In 1758 John Baskerville was appointed Printer to the University of Cambridge where he printed his magnificent folio Bible and several editions of the Book of Common Prayer. Little is known, however, of Baskerville’s time in the city, where he lived, where he worked. However, David McKitterick in A History of Cambridge University Press, v. 2 (Cambridge: CUP, 1998), mentions, in a footnote, A History of Cambridge University Press 1521–1921, by S. C. Roberts (Cambridge: CUP, 1921), in which, on p. 111, n. 3 Roberts comments: ‘Mr G. J. Gray has discovered that Baskerville lived in the Old Radegund Manor House in Jesus Lane.’ Unfortunately, Roberts does not provide the source of Gray’s information. However, in a paper delivered by Rev. H. P. Stokes (Honorary Fellow of Corpus Christi College) in 1919, and entitled ‘Cambridge Stationers, Printers, Bookbinders’ Stokes states: ‘… most of the book-sellers had their shops in the parish of Great St Mary; but some of the trade lived further from the University Schools. We saw for instance that John Siberch, our earliest printer, dwelt in the Caius Walk; and Segar Nicholson by St Michael’s. Thomas Buck moved into a part of the old Augustinian Friary, in St Edward’s parish; Brampton Lowry lived in St Sepulchre’s; John Baskerville at the Old Radegund Manor House in Jesus Lane (as Mr G. J. Gray has recently ascertained); John Bowtell in St Michael’s parish; and so on. While, of course, the University Printing House has been in St Botolph’s since the year 1655, in Silver Street, shifting only from the north to the south side of that strangely-named thoroughfare’.
Mr G. J. Gray is probably George Gray from the famous Cambridge bookbinding firm who published, in 1904, The earlier Cambridge stationers and bookbinders and first Cambridge printer.The story that Baskerville used Old Radegund Manor House as his Cambridge residence is repeated on the ‘Capturing Cambridge’ website (capturingcambridge.org), which states ‘there is a tradition that [Old Radegund Manor House] was occupied by John Baskerville, the famous University printer (1758-65) during his brief residence in Cambridge.’
Recent investigation by John Townley in the Cambridge Archives show the poor rate entries for the Manor House of St. Radegund, All Saints’ Parish, Cambridge for the period 1755–68 indicate that Baskerville was paying rates on the property from 24 July 1759 to 17 February 1763. This proves he was residing in the parish. Poor rates do not record addresses so we cannot rely on the parish rate books as evidence he was residing at St. Radegund. Unfortunately, there is no tenancy agreement extant, but sources such as G. J. Gray more than imply Baskerville resided there.
Radegund had previously been a religious house, and a nunnery had existed on the site since the twelfth century and over the centuries had accumulated gifts of land. Although there were only about twelve resident nuns, by the fifteenth-century they were running a large farming estate. The original building burned down in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, and was re-built and at the Dissolution the house passed to Jesus College. The church of the nunnery still survives and it is now the Jesus College chapel.