Caxton and the printing press in Westminster

Matthew Payne and Thomas Penn are taking to the stage at St Margaret's Church on Thursday 19 November, a talk marking the 550th anniversary of William Caxton setting up his printing press in the precincts of Westminster Abbey. The whole thing asks one straightforward question: why did Westminster become the home of England's first press?

Payne and Penn spend the hour tracing how Caxton settled there and the network of relationships he built around him, stretching from his immediate neighbours by the Thames to London and far beyond. It's a look at the man and the moment, and why this particular corner of the city ended up as the starting point for printing in England.

There's a good bit of background to the two of them. Matthew Payne is the Keeper of the Muniments at Westminster Abbey, so he's working with the records of the place. Thomas Penn is a historian of the later Middle Ages and the sixteenth century, and he's currently writing a life of Caxton. He's already published Winter King: The Dawn of Tudor England and The Brothers York: An English Tragedy, and writes for the Guardian and the London Review of Books.

Doors open at 6:00pm, with the talk starting at 6:30pm and an audience Q&A from 7:15pm. Tickets are £9.38, which includes a £1.38 booking fee. The session is for adults and young people over 16, it doesn't include entry to Westminster Abbey, and filming and sound recording aren't permitted in St Margaret's.