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A REPUTATION FOR EXCELLENCE
A History of the Aberdeen and Northern Counties Printing
Industry
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Northern Counties - Inverness
The Inverness Courier
On Thursday 4 December 1817 the first number of The Inverness Courier
was published as a four-page weekly. This first edition of the newspaper
was printed in a room above William Ettles’ bookshop at 22
High Street. Newspaper publishing at this period was an expensive
business because of the severe taxes imposed by the government.
There was a paper duty of threepence per pound weight, a stamp duty
of fourpence on each copy, and a further duty of three shillings
and sixpence on advertisements. It was not until the 1830s that
these duties were reduced, thus making it possible for the Courier
to reduce its cover price from sevenpence to fourpence-halfpenny.
During its first seven years the newspaper was edited by a married
couple, Mr and Mrs John Johnstone, and when they left to launch
a newspaper in Edinburgh they were succeeded by one James MacKay.
His four-year reign was not a successful one and this was reflected
in a serious drop in the newspaper’s circulation.
Fortunately, in 1828, Robert Carruthers, a Borderer, joined the
Courier and was successful in turning things round, first as editor
and three years later as sole proprietor. This was the beginning
of a long and distinguished career at the newspaper which lasted
until his death in 1878.
A milestone in the paper’s history was reached in February
1838 when Carruthers decided to move the expanding business from
the High Street to larger premises in Bank Lane. Even today this
impressive old building is still known locally as the Courier office.
The Courier was the first newspaper in the north to discard the
hand press. In the 1840s Dr Carruthers introduced the ‘Belper’
press which was fed and rolled manually from both sides. It printed
400 to 500 sheets per hour, one side at a time. A few years later
the ‘Belper’ was replaced by the ‘Kirkcaldy’
which took three men to operate, and this press continued in use
until the introduction of steam.
By 1853 when his fourth son, Walter, joined him from the London
Morning Chronicle, Carruthers had doubled the extent of the newspaper
to eight pages. A few years later Walter became a partner and co-editor
and his elder brother, Robert jun., took over the management of
the business. At this point, the firm known as Robert Carruthers
& Sons was born, the name the Courier still trades under today.
The circulation of the Courier had reached nearly 4000 copies per
week by 1860 and was still selling at fourpence-halfpenny a copy.
Thanks to a further reduction in taxes on the industry, the price
dropped to threepence, but then competition was encountered from
emerging daily newspapers costing one penny. With a relatively small
population it was apparent that Inverness could not sustain a daily
newspaper and so a decision was taken in 1880 to convert the Courier
into a penny journal published several times per week. At first
a thrice-weekly publication was tried, coming out on Tuesdays, Thursdays
and Saturdays, but this did not prove a success. In 1885 the newspaper
became bi-weekly, publishing on Tuesdays and Fridays, and this has
been the pattern since that date.
It was in that year Walter Carruthers died, aged 55, and the journalistic
direction of the Courier was inherited by James Barron, a native
of Moray, who had joined the reporting staff in 1865 when he was
eighteen. A few years later Barron became principal partner in the
firm and by 1910 he was the sole owner. He died in 1919 four years
after his intended successor, his eldest son James, was killed during
the First World War.
It then fell to his youngest son, Evan, a lawyer by profession to
take over the Courier. It is claimed he did much for the tourist
trade in Inverness-shire, for it was he who, in 1933, attracted
the world’s attention to what he was inspired to call ‘the
Loch Ness Monster’. Although not physically strong, Evan Barron
managed the business for 46 years until his death in 1965.
He was succeeded by his redoubtable niece Eveline, who, war service
excepted, had worked on the Courier in one capacity or another since
1935. Her father, the late James jun., had stipulated in his Will
that there should be a place for her in the family firm if she so
desired. She presided over the 150th anniversary celebrations in
1967 and remained in firm control until 1987 when she suffered a
break-down in health. She then decided to seek a purchaser for the
firm who ‘would not destroy the character of the paper’
and her choice fell on Stewart Lindsay. He was the reporter in the
north for The Glasgow Herald, and when he took over in April 1988
that also marked the end of the Barron family’s 123-year association
with the Courier.
Although Lindsay inherited a supportive and loyal readership he
was to find that production methods were still based on hot metal
composition and letterpress printing. By this time most newspapers
had embraced the new technology and Lindsay took immediate steps
to invest in a computerised system for the Courier. New premises
were acquired on the Longman indus-trial estate in Inverness to
house the editorial, advertising, production and administration
departments, and the printing of the publication was contracted
out to Moray & Nairn News papers in Elgin.
In September 1990 Lindsay was bought out by the Scottish Provincial
Press Group and the smooth change-over in ownership ensured the
continuing success of the Courier. Since then Scottish Provincial
Press has invested heavily in improvements and the newspaper is
now more influential than at any time in its long history.
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Volume 3 published 1996
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