The most recent source points out that Thomason's adopted trademark for his bookselling business (a rose and a crown) forms part of the arms of the county of Sussex. However, the Stationer's Registers describe him as having come from Gostlowe, Cheshire. The bookseller had at least two brothers, William and Roger, but other siblings are unknown.
Thomason was apprenticed to Henry Fetherstone, a London bookseller and publisher, at the sign of the Rose in St. Paul's churchyard, from September 1617 to June 1626 and became a freeman of the Stationers' Company on 5 June 1626. About 1631 he married Catharine Hutton, his master's niece and ward, who was living as a member of his family. Catharine was unusually well educated and well read, having been left a large library as part of her inheritance. John Milton was a family friend, who later wrote his Sonnet XIV to her memory. The couple spent most of their married life residing in St. Paul's churchyard in London, where Thomason conducted his bookselling business.
They had at least nine children, seven of whom were still alive when their mother died in 1646. The eldest child, also named George, received a classical education and graduated from Queen's College, Oxford, in 1655; he was later rector of Halston, and became prebendary of Lincoln in 1683.
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