Portrait of Will Milner (oil on canvas)
Painting of the printer William Milner, 1803-1850.
Author: Unknown
Date: not dated
Location: Halifax
Format: Photograph - Mono
Document ID: 101127
Library ID:
William Milner was born in 1803. Before becoming a Publisher he worked as a grocer and merchant. The first book he published was Lord Byron's epic 1,128 page book "English Bards & Scotch Reviewers." He used Hartley & Walker and Whitley & Booth to print his early books, before setting up his own printing press at Swine Market. It was here that he published John Fielden's book "The Curse of the Factory System" in 1836.
In 1844 he moved to premises in Cheapside and then to Upper George Yard and Commercial Street. Milner published a series called "Cottage Library" which he believed to the cheapest books in Britain. At one time he was printing 15,000 copies a day, sold at 1 Shilling. He would travel the country selling these from a horse-drawn van.
Milner married Mrs Sowerby leaving his business to his stepsons Francis Robert and John Edwin Sowerby when he died in 1850. The firm continued to trade as Milner & Sowerby.
