UCL BLOOMSBURY PROJECT

History

Its origins go back at least to 1800, by which time Richard Spencer was well-established as a publisher; his son, Richard Spencer jr, continued the business (Walter Spencer [son of Richard Spencer jr], Freemasonry: Its Outward and Visible Signs, 1875)

Crew’s business was established by 1815 as a circulating library (The Times, 22 August 1815)

In 1826 the two businesses merged as Crew and Spencer’s, booksellers and stationers, but the partnership only lasted until 1832 (Walter Spencer, Freemasonry: Its Outward and Visible Signs, 1875)

Both continued in the trade, however; Spencer continued to publish from new premises, and Crew remained as a bookseller and stationer in the premises they had shared in Lamb’s Conduit Street

Crew was a man of many interests; he became a correspondent of Dickens in the 1830s and 1840s, and was an “amateur tenor singer of some repute” (Letters of Charles Dickens, vol. 3: 1842–1843, ed Madeline House, Graham Storey, and Kathleen Tillotson, 1974)

Richard Spencer senior had combined his publishing business with the sale of Masonic regalia, a trade which his son, a prominent Mason, continued (Rebecca Coombes, ‘Fraternal Communications: The Rise of the English Masonic Periodical’, Masonic Periodicals Online, mpol.cch.kcl.ac.uk); he also published the Freemasons’ Quarterly Magazine and Review in the 1850s

Francis Crew was also a prominent Mason; he became first Master of the newly-formed Hertford Lodge in 1829, and was Secretary of the Royal Masonic Institution for Girls

The business no longer exists as a library or publishers, although the Spencers’ trade in Masonic paraphernalia was eventually subsumed into the company of Toye Kenning and Spencer, makers of medals, silverware, and regalia of all kinds

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