Jacobus George Robbers

Jacobus George Robbers, born in Rotterdam on 27 May 1838 and died in The Hague on 28 November 1925, was a Dutch bookseller and publisher. As a teenager he found work with a forwarding agent and then a bookshop, and in December 1857 he received permission to start his own business, which began with importing English-language and other foreign books and magazines from a back room in Rotterdam. About ten years later he began publishing under the name Jacs. G. Robbers. In 1880, helped by four partners, he took the initiative in founding Uitgevers-Maatschappij Elsevier, officially established on 4 March 1880 as the first public limited company in book publishing in the world, and he became its director. The publisher grew into the largest scientific publisher in the world and is now part of RELX. He also founded the monthly magazine Elsevier's Maandschrift, whose first issue appeared in January 1891, and the weekly De Week.