[EARLY SYDNEY PRINTING] Receipt for payment of quit rent made to the Crown by Edward Robinson. Sydney, 29 January 1806.

A$4,400 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

Sydney, NSW : [George Howe, Government Printer], [printed 1802-06]. Printed in black ink on laid paper, 40 x 98 mm; manuscript date of 29 January 1806, with further clerical entries recording the receipt from Edwd. Robinson of 11 shillings, being the Amount of one Year s Quit-Rent due to the Crown the 28th of Sept. 1805 on one Grant and one Lease. ; signed D.D. Mann (David Dickenson Mann, government clerk); complete and fine. There can be little doubt that this official receipt from the Crown, made out to Edward Robinson for his (slightly overdue) annual quit rent payments for the year 1805, was printed by George Howe on the same wooden screw-press that had arrived with the First Fleet, and had been used by George Hughes to print the oldest known Australian imprints. It is an extremely early example of an ephemeral Australian printing, which could conceivably have been printed anywhere between 1802, when Howe was made Government Printer, and January 1806, when the receipt was dated and signed by Mann. Its diminutive size reflects the imperative to conserve the limited stocks of paper and ink in the fledgling colony. GEORGE HOWE EARLY PRINTING IN SYDNEY George Howe (1771-1821) was the son of a government printer on Basseterre, Saint Christopher Island (Saint Kitts). As a young man he went to London and worked as a journeyman printer for The Times newspaper. In 1799 he was convicted of larceny and sentenced to death, but this was commuted to transportation for life to New South

• Binding: Hardcover

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