[Bell Historians] Was Stedman really from Yarkhill?

[Richard Smith]

Anne Willis wrote:

> Thank you; that was most interesting.
>
> There is also a reference to Stedman as a printer in John Aubrey?s ?Brief
> Lives?, though it does not appear in all editions.

The reference I've got is from Andrew Clark's 1898 
edition of 'Brief Lives', and is found in the rather 
confused notes for Edmund Wingate [vol.2, p.305-6]:

   Edmund Wingate (1593-1656)

   ** Edmund Wingate, esq., was a Bedfordshire man, I
   thinke; recorded of Bedford---there you may learne, or at
   my lord Bruce's (now Alesbury).

   Scripsit---Arithmetica;
     Logarithmotechnia, with solution of triangles;
     another little booke of working on a line of numbers;
     Abridgment of the Statutes, ...

   He was of Graye's Inne, and dyed ... His younger
   sonne was Mr. <Fabian> Stedman's fellow prentice; since
   turned a musquetere.  He can tell me everything.  He did
   wayte at the Tower.

   * Edmund Wingate dyed at Mr. Bayles howse in Gray's
   Inne lane, and was buried at St. Andrewe's, Holborne, the
   13 Decemb. anno Domini 1656.

   -----
   **  Aubrey in MS. Wood F. 39, fol. 141v: Oct. 27, 1671.
   *   Aubrey in MS. Wood F. 39, fol. 173: May 25, 1672.

Clark uses the angle brackets, as in <Fabian>, to indicate 
an insertion, seemingly in the same hand as the original.

I can't specifically see a reference to him being a printer. 
Nor can I see any reference to Edmund Wingate's younger son 
that might indicate he was a printer.  Wingate's entry in 
the Dictionary of National Biography states he had five 
sons, who appear to have born during the period 1629-39 -- 
so they younger ones would have been a similar age to 
Stedman.  But I cannot find any indications that any of them 
were printers either.

> I had heard that the ?descendant? of Stedman?s printing 
> firm was Faber and Faber, but am not sure how true this 
> is.

Trollope speculates that he was the apprentice of W. Godbid 
of St Dunstan's Churchyard, Fleet Street, but so far as I'm 
aware this is based solely on the fact that Godbid printed 
both Campanalogia and Tintinnalogia.  Otherwise I'm not 
aware of any information about who Stedman worked for when 
he was a printer; for that matter, I'm not sure how strong 
the evidence is that he *was* a printer.  Trollope says he 
never became a master printer.  And certainly the 1713 will 
seems not to be that of a printer: a large number of 
bequests go to clerks, doorkeepers, watchmen, etc., "in the 
Auditor of Excise's Office" which strongly suggests he 
worked there.

RAS