Purnell and Sons started out as a small family printers based in Somerset which merged with other printers over the next 100 years to become one of the largest print groups in the UK and at one time a major publisher.
History
The company was founded by Charles Dando Purnell in 1839 as a small family printers with small print shops in Radstock, Midsomer Norton and Paulton.[1] With the influence of Wilfred Harvey, who was originally the firm's accountant, Purnell & Sons grew from the 1920s onwards, with letterpress printing being added as well as a lithography department in the late 1930s. The company grew to become a major concern that published and printed millions of colour books and magazines. In 1940, Purnell took control of book publisher MacDonald.[2]
In 1966 Purnell & Sons printed the popular and successful Purnell's History of the Second World War partwork series of magazines. In the 1960s and 1970s the company also published other partwork series including Knowledge (1962), Discovering Art (1964–66), The Masters (1965), Man, Myth and Magic (1970), Discovering Antiques (1970), A History of the English Speaking Peoples (1971), and History of the Twentieth Century (1968). The latest issues in these series would offered for sale every week or fortnight in newsagents across the world and were sold in large numbers (for example, 400,000 copies of Knowledge were printed).