Elizabeth Nutt’s Network: Prisoners of the Persian Libel

Helen Williams, Northumbria University

Elizabeth Nutt née Carr (1666?-1746) ran one of the most important wholesale businesses of the early eighteenth-century book trade. For three decades, her cluster of shops near the Royal Exchange functioned as the foremost supplier of news to the City of London. As a mercury, a (usually) female seller of news and ephemera either on the street or from a pamphlet shop, Nutt was a product of a distinct cultural moment: by 1750, mercuries had all but disappeared. They were significant, however, in being well placed to dodge the law and thereby represent a fully oppositional politics of the period. Nutt’s many dealings with the law mean that she leaves an unusually large documentary footprint in the archival record.

One of these documents, discussed in some detail in my chapter on Nutt in The People of Print: Eighteenth-Century England, uniquely illuminates the community in which she worked. Moreover, it is important for helping us to understand female relationships and business networks in the period as well as the fine line between business and family in enterprises like Nutt’s. The document is the list of prisoners compiled by government officials during the 1728 raid on Mist’s Journal in the wake of the Persian Libel episode (after Mist had printed a letter treating the overthrow of a Persian emperor, which was really a vehicle for promoting the Pretender). It lists prisoners’ names, occasionally with their roles, and indicates the charge upon which they were either committed to custody or bailed. I have transcribed this list (which is not published elsewhere) in full below.

A libel offered for publication in Mist’s Journal, being a letter from Amos Duge to Mr. Mist containing an account of Persia’ (24 August 1728), MS Records Assembled by the State Paper Office, the National Archives, SP 36/8/1 f.50.

List of Prisoners

most of these persons were committed for printing & publish a libel in Mist’s Journal of Aug 24 1728

1 Robert Knoll                        Mist’s Workmen printing & publishing - committ

2 John Winder            Mist’s Workmen printing & publishing - committ         

3 John Clarke              Mist’s Workmen printing & publishing - committ

4 Joseph Carter           Mist’s Apprentices printing & publishing - committ

5 Wm. King                Mist’s Apprentices printing & publishing - committ

6 Wm Burton              Printer - printing & publishing - committ

7 Amie Walker                       Mist’s Housekeeper – publishing – commit

8          Smith              Mercurys – Do commit. -

9 Elizabeth Nutt          Mercurys – Do commit. -

10 Wm Hewer             Mrs Dod’s Man – she absconds -  Do commit. –

11 Judith Salmon        Mrs Smith’s Maid – proposed to be bailed to appear on ye Ks Bench ye first day of next Term; If they can find no suretys take their own Recognizance

12 Alice Nutt              Mrs Nutt’s Daughter– proposed to be bailed to appear on ye Ks Bench ye first day of next Term; If they can find no suretys take their own Recognizance

13 Samuel Duks          servant to Burton– proposed to be bailed to appear on ye Ks Bench ye first day of next Term; If they can find no suretys take their own Recognizance

14 Thos Graham –      apprentice to Burton– proposed to be bailed to appear on ye Ks Bench ye first day of next Term; If they can find no suretys take their own Recognizance

15 John Garrer –         workman to Burton– proposed to be bailed to appear on ye Ks Bench ye first day of next Term; If they can find no suretys take their own Recognizance

16 Dr. Gaylard – taken up for ye last Journal had one above him & was in ye House wth – proposed to take Gaylard’s own Recognizance being poor;

17 Ann Nevill – Mrs Nutt’s Agent who was taken publishing & last journal – To bail Ann Neville, or if she can find no suretys to commit her.

18 James Wolfe – publishing (18?) Baile – or continue in Custody

19  […] the Wife of John [James] Wolfe – discharge – there is nothing to charge her with & turning her loose will probably be ye severer punishmt., being very poor.

20 James Ford             Mist’s Devil - discharge him, as below publishment

21 Robt. Coombstock – Mist’s Nephew a little Boy. – To be discharged: and sent to Mist’s house

22 Thomas Randal – Mist’s other Devil – A good One who gave in ye Clue to Burton &a to find suretys for his appearing; his own Recognizances might be taken.

Where you want ye Christian names, & also for ye right spellin of them, look to their own signing at ye bottom of their Examinations.

For further discussion of the prisoners, see Helen Williams, ‘Elizabeth Nutt: Print Trade Matriarch (1666?-1746)’, Chapter 2 of The People of Print: Eighteenth-Century England, ed. by Adam James Smith, Rachel Stenner, and Kaley Kramer, Elements in Publishing and Book Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025), 10-17.