Two hundred years ago Daniel Graisberry’s obituary appeared in the London News. Daniel Graisberry was well respected and liked in the print trade and in his personal life. He often sat on committees and was a member of the City of Dublin Grand Jury.
Daniel Graisberry died at the relatively young age of forty three or four, leaving a wife and five daughters behind. Although his ancestors did well during the golden age of printing in the previous century the family fortune had waned over the years. After his death his wife, Ruth was thrown into turmoil over how to support her family. As mother of five yet to be married daughters, it was left to her to provide for them. But Ruth Graisberry was a resourceful woman. Wasting no time she petitioned Trinity College, where her late husband was official printer, to allow her to take up where he had left off. Her case was helped greatly by the backing of some of the well respected printers of the city, resulting in the college keeping her on as their chief printer. She took on an apprentice, Michael Gill, who eventually became her printing partner.
In the years that followed the five Graisberry sisters married. Mary her eldest married bookseller, Richard McArthur, whom were parents to Richard junior and Emily, Emily’s mother.
Sources
The News (London) 10 March 1822
Saunders’s News-Letter 30 April 1821
https://www.dib.ie/biography/graisberry-daniel-a3568
15 June 1825 – Saunders’s News-Letter – Dublin, Dublin,
