John Hatchard

He later became an assistant to Thomas Payne of Mews Gate, and went into business on his own account taking over the bookshop at 173 Piccadilly, London formerly run by Richard White.

[6] The publication of a pamphlet Reform or Ruin: Take your Choice (1797), by John Bowdler in 1797 was the start of a long publishing career.

Hatchard's views were conservative and evangelical, and he became the main publisher for works associated with the Clapham Sect.

[1][7] Rivington's, London publishers with a hold on Church of England-related trade, had set their face against the rise of Methodist and evangelical views; Hatchard gained both in terms of publishing work, and also with his shop becoming a social centre.

[8] William Connor Sydney wrote: William Wilberforce, Samuel Rogers, Clayton Mordaunt Cracherode, Sir Walter Scott, Sir John Hawkins, Porson, Steevens, Lord Spencer, Malone, Windham, Hannah More, George Crabbe, were among those who frequented Hatchard's back parlour.

[2] He also issued the publications of the Society for Bettering the Condition of the Poor, a venture of William Wilberforce, Sir Thomas Bernard, 3rd Baronet and Edward James Eliot.

He was publisher of a Report of the African Institution, which contained a story of a whipping of a pregnant slave on Antigua, which was found to be a fabrication.