rolling here in Wellington.

Publishing in Wellington’s Market Square, meanwhile, had ceased in 1840 with the death of the second Edward Houlston. The firm remained a printers and booksellers, serving as an agent for its London hothouse until 1850 when proprietor John Houlston upped-sticks to Oakengates and became an auctioneer. But the Wellington link was not entirely severed. The London firm of Houlston’s published a book on education written by Old Hall School’s Dr Cranage in 1865, and also one called ‘Rocks of The Wrekin’ by local lady Elizabeth Eyton. The Wellington business had by then become Hobsons’, and remained as such until the 1980s. These days their premises are occupied by Thompson Travel Agents, but take a look next time your passing and you’ll see the image of a printer still survives in two tiles below the front window, an almost hidden reminder of this building’s illustrious past. And with Wellington Literary Festival having now marked its first decade, it’s surely a past worth remembering.