'A Laborious and Truly Useful Gentleman': Mapping the Networks of John Nichols (1745-1826), Printer, Antiquary and Biographer

The papers of John Nichols and his family of printers and antiquaries are a major source for the study of the book trade, of antiquarianism and of lives and letters in Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. As leading London printers and editors of the Gentleman’s Magazine, the Nicholses were at the heart of a network of information exchange between members of both national and local clubs and societies. This article shows how a database of their surviving archive is enabling us to map these networks and rebuild epistolary conversations between those contributing to eighteenth‐century networks of improvement.