Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 23.djvu/398



a voyage which he had made to Trinity Bay. He was anxious to establish trade with the natives. Some five years later a visitor to Newfoundland wrote that the Bristol citizens had 'planted a large circuit of the country, and builded there many fine houses, and done many other good services' (ib.) Guy returned to Bristol, and was elected mayor 1618-19, was member of the merchant venturers' court of assistants in 1620 and 1621, and master in 1622. He was a member for the city in the parliament of 1620, and in a debate on the scarcity of money on 27 Feb. spoke of the abundance of English coin in foreign parts, and recommended that the exportation of money should be forbidden (Parliamentary History); he also sat for Bristol in the parliament of 1621, and was again returned on 20 Oct. 1624. While member he received and wrote several letters about the interests of the merchant venturers company, which are preserved by the society. One sent to him and his colleague Whitson in October 1621 is on the 'business of Sir Ferdinando Gorges,' and relates to the restraint of trade with New England consequent on the articles and orders of the president and council for New England, which the merchants 'in noe sorte did like;' in the following February Guy writes touching his 'conference with the lord treasurer and others concerning the new imposition of wines and composition of grocery' (MS. Records of Merchant Venturers). He was again a member of the court of assistants from 1624 to 1628, when he probably died, as his name disappears from the books of the society. It has been positively asserted that he died in that year, and was buried in St. Stephen's Church, Bristol (note communicated by Mr. W. George of Bristol). As regards his burial this seems impossible, as the register books of the church, which are in a good state of preservation, contain no such entry between 1628 and 1636. There is no monument to him in Bristol.

[MSS. of the Merchant Venturers of Bristol, at Merchants' Hall; information supplied by Mr. W. George of Bristol; Cal. State Papers, Colonial, 1574-1660, i. 20, 303; Purchas his Pilgrimes, iv. 1875-88; Stow's Annales, ed. Howes, 1631, p. 1019; Return of Members of Parliament, i. 451, 457; Parl. Hist. i. 1197; Seyer's Bristol, ii. 259; Nicholls and Taylor's Bristol, Past and Present, iii. 301.]   GUY, THOMAS (1645?–1724), founder of Guy's Hospital, eldest child of Thomas Guy, lighterman and coalmonger, also described as citizen and carpenter, was born in 1644 or 1645 in Pritchard's Alley, Fair Street, Horselydown, Southwark. His father, an anabaptist, died young, leaving three children, the eldest being eight years old. His mother returned to her native place, Tamworth, where she married again in 1661. Thomas Guy was carefully educated at Tamworth, and on 3 Sept. 1660 was apprenticed for eight years to John Clarke, bookseller, in Mercers' Hall Porch, Cheapside, London. On 7 Oct. 1668, at the end of his apprenticeship, he was admitted by servitude a freeman of the Stationers' Company, and of the city on 14 Oct., and on 6 Oct. 1673 he was admitted into the livery of the Stationers' Company. In 1668 he set up in business as a bookseller in the corner house at the junction of Cornhill and Lombard Street, with a stock worth about 200l. At this time there was a large unlicensed traffic in English bibles printed in Holland, in which Guy is said to have joined extensively. The king's printers had complained of the infringement of their privilege, and made numerous seizures of Dutch printed bibles. At the same time they were underselling the universities, and trying to drive them out of competition. Before 1679 Guy and Peter Parker came to the aid of Oxford university and became university printers, in association with Bishop Fell and Dr. Yates. They printed at Oxford numerous fine bibles, prayer-books, and school classics, and effectually checkmated the king's printers, both in litigation and in business. But certain members of the Stationers' Company succeeded in ousting them from their contract in 1691-2, after a sharp contest (see Ballard MSS. vol. xlix. in Bodleian Library). Dr. Wallis gives Parker and Guy a high character for probity, skill, and zeal (loc. cit.} Guy imported type from Holland and sold bibles largely for many years. He published numerous other books, and his imprint is not so rare as has been represented. Having accumulated money he invested it in various government securities, and especially in seamen's pay-tickets, then often sold at from thirty to fifty per cent, discount. In 1695 Guy became member of parliament for Tamworth, where he had in 1678 founded an almshouse for six poor women, enlarged in 1693 to accommodate fourteen men and women. A letter from Dr. G. Smalridge, afterwards bishop of Bristol (28 Oct. 1696), inquires whether Lord Weymouth has sufficient influence at Tamworth to keep Guy out at the next election (, Lit. Illustr. iii. 253). Guy sat until 1707, when he was rejected, and declined a request from his constituents to stand again. According to John Dunton [q. v.], Guy in 1705 occupied a high position among London booksellers, and was 'an eminent figure' in the Stationers'