Thomas Warren

{{Short description|English bookseller, printer and publisher}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2019}}

{{other people}}

Thomas Warren (fl. 1727–1767) was an English bookseller, printer, publisher and businessman.

Warren was an influential figure in Birmingham at a time when it was a hotbed of creative activity, opening a bookshop in High Street, Birmingham around 1727.{{cite book|last=Fleeman|first=J.D.|title=A Bibliography of the Works of Samuel Johnson: 1731–59 Vol 1|url=http://fds.oup.com/www.oup.co.uk/pdf/0-19-812270-5.pdf|date=2 March 2000|publisher=Clarendon Press|location=Oxford|isbn=0-19-812269-1|pages=3|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110521092139/http://fds.oup.com/www.oup.co.uk/pdf/0-19-812270-5.pdf|archive-date=21 May 2011}} From here he founded and published the Birmingham Journal – the town's first known newspaper;{{cite web|url=http://www.search.revolutionaryplayers.org.uk/engine/resource/exhibition/standard/child.asp?txtKeywords=&lstContext=&lstResourceType=&lstExhibitionType=&chkPurchaseVisible=&txtDateFrom=&txtDateTo=&x1=&y1=&x2=&y2=&scale=&theme=&album=&viewpage=%2Fengine%2Fresource%2Fexhibition%2Fstandard%2Fchild%2Easp&originator=&page=&records=&direction=&pointer=&text=&resource=4215&exhibition=1310&offset=8|title=Johnson in Birmingham|access-date=5 January 2008|work=Revolutionary Players of Industry and Innovation|publisher=Museums, Libraries and Archives – West Midlands|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070322045757/http://www.search.revolutionaryplayers.org.uk/engine/resource/exhibition/standard/child.asp?txtKeywords=&lstContext=&lstResourceType=&lstExhibitionType=&chkPurchaseVisible=&txtDateFrom=&txtDateTo=&x1=&y1=&x2=&y2=&scale=&theme=&album=&viewpage=%2Fengine%2Fresource%2Fexhibition%2Fstandard%2Fchild.asp&originator=&page=&records=&direction=&pointer=&text=&resource=4215&exhibition=1310&offset=8|archive-date=22 March 2007}} he edited and published Samuel Johnson's first book – a translation of Jerónimo Lobo’s Voyage to Abyssinia{{cite web|url=http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/GenerateContent?CONTENT_ITEM_ID=60637&CONTENT_ITEM_TYPE=0&MENU_ID=10272|title=Johnson Collection|access-date=5 January 2008|date=19 December 2007|publisher=Birmingham City Council |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20071104024019/http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/GenerateContent?CONTENT_ITEM_ID=60637&CONTENT_ITEM_TYPE=0&MENU_ID=10272 |archive-date = 4 November 2007}}—and with Joshua Kirton sold Francis Godwin's The Man in the Moone.{{citation |last=Lawton |first=H. W. |title=Bishop Godwin's Man in the Moone |journal=The Review of English Studies |year=1931 |volume=7 |issue=25 |pages=23–55 |jstor=508383 |doi=10.1093/res/os-vii.25.23}} Warren was also known for publishing collections of contemporary musical catches, canons, glees and rounds, more than 650 works by over 100 composers.[https://imslp.org/wiki/Warren%27s_Collection Thomas Warren. A Collection of Catches, Canons and Glees (1762-1793)]

He also financed the cotton mill established by John Wyatt and Lewis Paul in 1741.{{cite book|author=James Thomson|editor=Leandro Prados de la Escosura|title=Exceptionalism and Industrialisation: Britain and Its European Rivals, 1688–1815|access-date=29 December 2007|year=2004|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|isbn=0-521-79304-1|pages=135|chapter=Invention in the Industrial Revolution: the case of cotton|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e_eXhDW5paYC}} This was the world's first mechanised cotton-spinning factory, and was to pave the way for Richard Arkwright's later transformation of the cotton industry during the Industrial Revolution.{{cite book|last1=Wadsworth|first1=Alfred P.|last2=De Lacy Mann|first2= Julia|title=The Cotton Trade and Industrial Lancashire, 1600–1780|year=1931|publisher=Manchester University Press|location=Manchester|pages=431–447|chapter=The First Cotton Spinning Factories }}

The Paul-Wyatt cotton mill was not a financial success, however, and Warren declared bankruptcy in 1743.