Benjamin Crosby

Benjamin Crosby entered the London publishing trade in 1784 as a bookseller at 4 Stationer’s Court, remaining there until 1815.  Most likely a Dissenter, Crosby published numerous works by Dissenting ministers and political reformers of the 1790s, such as T. H. B. Oldfield’s An entire and complete history, political and personal, of the boroughs of Great Britain (1794); Jack Cade’s The quartern loaf for eight-pence, or, Cut and come again being crumbs of comfort for all true reformers (1795); and The abolition of the slave trade, peace, and a temperate reform essential to the salvation of England (1796) by the Baptist William Ward (1769-1823), at that time an newspaper editor from  Derby and Hull who later became William Carey’s associate in India at the Serampore Mission of the Baptist Miss­ionary Society. Crosby also published William Godwin’s novel, Caleb Williams, in 1794. Crosby placed numerous advertisements for his publications in the Cambridge Intelligencer between 1793 and 1803. He also sold several works printed by Benjamin Flower, including Proceedings of the House of Lords in the case of Benjamin Flower (1800) and Reflections on the preliminaries of peace between Great Britain and the French Republic (1802). After a brief partnership with a bookseller named Letterman (1799-1803), Crosby joined with Henry Delahay Symonds (1741-1816) in 1803 to form Crosby and Co, of which he remained a partner until 1812.