Author: GENT, Thomas
Biography:
GENT, Thomas (1693-1778: ODNB)
Gent was a printer and typographer who also wrote some verse (“beneath criticism” according to the ODNB) and local histories. No records have been located for his early life and all accounts of him are dependent on his autobiography, issued posthumously in 1832. He was born on 4 May 1693 in Ireland to Thomas Gent, who may have been a saddler, and his wife. He was baptised in a Presbyterian chapel and on 25 Mar. 1707 he was apprenticed to a Dublin printer, Stephen Powell, who proved to be a cruel master. In 1710 Gent escaped by stowing away on an England-bound ship and travelled to London where he was apprenticed to Edward Midwinter, bookseller and printer. He was registered by the Stationers’ Company in Oct. 1717 but even before then he had begun working as a jobbing printer in London, and in York with John White, printer. In 1715 and again in 1718 he worked as a printer in Dublin. In the early 1720s he operated a workshop near the Fleet prison in London and he began writing and printing his own compositions. Gent wanted to marry Alice Guy, a maidservant of John White, but in 1721 she married White’s grandson and heir, Charles Bourne. After Bourne’s death Gent married Alice on 9 Dec. 1724 at the church of St. Michael le Belfrey, York. They had one son who died in infancy. Gent took over from Bourne in operating what had been White’s printing business, producing a wide range of material including a newspaper, the York Journal (later known under other names). His business was initially very successful but by the 1740s Gent had begun to face competition from other printers and he struggled financially. Alice Gent died at their home in Low Petergate, York, in Apr. 1761 and Thomas Gent died at the same location on 19 May 1778. He was buried at St. Michael-le-Belfrey. Gent’s other works include The Antient and Modern History of the Famous City of York (1730) and The Antient and Modern History of the Famous City of Rippon (1734). (ODNB 28 Aug. 2024; findmypast.co.uk 28 Aug. 2024; Robert Davies, A Memoir of the York Press [1868]; Thomas Gent, The Life of Mr. Thomas Gent [1832]; BBTI) SR