PIPER, Stephen
Stephen Piper was born at Colne Engaine, Essex on 5 November 1792, son of Edward Piper (1763-1844) and his wife Ann née Chisnall, who married at Hadleigh, Suffolk on 24 July 1785. Stephen married in 1812, Mary Muddiman (1791–January 1884), youngest daughter of Joseph Muddiman of Long Buckby, Northamptonshire, and his wife Ann née Staughton, and in the same year commenced business as a bookseller at 38 Butter Market, Ipswich. Piper is first noticed in the imprint of Richard Dykes Alexander’s 'Observations on the Subject of War' (Ipswich 1816) and was a seller of lottery tickets in the same year. In 1824 Piper was a member of the Ipswich Mechanics’ Institute and from 1833, a member of the Ipswich Society of Professional & Amateur Artists, where he was tutored by Henry Davy. Piper became strongly associated with the chief workers for the abolition of the British Slave Trade and was the printer & publisher for Thomas Clarkson of Playford Hall, near Ipswich, publishing in 1828 an engraving of Clarkson by C. Turner, after a painting by A E Chalon, R.A. Piper was publisher and a writer on the 'Ipswich Express' from its inauguration in 1839 and the following year acquired a controlling interest in the newspaper. In 1851 Piper was living with his wife and five of his thirteen children Alfred 31, Sarah 29, Emily 27, Mary 23, Fanny 21 and employed five men and six apprentices, another son was John Dixon Piper. At the examination on the Ipswich Election Petition of April 1842, Piper is described as printer of the 'Ipswich Express' but was not the editor and that it was a Whig newspaper and admitted printing and distributing many election squibs, canvassing cards, and placards. Stephen Piper died as a result of an accident with a pony and trap in Salthouse Street, Ipswich on 18 April 1860, aged 67.