Deighton, John (1748-1828), bookseller

John Deighton was a bookseller who founded Deighton, Bell & Company in 1778 in Cambridge. The company enjoyed a long and close association with the University of Cambridge.

The company's premies were located in "narrow, early eighteenth-century premises" at the corner of Green and Trinity Streets.

John Deighton became a major publisher for Cambridge University and a binder for the University Library. He also gained a reputation as a book retailer with a "remarkable ability to supply foreign books, even in time of war".

In the years 1813-1827 the firm was operated as a partnership between the founder and his two sons, John Deighton the younger (1791-1854) and Joseph Jonathan Deighton (1792-1848), trading as John Deighton & Sons. Following the elder John Deighton's retirement in 1827, the firm traded as J. & J. J. Deighton. Beginning in 1848, following Joseph's death, the firm traded as J. Deighton.

In 1854 the firm was acquired by the educational publisher George Bell of George Bell & Sons, following which it became known as Deighton, Bell, and Company.

In 1876 it was publishing, jointly with George Bell & Sons and Whittaker & Co., a number of textbook series. During the twentieth century the firm concentrated mainly on bookselling of both new and secondhand books. While its publishing activities had mostly ceased, in 1932 the firm published and distributed F. R. Leavis's literary quarterly Scrutiny. From 1967 the firm devoted itself exclusively to antiquarian bookselling. In 1987 Deighton, Bell, and Co. was acquired by Heffers, which was in turn taken over by Blackwell's.

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