Nichols was born at Red Lion Passage, Fleet Street, London, on 15 July 1779.
[1] He spent his early years with his maternal grandfather at Hinckley, Leicestershire, and was educated at St Paul's School, London, which he left in September 1796 to enter his father's printing office.
He became the sole proprietor of the magazine in 1833, and in the following year transferred a share to William Pickering of Piccadilly.
This share he subsequently repurchased, and in 1856 conveyed the whole property to John Henry Parker of Oxford.
Nichols had become one of the printers of the votes and proceedings of the Houses of Parliament, an appointment in which he followed his father and William Bowyer (1699–1777).
William Bray refers to the accuracy of Nichols in revising the proof-sheets of the second volume of his edition of Owen Manning's History of Surrey.
In 1818 he published the autobiography of the bookseller John Dunton, which had furnished materials for the Literary Anecdotes of his father.
[1] There are portraits of Nichols by J. Jackson, in watercolour, about 1818; by F. Hopwood, in pencil, 1821; by John Wood, in oil, 1836; and by Samuel Laurence, in chalks, 1850.