page_title: Blackwell's
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Blackwell's / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Broad Street of Oxford in September 1977.
context_page_description: Blackwell UK, also known as Blackwell's and Blackwell Group, is a British academic book retailer and library supply service. It was founded in 1879 by Benjamin Henry Blackwell, after whom the chain is named, in Oxford on Broad Street. The firm now has a chain of 45 shops, and an accounts and library supply service. It employs around 1000 staff in its divisions.
  The Broad Street branches, which include speciality music and art/poster shops, remained the only ones until expansion in the early 1990s, when at peak after taking over Heffers in Cambridge in 1999 and James Thin in Scotland in 2002, the company had over 70 outlets. Its library supply chain serves an international market, but parts were sold off in 2009, with the North American arm of Blackwell Book Services and the Australian business James Bennett sold to Baker & Taylor for their academic arm YBP Library Services. The group were also publishers, under the Blackwell publishing imprint which published over 800 journals when it was sold to John Wiley & Sons in 2007 for £572 million to form Wiley-Blackwell.
context_section_description: The company was founded in 1879 by Benjamin Henry Blackwell, son of the first city librarian, who having finished his education at 13, was apprenticed to a local bookseller for a shilling a week. His father, Benjamin Harris Blackwell, had been heavily involved in the Temperance Society. The society promoted, as well as religion, self-education and also encouraged reading. The society provided separate rooms for non-alcoholic refreshment and silent reading. A religious family, the Blackwells had also become involved with the Temperance Society due to Benjamin's father being teetotal, and as a protest against the government making money from the excise duty on alcohol.
  The flagship shop at 48–51 Broad Street, Oxford, was originally only twelve feet square but quickly grew to incorporate the upstairs, cellar and neighbouring shops. Benjamin Henry Blackwell was well respected in Oxford and was elected the first Liberal councillor for Oxford North.
  Basil Blackwell, Benjamin Henry's son, became the first Blackwell to go to university; he was awarded a scholarship at Oxford University's Merton College. He was expected to join the family firm, however, which he did in 1913, after a spell as an apprentice publisher in London. He was tasked with expanding his father's publishing business. 
  The first Blackwell publication, Mensæ Secundæ: verses written in Balliol College by H.C. Beeching, was printed in 1897. Blackwell's began the careers of many writers: J. R. R. Tolkien's first poem, "Goblin's Feet", was published in 1915. To promote universal access to literature, Blackwell's pioneered a series of cheaper books, from a one-volume Shakespeare to "3-and-6 novels". The publishing company was merged into the main company in 1921, and a scientific section was added in 1939.
  When Benjamin Henry died in 1924, Basil Blackwell took over from his father, and went on to head the company for over sixty years. Basil Blackwell also wanted to preserve fine printing. After rescuing the Shakespeare Head Press, he commissioned belles-lettres, including well-known classics such as the Pilgrim's Progress, the works of the Brontës and a complete version of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.
  In 1966, the Norrington Room was opened, named after Sir Arthur Norrington, the President of Trinity College and extending under part of Trinity College. It boasts three miles (5 km) of shelving and at 10,000 square feet (930 m²) merited an entry in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest single room selling books.
caption: The main store in Oxford in 1977
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