Mary Fenner Waugh (fl. 1735-73) worked in Cambridge with her husband, William Fenner, from 1724 until his death in 1734. William Fenner was most likely related to the printing/bookselling Fenners of Canterbury (Zechariah Fenner, son of Rest Fenner of Canterbury, was apprenticed to William Fenner in 1765 who then bound him to his father-in-law, James Waugh. Upon Waugh’s death, Zechariah was given over to Richard Hett, another Independent printer/bookseller, in 1768). If they were relations, as that episode suggests, then Mary Fenner would have had a model among her Canterbury friends to follow, for after the death of her husband (most likely Enoch Fenner), a Mrs. Fenner in Canterbury continued his business for most of the 1730s. Mary Fenner would do much the same. William Fenner was best known for his partnership with William and James Ged, as well as Thomas and John James, in which they developed printing from stereotype plates,  gaining permission in 1731 to print Bibles and Prayer Books in Cambridge using this new method. The partnership proved unsuccessful, however, and Fenner died insolvent in 1734. Mary Fenner nevertheless continued the business in Cambridge until 1738, when the lease expired. William Fenner appears on only six imprints in 1733-34 (none prior to 1733), listed as “printer to the University.”  Mary Fenner appears on her first imprint in 1735. No Fenners appear in the ESTC for the years 1736 through 1740.

In 1741, Mary Fenner reappears on imprints, now working from the Turk’s Head, Gracechurch Street, London (she may have been there prior to 1738, working in the trade but not appearing on any imprints). Between 1741 and 1744 she appeared on more than 60 imprints as “M. Fenner,” “Mary Fenner,” or “Mrs. Fenner,” ending her business in Gracechurch Street upon her marriage to James Waugh, a devout dissenter (an Independent like herself) and publisher of Philip Doddridge and Isaac Watts, among others. His business was located in Lombard Street. During her time in Gracechurch Street, Mary Fenner had one apprentice, Benjamin Burroughs, who was bound to her in 1742. As she did with her first husband, Mary Fenner continued her second husband’s business, appearing on another 15 imprints from Lombard Street between 1767 and 1773 as “M. Waugh” or “Mrs. Waugh.”

Her son, William Fenner II (d. 1809), was apprenticed in 1745 to Richard Preston in Red Rose Street for a short time and then bound to  Waugh, his step-father-in-law, by whom he was given his freedom in 1752. Not long after the end of his apprenticeship he became a partner with Waugh. The younger Fenner appeared on some 155 imprints between 1754 and 1765, almost exclusively with Waugh, first at Lombard Street (1754-57) and then alone from early 1757 at the Angel and Bible, 16 Paternoster Row (1757-65), continuing to sell, however, almost exclusively with Waugh and other dissenting sellers through 1762, the last year he was actively selling (Fenner appeared on only one imprint in each of the years 1763, 1764, and 1765) [Plomer puts him at Paternoster Row from 1756-59, whereas Maxted has him there from 1759-61, neither completely accurate]. By 1762 he ceased to appear among the rate books at his Paternoster Row property. William Fenner II had five apprentices bound to him between 1757 and 1784, the latter date an indication that his retirement as a printer/bookseller did not mean his complete absence from the printing trades, as his position as Master of the Stationers’ Company in 1786 would suggest. Plomer does not mention Mary Fenner’s second marriage to James Waugh (she appears on a few imprints in 1744 as M. Waugh) nor her subsequent career as a printer and bookseller after his death (1767-73) at his shop in Lombard Street.

The best work on Fenner has been done by Alison McNaught in her Ph.D dissertation and her article,  "Two Nonconformist Women Printers and Booksellers in the Mid-Eighteenth Century," Bunyan Studies  24 (2020), 65-84. Other accounts of Fenner can be found in H. R. Plomer, et. al., ed., Dictionaries of the Printers and Booksellers who were at Work in England, Scotland and Ireland 1557-1775 (London: The Bibliographical Society, 1977), 91-92; D. F. McKenzie, Stationer's Company Apprentices 1701 to 1800 (Oxford: Oxford Bibliographical Society, 1978), 123-24, 278; and Ian Maxted, The London Book Trades: A Preliminary Checklist of Members (Kent, UK: William Dawson, 1977), at https://bookhistory.blogspot.com/2007/01/london-1775-1800-f.html; James Raven, "Location, Size, and Succession: The Bookshops of Paternoster Row before 1800," in The London Book Trade: Topographies of Print in the Metropolis from the Sixteenth Century, ed. Robin Myers, Michael Harris, and Giles Mandebrote (London: Oak Knoll Press & The British Library, 2003), 119.