Welsh Journals

Williams died in November 1820, his death being described as 'sudden'. But could he have been indisposed from September onwards, causing dis- ruption in the printing-house? Whatever the reason for the change in handwriting, it serves as a useful landmark at which to terminate this article, which will be based on the entries in the sales-book from January 1816 to September 1820, the final period of Samuel Williams's life as a printer. The form of entry on ruled pages is fairly standard: May 4th £ s. d. 3 Revd R" Evans, Llanbadarn fawr 100 Letters to Clerk & literate Persons f. 4 5 0 The year is added to the first date entered on every page. This particular entry dates from 1818. The 3 in the margin refers to the original pagination of the section at the end of the ledger in which the accounts of individuals are set out, some of which are earlier than 1816. The section is badly damaged and is either incomplete or there was a companion volume, because not all individual accounts are included. When the number in the margin in the main sequence is prefixed by 'N' or 'New' the account is in the 'new Ledger', to which references are made from time to time. Preceding the accounts is an index of customers, with page references to their personal accounts. The index is a useful adjunct to the directory included in The Aberystwyth Guide, especially as it includes snippets of information not found in the latter: 'Mr Morgan, Schoolmaster, Nephew to Evan Prydydd Hir', 'Mr John Jones, a person from the Country four miles from Aberystwyth' In the middle of the individual accounts are two facing pages stamped 'CASH-BOOK', which record transactions. 'Paid' is an alternative for the page number of an account. Immediate payment was a convenience rather than an imposition on customers not considered worthy of credit. Whole pages are crossed out, presumably when the entries therein were either transferred to individual accounts or settled in cash. Dates of settlement are occasionally given. Customers are identified carefully, with name, occupation and abode unambiguously set out and the fine social distinctions between 'Esquire' and 'Mr.' rigorously observed. The range of material they ordered is probably the same as that produced by any provincial printer; differences would be in quantity only. The only surprising omission is patent medicines. Advertisements for patent medicines loom as large in most printers' and booksellers' publicity material as books and stationery. Samuel Williams was either