Regarding bibliophiles, I have come across the word "steward" in conjunction with collections of fine books. Those privileged enough to own fine, rare books are not only collectors, but stewards of these treasures. They preserve and maintain individual books and viable collections until it is time to transfer both the books and the stewardship to another collector or entity. However, until I came across the Canadian publisher's letterhead below, I had never seen the title of Book Steward formally conferred upon an individual. Meet Rev. William Briggs of Toronto.
I have a batch of business correspondence here between William Briggs of Methodist Book & Publishing House of Toronto and a Mr. John A. Glasby of Canfield, Ontario. Three billheads and the letter comprise about two months of bookselling for Briggs with Mr. Glasby--December 1902 to February 1903. I found Briggs' title with the publishing house on the letterhead along with an interesting book sale for a religious publishing concern.
In the letter, dated February 26th, 1903, Briggs refers to two titles Mr. Glasby is interested in purchasing. Both are secular works, which would appear to run contrary to a publisher of church and religious material. The billheads indicate purchases in keeping with a Methodist publisher. Curious about Briggs selling titles such as
Progress of Canada During the 19th Century and the
Modern Encyclopedia (in eight volumes), I found an explanation on the site,
Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online:
In February 1879, as part of a reorganization
of the church's publishing wing in Toronto, the Methodist Book and
Publishing House, Briggs was elected book steward, or business manager.
The house was then a small bookstore and plant that sold bibles, hymn
books, catechisms, commentaries, biographies, and Sunday school books,
printed such publications as the Christian Guardian, and did a
small amount - two or three titles a year - of original publishing.
Under Briggs's leadership, it was to become one of the most important
Canadian publishing houses by the end of the century.
Given the ephemeral nature of content on various sites across the Web, and just in case this blog survives the unforeseen demise of the
Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online, the complete entry for the book steward William Briggs is copied below for anyone interested in reading further.
BRIGGS, WILLIAM, Methodist minister and publisher; b. 9 Sept.
1836 in Banbridge (Northern Ireland), son of Thomas Briggs and Mary ---;
m. 27 Aug. 1868 Rosalie Marian Clarke (d. 1919) in Montreal, and they
had a son; d. 5 Nov. 1922 in Port Credit, Ont.
William Briggs was born into a Scottish-Irish
family. His mother died when he was six. Around this time the family
moved to Liverpool, England, where Briggs was educated at Mount Street
Grammar School and Liverpool Collegiate Institute. He subsequently
acquired some commercial training, but soon rejected the idea of a
business career. According to the Reverend John Saltkill Carroll*,
Briggs experienced "an undeniable conversion" in boyhood, and he was
soon preaching in and around Liverpool. He immigrated to the Canadas in
his early twenties and was introduced into the Canada Conference of the
Methodist Church. Received on trial as a lay preacher at Durham
(Ormstown), Lower Canada, in 1859, he was ordained into the ministry in
1863. During the next 15 years he served at churches in Toronto,
Hamilton, Montreal, London, Cobourg, and Belleville.
By the late 1870s Briggs was at the height of
a successful ministerial career. In 1876 he had become pastor at the
centre of Canadian Methodism: Metropolitan Church in Toronto. Though
little is known of his religious or social views, he was a popular
preacher, by all accounts one who combined theology with humour and
pragmatism. "While others have been best at first, and have gradually
degenerated into mere dawdling, goody-goody talkers," one newspaper
reported, "Mr. Briggs has gone steadily forward in pulpit power, in
broad mental culture, and in general excellence and influence." His
administrative abilities had been recognized with appointments as
financial secretary (1874) and secretary (1876-77) of the Toronto
Conference and chairman of the district (1875).
In February 1879, as part of a reorganization
of the church's publishing wing in Toronto, the Methodist Book and
Publishing House, Briggs was elected book steward, or business manager.
The house was then a small bookstore and plant that sold bibles, hymn
books, catechisms, commentaries, biographies, and Sunday school books,
printed such publications as the Christian Guardian, and did a
small amount - two or three titles a year - of original publishing.
Under Briggs's leadership, it was to become one of the most important
Canadian publishing houses by the end of the century.
As book steward, Briggs continued to
concentrate on church-related material; the output of Sunday school
publications, in particular, expanded greatly. However, with the house
firmly established as a profitable business and ensconced in new
quarters in 1889, his energies turned to the development of a secular
list. The number of British and American works that it reprinted rose
dramatically; non-religious works appeared under the imprint "William
Briggs." The firm also entered the school-textbook market and was active
in commercial job printing.
Perhaps most important, Briggs oversaw a
significant increase in the number of Canadian publications. By the
1890s his house was publishing about 20 original works each year. Some
were about religion or were written by Methodist scholars, among them
George John Blewett*, but new subject areas were also developed,
especially history, fiction, and poetry. Most of the titles in these
areas dealt with Canadian subjects. Indeed, the Methodist Book and
Publishing House consciously presented itself as a publisher of Canadian
works, frequently emphasizing the patriotic and nation-building aspects
of its activities. Briggs was aware that a market was developing for
books by Canadian authors and dealing with Canadian themes, and his
success lay in his ability to respond to this cultural nationalism.
Possessed of sharp critical and commercial faculties and capable of
gauging public tastes, Briggs provided opportunities for Canadian
authors, offering them encouraging editors such as Edward Samuel
Caswell*, and he trained a new generation of publishers. Among the
bestsellers to emanate from his house were Songs of a sourdough (1907) by Robert William Service* and Sowing seeds in Danny (1908) by Helen Letitia McClung [Mooney*].
Briggs's involvement with books did not
curtail his participation in other areas of the church. He continued to
preach and was a delegate to every General Conference between 1874 and
1918. As well, he was a delegate to the General Conference of the
Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States (Washington, 1882) and
to ecumenical conferences in Washington (1891) and London (1901).
Awarded an honorary dd in 1886 by
Victoria University in Cobourg, he was a member of its board of regents
in 1906-7. He also held positions outside the church: he became a member
of Toronto's Board of Trade in 1898 and served terms as president of
the Master Printers' and Bookbinders' Association of Toronto.
Accounts of Briggs often mentioned his blend
of personal sincerity, geniality, and commercial aggressiveness. In 1880
John Carroll described him physically: medium in height and weight,
"oval yet full-faced, with a noticeably well-developed head, beyond the
average size." "As a man," Carroll continued, "he is modest without
bashfulness; as a Christian, religious without cant; as a preacher,
fervent and eloquent without rant; as a platform speaker, ready,
pointed, and pertinent; and as a Connexional business man, capable and
successful without being fussy and pretentious."
In the last decade of Briggs's stewardship,
original publishing declined. He seemed more concerned with the erection
of a substantial new building in 1913-15 and the sale of foreign books
(agency publishing), a valuable part of the business. The General
Conference named him book steward emeritus in 1918, when he was
succeeded by the Reverend Samuel Wesley Fallis, and he stepped down
altogether in 1919. On 1 July of that year the Methodist Book and
Publishing House was renamed Ryerson Press after its founder, Egerton
Ryerson*, and in 1920 it began a fresh phase under its new editor, Lorne
Albert Pierce*. At a time when religious impulses were expressing
themselves more and more in secular form, Briggs had steered the house
away from its earlier focus on creed and narrow denominationalism and
had been instrumental in its major expansion. As the Bookseller and Stationer
(Toronto) commented, during his career as steward the name of William
Briggs "became a household word wherever books were read in Canada."
Briggs died in 1922 at his son's home in Port
Credit and was buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto. He left an
estate worth more than $80,524, a personal testament to the sound
business sense of a popular Methodist preacher.
© 2000 University of Toronto/Université Laval
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