[2] It held a monopoly over the publishing industry and was officially responsible for setting and enforcing regulations until the enactment of the Statute of Anne, also known as the Copyright Act 1710.

At this time, the occupations considered stationers for the purposes of the guild were text writers, limners (illuminators), bookbinders or booksellers who worked at a fixed location (stationarius) beside the walls of St Paul's Cathedral.

[7] During the Tudor and Stuart periods, the Stationers were legally empowered to seize "offending books" that violated the standards of content set down by the Church and state; its officers could bring "offenders" before ecclesiastical authorities, usually the Bishop of London or the Archbishop of Canterbury, depending on the severity of the transgression.

[8] Thus the Stationers played an important role in the culture of England as it evolved through the intensely turbulent decades of the Protestant Reformation and toward the English Civil War.

[10] The Register of the Stationers' Company thus became one of the most essential documentary records in the later study of English Renaissance theatre.

Works were often printed surreptitiously and illegally, and this would remain a subject of interest to both the Company and the government into the modern period.

By buying and holding shares in the English Stock (which were limited in number), members of the company received a nearly guaranteed return each year.

The English Stock at times employed out-of-work printers, and disbursed some of the profit to the poor and to those reliant on the Company's pensions.

This led to the establishment of the Young Stationers' Prize in 2014, which recognises outstanding achievements within the company's trades.

Prize winners have included novelist Angela Clarke, journalist Katie Glass, and professor of journalism Dr Shane Tilton.

The company's motto is Verbum Domini manet in aeternum, Latin for "The Word of the Lord endures forever;" which appears on their heraldic charge.

[20][21] Stationers' Hall hosts the Shine School Media Awards, where students compete in the creation of websites and magazines.

The roles of Beadle and Clerk were likewise elected positions, filled whenever they came open, but were often held by the same members for years or even decades.

As of December 2019 there have been seven winners of the Young Stationers' Prize: Katie Glass, journalist, 2014;[38][39] Angela Clarke, novelist, playwright, and columnist, 2015;[40][41] Ella Kahn and Bryony Woods, founders of Diamond Kahn & Woods Literary Agency (awarded jointly), 2016;[42] Ian Buckley, managing director of Prima Software, 2017;[43] Shane Tilton, academic and professor of multimedia journalism, 2018;[44] Amy Hutchinson, CEO of the BOSS Federation, 2019.