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A REPUTATION FOR EXCELLENCE
A History of the Aberdeen and Northern Counties Printing
Industry
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Northern Counties - Dingwall
It is thought that the earliest newspaper to appear in Ross-shire
was The Invergordon Times, managed by a Mr Graham in Invergordon.
The date it ceased publication is unknown but with its demise The
Ross-shire Journal became the oldest surviving paper in Ross and
Cromarty.
The founder and first editor of the Journal, Lewis Munro, was born
in Invergordon in 1852 and spent his early working life with The
Invergordon Times. After this initial training he moved first to
a printer in Edinburgh to widen his experience and then spent a
short period in London. He returned to Dingwall in 1872 and three
years later founded The Ross-shire Journal. The first issue came
off the press on Friday, 19 February 1875.
As the business prospered it expanded into book and commercial printing.
Notably, Munro became printer and publisher of the Countess of Aberdeen’s
widely circulated monthly publications. Another of his achievements
was the invention of a tapeless folding machine but, unfortunately,
he could not obtain the necessary capital to develop it commercially.
Before his death, Munro sold the property of the paper, but not
the printing plant, to Sir William Bell of Scatwell who eventually
obtained complete control on 13 February 1891.
In February 1897 the paper, plant and buildings were purchased by
the Ross-shire Printing and Publishing Company Limited, Dingwall,
and remained under their control until 1980 when Mr Peter Fowler
of the Scottish Provincial Press Group took over control of the
company.
W.H. Spence succeeded Lewis Munro in 1891 as editor for a brief
period, being followed in 1892 by Donald Hendry, aged twenty-two.
After Henry’s well-earned early promotion, the prospects of
a fruitful editorship were cut short by ill-health and his death
in 1898. The next editor of the Journal was David Watt, who served
in that capacity from 1898 until 1949. His long and distinguished
career in journalism began first with The Mont rose Standard, following
which he became editor of The Fraserburgh Herald before he joined
the Journal. He was succeeded in 1949 by his son, Norman, who started
life with the newspaper as a Linotype operator. Like his father,
he achieved a record of fifty years service with the company. On
Norman Watt’s death in 1966. Mr A. MacBeath and Mr D.M. Watt
were appointed joint editors and managers and served in that capacity
until 1991 when the present editor Mr L.A. Ford took over.
Originally, the newspaper was produced in an office in the High
Street, Dingwall, but in the mid-nineties of the last century until
May 1988 the company was based in property in Castle Street. In
that year a move was made to custom-built premises in the West End
industrial estate in Dingwall.
Composition was entirely by hand-setting until the introduction
of Linotype machines in 1912. Those have now been replaced by an
Apple Mac computerised system. At the end of last century, and in
the opening years of the present, circulation was limited, for often
the old hand press was all the editor had on which to rely for the
mechanical side of production.
After the installation of a Wharfedale press, the company progressed
to a Miehle and, latterly in their old premises at Castle street,
to a Cossar press. In their new premises, a Hunter press prints
not only The Ross-shire Journal but also several other newspapers
in the Scottish Provincial Press Group.
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Volume 3 published 1996
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