Name Thomas Gainsford Role Author | Died 1624 | |
Books The Secretaries Studie | ||
Thomas Gainsford (died 1624) was an author and news editor.
Contents
Gainsford belonged to the Surrey family of Gainsford. He inherited property in Lombard Street in the City of London. He and Edward Stene apparently purchased of the crown Alne manor, Warwickshire, and a cottage in Stutton, Yorkshire, on 27 November 1599 (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1598–1601, p. 347). He is known to have served in Ireland under Richard de Burgh, fourth earl of Clanricarde, as "third officer" of the "earl's regiment" when the Spaniards were dislodged from Kinsale on 24 December 1601 (Hist. … of … Tirone, ded.). He was also engaged in the war against Tyrone in Ulster. As captain, Gainsford undertook to occupy land in Ulster at the plantation of 1610 (Irish State Papers, 1608–10, p. 367). Gainsford is reputed to have been the first London periodical news editor. Ben Jonson, associating the source of these publications with the stationer Thomas Archer's bookshop in Pope's Head Alley between the Exchange and Lombard Street, referred to his work as
Gainsford became associated with the publications of the news syndicate formed in 1622 by Nathaniel Butter, Thomas Archer, Nicholas Bourne, William Sheffard and Bartholomew Downes and was responsible for taking control of the style, organization and presentation of the news. He helped readers to understand news from many cities, armies and battle scenes that could otherwise have been confusing to those unfamiliar with European dynasties and armies but concerned by news of catholic advances in the Counter Reformation. In this way he played a part in educating them about military affairs and the progress of the Thirty Years' War. He also wrote many editorials 'To the Reader', establishing a relationship with readers and addressing them and their anxieties directly.
On 4 September 1624 Chamberlain wrote to Carleton that the deaths of the week in London included "Captain Gainsford, the gazette maker"
Other editors were employed by the London newspapers, including William Watts who is credited with editing The Swedish Intelligencer in the early 1630s, but none achieved the same level of notoriety and interest.
Known works
Gainsford published the following:
Works attributed to Gainsford
Mr. W. C. Hazlitt also conjecturally assigns to Gainsford The Rich Cabinet furnished with varietie of excellent discriptions, exquisite characters, witty discourses and delightfull histories, deuine and morrall, London, for Roger Iackson, 1616. An appendix—"an epitome of good manners extracted out of the treatise of M. Iohn della Casa called Galatea"—is signed T. G., together with a Latin motto. This signature resembles those in Gainsford's undoubted books, but the question of authorship is very doubtful. Some hostile remarks on players, ff. 116–18, are interesting. The book was popular; a fourth edition is dated 1668, and a sixth 1689.
The Friers Chronicle, or the True Legend of Priests and Monkes Lives (Lond., for Robert Mylbourne, 1623), has a dedication to the Countess of Devonshire, signed T. G., and has been attributed to Gainsford. But Thomas Goad (1576–1638) is more probably the author.