Butterworth and Co (Publishers) Ltd

Butterworth and Company (Publishers) of 7 Fleet street 1818-99, 12 Bell Yard 1899-1912, 4-6 Bell Yard 1912-53, 88 Kingsway 1955-94, Borough Green, Kent 1973-95, and Halbury House, 35 Chancery Lane 1994-.

The business was founded in 1818 by Henry Butterworth who sold both his own publications and many other law books. The firm was first known as Henry Butterworth, law bookseller and publisher; but from the 1850s was variously known as Messrs Butterworth, Messrs Butterworth and Co. and Messrs Butterworth and Son though it appears in London directories from 1853 as Henry Butterworth and Co. On the death of Joshua Whitehead Butterworth (Henry's son) in 1895, the firm was bought by Shaw and Sons, law printers and publishers. The new business was known as Butterworth and Co and owned by Charles Bond, soon succeeded by his son Stanley Shaw Bond. The company has been known colloquially (in the twentieth century at least) as Butterworths.

Limited companies were set up from 1910 onwards to trade in the empire and dominions but the principal UK firm was not set up as a limited company until 1927 when Stanley Shaw Bond changed the name of Butterworth and Company (Canada) to Butterworth and Company (Publishers) and increased the authorised capital to +250,000. Butterworths remained a group of separate companies with Bond as the sole shareholder of each company until his death in 1943. The company structure was then rationalised with the smaller companies becoming subsidiaries of Butterworth and Company (Publishers). In 1947 Butterworths became a public company and in 1967 it was bought by IPC.