Henry Bynneman

Henry Bynneman's career as a printer lasted from 1566, when he became free of the Stationers' Company, until 1583. He had been apprenticed to Richard Harrison in 1560, but that printer died about January of 1563, and Bynneman served the remainder of his apprenticeship with Reyner Wolfe. He became one of that select group of printers to whom Archbishop Parker extended his patronage.

Through the good offices of Leicester and Sir Christopher Hatton, Bynneman obtained a privilege to print "all dictionaries in all tongues, all chronicles and histories whatsoever." It was the only privilege he could obtain and not a particularly valuable one, but it enabled him to print Holinshed's Chronicles, which came out in 1577.

Bynneman had three presses, and, as the inventory of his property shows, he had a varied stock of type, including Greek and Hebrew. He was the first printer in England to use a script of the kind known as civilité or "secretary."

Bynneman died in 1583, leaving a widow and several children, one of whom, Christopher, was in 1600 apprenticed to Thomas Dawson. The business was taken over by the Eliot's Court Press.