John Siberch ( 1476–1554) was the first Cambridge printer and an associate of Erasmus. Life Early life Johann Lair was born in c.1476 to Peter (a master wool weaver and town councillor) and Lena von Lair. The family moved from Sieglar (Lair), to nearby Siegburg, during his childhood and he adopted the name of this town when he enrolled at the University of Cologne as Johann de Syberch, on 5 December 1492. Early career Siberch became involved in the book trade in the 1510s, initially as a travelling salesman for the bookseller Hans Beck of Cologne. He married a daughter, whose given name is unknown, of the bookseller Gerhard Amersfoort. The couple had two daughters, Katharina and Baetzgen. His wife's sister Gertrud was married to the bookseller Franz Birckmann of Cologne, a major importer of books to Germany, France, the Netherlands and England with establishments in Paris, Antwerp and London. Another sister, Anna, was the second wife of the printer Servaes van Sassen of Louvain. Siberch thus had familial links with some of the key figures in North European printing and bookselling. Through them in turn he formed connections with the leading humanist scholars, including Erasmus. In 1520 he commissioned the Cologne printer Eucharius Cervicornus to print a Greek grammar by Richard Croke, recently appointed to a lectureship in Greek at the University of Cambridge. It is thought that it was Croke who persuaded Siberch to move to Cambridge and set up a printing press. His time at Cambridge In the year to Michaelmas 1521 the university records a loan of £20 to Siberch, the four guarantors including Henry Bullock, fellow of Queens' College and subsequently vice-chancellor of the university. Assisted by this loan, Siberch set up his business as a bookseller, binder and printer in a tenement known as the King's Arms on the site of what is now Tree Court of Gonville & Caius College. Siberch's known printed output is small (see Works below). However, the authors, translators and dedicatees comprise many of the major contemporary figures of church, state and academia, including bishops John Fisher of Rochester and Nicholas West of Ely, Richard Pace, Secretary of State to Henry VIII, the royal physician Thomas Linacre and, above all, the great humanist scholar Desiderius Erasmus and his circle, while the books touch upon significant issues of the day, such as religious reform and the new humanist learning. In