Benjamin Henry Blackwell (10 January 1849 – 26 October 1924) was an English bookseller and politician who founded the Blackwell's chain of bookshops in Oxford. Blackwell was born at 46 High Street, St Clement's, Oxford, the son of librarian Benjamin Harris Blackwell and Nancy "Ann" Stirling Lambert. He left formal education aged 13, working as an apprentice for local bookseller Charles Richards. He hoped to become a librarian like his father, but his application for the post of City Librarian for Cardiff was turned down due to his lack of formal education. An entry from his diary shows that in spite of this setback, Blackwell intended to continue working in the book trade: