In 1724, aged twenty-four, Thomas Longman bought the business in Paternoster Row which had been built up by William Taylor, and in doing so founded one of the great family publishing houses, which his descendants would continue to manage for the next two and a half centuries. He died in 1755 and was succeeded by his nephew Thomas Longman II, who continued to develop the business until the end of the century. It was the third Thomas Longman, who took over in 1797, who led the firm to a position as one of the most distinguished publishing houses of its time. In partnership with Owen Rees, he bought the copyrights of Joseph Cottle, Bristol, when the latter retired in 1799, and began the new century with the publication of the work of Wordsworth and Sir Walter Scott, becoming part of the great renaissance of English poetry, as well as continuing to publish scholarly works on a wide range of subjects. In 1842 the fourth Thomas Longman took over the business, which he managed together with his brother William, and they were succeeded by their sons in the later years of the century. The firm continued to be successful in different fields, with authors including Macaulay, Disraeli, Christina Rossetti and Florence Nightingale. This period also saw the takeover of John W. Parker, Son, & Bourne, in 1863, and of the business of Francis Hansard Rivington on his retirement in 1890. The company gained a new focus with the arrival in 1884 of the schoolteacher J.W. Allen, who was keen to build up the educational lists and to develop markets in India and elsewhere. The schools and academic publishing were to remain a key part of the firm's output.
The sixth generation of Longmans, Robert Guy and William L., became partners in 1909. They took a keen interest in expanding the overseas branches. Educational publishing continued to be the mainstay of the firm during the twentieth century, but their literary reputation was maintained, with authors such as Stella Gibbons, Mary Renault and Thornton Wilder, and later Gavin Maxwell, Stevie Smith and the children's writer Leon Garfield. Other useful earners were Roget's Thesaurus and Gray's Anatomy . The firm survived the destruction of the Paternoster Row offices and most of their stock in the blitz and in 1948 became a public company. In the late 1950s Longmans joined many of the larger publishing houses in leaving London, establishing new premises at Harlow in Essex. The independence of the firm finally came to end in 1968, when they accepted a bid by the Financial and Provincial Publishing Company, becoming chief publishers in a group which also included the medical publishers J. & A. Churchill and E. & S. Livingstone, and the general and educational lists of Oliver & Boyd. Shortly afterwards Constable Young Books was amalgamated with the Longmans juvenile list. The chairman of the group was Mark Longman, last of the family to manage the business, who in 1970 negotiated a merger with Penguin Books. By his death in 1972 the group was known as the Pearson Longman Group.
From the guide to the Archives of The Longman Group, 1718-1974, (Reading University Library)
