Thomas Brend

• formal_name:
• first_date: 1766
• last_date: 1799
• function: Bookbinder, Stationer
• locales: Williamsburg, Richmond
• precis: A bookbinder In Williamsburg (1766-83) who joined Archibald Currie (113) In Richmond (1783-99) to form the bindery firm of Brend & Currie.
• notes: Bookbinder & Stationer
  Williamsburg, Richmond
  A bookbinder In Williamsburg (1766-83) who joined Archibald Currie (113) In Richmond (1783-99) to form the bindery firm of Brend & Currie.
  Direct evidence of Brend's origin is wanting, but anecdotal sources suggest that he was an English immigrant who landed in Maryland in the 1760s; there he found work, and possibly his training, as a binder in the Annapolis press office of Jonas Green. Sometime after 1770, Brend left Green for an independent situation in Williamsburg, a place that then supported two press offices and at least two book shops. By 1779, he was operating a bindery at the former Brick House Tavern (at the SW corner of Duke of Gloucester and Botetourt streets), then a tenement equidistant from those two presses. His small workshop may have been as a result of a legacy left to him by his close friend Henry Bowcock (044), a practical printer in Williamsburg who had died that February.
  Remarkably, Brend remained in Williamsburg until about 1783. Most other print-tradesmen there joined in the relocation of the government to Richmond in early 1780; but Brend stayed on, likely as a result of an association with the office of John Clarkson (093) and Augustine Davis (119), who had inherited the press of Alexander Purdie (345) in April 1779. Clarkson & Davis had claimed a financial inability to relocate at that time, and continued in Williamsburg until 1783; their business was saved – despite the loss of its main customer base – by the arrival of French troops in late summer of 1781, forces associated with the siege of nearby Yorktown; they remained encamped on the lower peninsula until the Treaty of Paris was promulgated in 1783, and this one Williamsburg press provided for their job-printing needs. Thus, it seems likely that Brend also provided bindery services for them.
  Still, Brend did eventually relocate to Richmond in 1783. There he formed a partnership with Archibald Currie, evidently as a way to enlarge both men's fortunes. Apparently, Currie had worked in Williamsburg before 1780 as well; if so, his employers were probably John Dixon (140) and Thomas Nicolson (315), who had split up in late 1780 with each founding a separate press in Richmond. Brend's arrival there allowed the two binders to establish a business that served all of the capital's printing establishments without being tied to any one of them; their alliance would continue until Brend's death in December 1799, a clear indication of the firm's success.
  The Brend & Currie workshop was Richmond's first real step toward the modernized form of publishing then developing in Philadelphia. The publisher of any imprint could now assign each element of its production – from editorial, to press work, to binding – to a series of contracted vendors, and not to an all-encompassing printing office, as had been the case in Williamsburg before the Revolution. From the mid-1780s on, Richmond's presses now relied on binderies like Brend & Currie's to complete publications. This is evident in the records of the publication of a complete set of Virginia's laws in 1795; Augustine Davis owned one of three presses working on the project, all of whom sent their finished sheets to Brend & Currie for binding. When Davis, then the public printer, failed to provide a needed advance payment, for necessary supplies, they petitioned Governor James Wood to intervene; he provided the advance, and took it out of Davis's compensation. Davis would eventually pay them for their services, minus the contested advance.
  Brend became, in short order, a "respectable inhabitant" of Richmond through his industry. In 1786, he even married a daughter of Williamsburg who he had long known. The following year established his business in a shop close to the Market House, one of Richmond's more visible venues. But in late 1799, he developed a "lingering indisposition" which took his life on December 21st. Almost immediately, Currie formed a new partnership with John Pumfrey (344), an indication of just how large their business had become: the surviving partner could not handle it alone. Brend would be sorely missed.
  
  
  Personal Data
  
  
  
  Born:
  
  ???
  England?
  
  Married:
  June 20
  1786
  Elizabeth Ratcliffe @ Williamsburg, Virginia.
  
  Died:
  Dec. 21
  1799
  Richmond, Virginia.
  
  Sources: Imprints; MEDSA Index; York County Project Files for Brend & Bowcock, and "Brick House Tavern Historical Report," CWF; advertisements in Williamsburg (1780) and Richmond (1783-99) newspapers; Samford & Hemphill, Bookbinder in Williamsburg; Stoutamire, Music of Old South; Ward & Greer, Richmond during Revolution.
  
• Related Bios:
  • John Clarkson
  • Archibald Currie
  • Augustine Davis
  • John Dixon Sr.
  • Thomas Nicolson
  • Thomas Morton

This version of the Index of Virginia Printing was a gift from the estate of the site's creator, David Rawson. The content contained herein will not be updated, as it is part of the Library of Virginia's personal papers collection. For more information, please see David Rawson Index of Virginia Printing website. Accession 53067. Personal papers collection, The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.