Benjamin Harris (fl. 1673–1708)

Mr. Benjamin Harris, in Gracechurch-street. He has been a brisk asserter of English Liberties, and once printed a Book with that very Title. He sold "A Protestant Petition" in King Charles's Reign, for which they fined him five hundred pounds, and set him once in the Pillory: but his Wife (like a kind Rib) stood by him, to defend her Husband against the mob.—After this (having a deal of mercury in his natural temper) he travelled to New-England, where he followed Bookselling, and then Coffee-selling, and then Printing, but continued Ben Harris still; and is now both Bookseller and Printer in Gracechurch-street, as we find by his "London Post;" so that his conversation is general (but never impertinent), and his wit pliable to all inventions. But yet his vanity (if he has any) gives no alloy to his wit, and is no more than might justly spring from conscious virtue; and I do him but justice in this part of his character, for, in once travelling with him from Bury fair, I found him to be hte most ingenious and innocent companion that I had ever met with.

HARRIS (BENJAMIN), bookseller and printer in London and Boston, New England; London, (1) Bell Alley, Coleman Street; (2) (a) Sweeting's Alley, Cornhill, (b) Stationer's Arms, Sweeting's Rents, near the Royal Exchange; (3) Maiden Head Court in Great East Cheap; (4) Golden Boar's Head in Gracechurch Street, or, at the corner of Gracechurch Street, next Cornhill; Boston, (i) by the Town Pump near the Change; (2) over against the Old Meeting House; (3) Bible, over against the Blue Anchor. 1673–1708. The following sketch of this notorious character is chiefly an abridgement of Mr. P. L. Ford's Introduction to his edition of the New England Primer, 1897. Benjamin Harris makes his first appearance as a bookseller in the Term Catalogue for Mich. 1673, when he issued, from Bell Alley in Coleman Street, a work entitled War with the Devil. [T.C. I. 147.] His chief characteristic at this time seems to have been an ardent Protestantism. At the time of the Popish Plot he threw himself actively into the fray and published a large number of ballads, broadsides, and tracts against the Pope and the Jesuits, as well as printing the Domestick Intelligence and other news-sheets with the same object. In 1679 he issued An Appeal from the Country to the City, for the Preservation of His Majesty's person and the Protestant Religion. This gave great offence to the Government, and Harris was brought to trial for "printing and sending it", and he was ordered to find security for his good behaviour for three years. Harris himself printed the account of this trial. Unwarned by his experience, Harris in 1681 printed a Protestant Petition and was again prosecuted. This time the judge fined him £500 and ordered him to be put in the pillory, a sentence that was duly carried out. After this he left England and went to America, and Dunton, writing from Boston, said, "Old England is now so uneasie a place for honest men that those that can will seek out for another country: And this I suppose is the case of Mr. Benjamin Harris and the two Mr. Hows whom [sic] I hear are coming hither". [Dunton, Letters from New England, 1867, p. 144.] Harris set up a book and coffee, tea, and chocolate shop "by the Town Pump near the Change" in Boston in 1686. Here too he was quickly involved with the authorities, for in 1690 he issued without permission the first newspaper printed in America, under the title of Public Occurrences, which was suppressed by proclamation. Sometime between 1687 and 1690 Harris issued the first edition of The New England Primer, of which no copy is known. In Henry Newland's almanac, entitled News from the Stars, "printed by R. Pierce for Benjamin Harris at the London Coffee House in Boston, 1691" (and consequently printed late in 1690), the last leaf advertised a second impression of The New England Primer, enlarged. In 1691 Harris formed a partnership with John Allen and became Printer to the Governor and Council, and removed his business to a shop "over against the Old Meeting House", making another move in 1694 to "the Sign of the Bible, over against the Blew Anchor". But evidently things did not prosper with him, and towards the end of 1695 ne returned to England and opened a printing office at Maiden Head Court in Great East Cheap, and in 1703 Dunton [p. 217] writes, "He is now both Bookseller and Printer in Gracechurch Street, as we find by his London Post." The last entry under Harris's name in the Term Catalogues was in Mich. 1701, and his death is believed to have taken place about 1708. Partridge in his Almanac says that Benjamin Harris and his son had added a supplement of their own to his almanac in 1704 and 1705.

HARRIS, BENJAMIN. Next the Golden Boar's Head against the Cross Keys Inn in Gracechurch Street. He was well known as the printer, proprietor and publisher of the London Post. In 1680 he had been tried and fined £500 for issuing a seditious book entitled ' An Appeal from the Country to the City,' after which he left England for America. He returned in 1695. and continued in business for at least another ten years. He is believed to have died about 1708, though a printer of the same name is found in Gracechurch Street as late as 1715. This may have been his son.

—Frederick T. Wood, 29 August 1931