Samuel Smith and Benjamin Walford were printers to the Royal Society that worked from a shop in St. Paul's Churchyard in London called the Prince's Arms. The shop was located in the Northeastern corner of the Churchyard. Smith and Walford were responsible for publishing and selling a variety of scientific texts for the Royal Society and individual authors, taking up the tradition after Smith's mentor, Moses Pitt, and his mentor, Robert Littlebury. 

Within the working relationship, Smith was responsible for publishing and acquiring books, and Walford was responsible for the advertising and sale of them. Using pamphlets, local newspapers, and their storefront in St. Paul's Churchyard, Benjamin Walford would have advertised William Cowper's atlas to the general public at large, and members of the Royal Society.

Smith, following suit with Littlebury and Pitt, made frequent visits to the Dutch Republic and maintained correspondence with various booksellers to obtain the latest scientific texts from the Continent. Smith also participated in the act of book piracy, bringing already published books to the Dutch Republic to have them reprinted for a cheaper value under the same bibliographic information so that they could be sold for a profit. It is unsurprising then that Cowper and Smith acquired the illustrations used in Govard Bidloo's atlas with little regard for plagiarism.