[1] In 1816 Churchill was bound an apprentice for seven years to Elizabeth Cox & Son, medical booksellers, of 39 High Street, Southwark.
Having served his time he became a freeman of the Stationers' Company, and then for about eighteen months was employed in the house of Longman & Co.[1] With the fortune of his wife, whom he married in 1832, Churchill started in business on his own account, purchasing the old-established retail connection of Callow & Wilson, 16 Princes Street, Leicester Square.
The business increased, but not satisfactorily, owing to the new practice of "underselling" (discounting popular titles).
The publishing business was carried on by his two sons, John and Augustus Churchill, to whom he had resigned it on retiring in 1870.
[1] One of the earliest productions of his press was Robert Liston's Practical Surgery, 1837, of which there were repeated editions.
It has been suggested that, particularly through editions of Churchill's books in the US, the caduceus was adopted by misprision as a symbol of medicine, in place of the rod of Asclepius.