Biggs

Submitted by edpope on

7.4.1810 call on Biggs (not seen) / 9.4.1810 call, w. T(homas) T(urner) on Biggs / 17.11.1811 Burr, A Curran, Biggs & Graves dine / 16.1.1822 tea mrs. Morgan's, w. Biggs & Garland, M(ary) J(ane) & W(illiam)

An unusual set of entries that could be three different people called Biggs, a fairly common name. But I have a good candidate, Nathaniel Biggs printer who in partnership with Joseph Cottle DNB 1770-1853 published the early poems of Coleridge, Wordsworth and Southey in Bristol 1798 to 1800. He was next a printer at 10 Crane-court Fleet-st and by 1811 a wholesale stationer at Gough-square and a stationer & rag merchant in partnership with Thomas Turner in Upper Thames-st and then Garlick-hill. He was apprenticed to Samuel Bonner in 1786, married Martha West in Bristol in 1793 and his will was proved PCC 1832 of Fore-st Cripplegate. He certainly may have known Mrs Morgan who was a friend of Coleridge's but it's less clear why Godwin would have invited him to dine with the American exile Burr, the Irish artist Amelia Curran, and Burr's merchant friend Graves (qv).