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A REPUTATION FOR EXCELLENCE
A History of the Aberdeen and Northern Counties Printing
Industry
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Aberdeen
Although printing was first introduced to Aber-deen in 1622 by Edward
Raban, due, it is believed, to the initiative of Bishop Patrick
Forbes, Sir Paul Menzies, Provost of Aberdeen, and Robert Baron,
later Professor of Divinity at Marischal College, the city can claim
an earlier association with the establishment of printing in Scotland.
As recorded in the Introduction, in 1507 James IV issued a patent
to Walter Chepman and Andro Myllar giving them licence to establish
a printing press in Edinburgh and authority to print. Some of their
books, the first to be printed in Scotland, appeared in 1508 but
the magnum opus of this first Scottish press, issued in 1509-10,
was the Aberdeen Breviary, the two-volume work which was intended
by Bishop William Elphinstone (founder of King’s College, Aberdeen)
to supersede the Sarurn Breviary.
Another notable contribution to early Scottish printing was made
by a true son of the city, Thomas Davidson. He was a practical printer
but where he acquired his knowledge of the typo-graphical art in
unknown. Bisset’s Rollment of Courts states that Davidson was
‘one northlandman borne in Scotland, upon the water-side of
Dee’ from which it is interpreted he was a native of Aberdeen.
With the single exception of the Office of Our Lady in Pity printed
in Edinburgh by John Storey, who is believed to have been the next
Scottish printer after Chepman and Myllar, no books have been discovered
bearing a Scottish imprint until that of Davidson. He began printing
in Edinburgh in the late 1520s and was the first printer in Scotland
to use Roman type. Davidson was commissioned by Sir James Foulis
of Collington, Lord-clerk-register, to print the Acts of Parliament
in 1541.
Edward Raban is thought to have been a native of Gloucester who
had served as a soldier, and was employed in printing for a short
period, in the Low Countries. Evidence for this is to be found in
the similarities between his type, devices and ornaments and those
of the Pilgrim Press in Leyden.
Details of his career in Scotland, beginning in Edinburgh and moving
to Aberdeen in 1622 via St Andrews, can be found in the booklet
The Hero as Printer published by Aberdeen University Library. The
business-like approach of the Aberdeen Town Council in its support
for the printer was immediately evident. Raban received a salary
from the Town Council of £40 (Scots) per annum, this sum being
immediately offset by the £40 (Scots) annual rent charged
for his house on the north side of the Castlegate. Raban apparently
supplemented his seemingly meagre income by the eight pence he received
quarterly from each pupil at the Aber-deen Grammar School, which
sum was collected with the school fees.
It is noteworthy that 150 publications (albeit over a period of
twenty-seven years) were issued from Raban’s press ranging
over a wide field. Of these special mention must be made of his
Psalter of 1625, the first in Scotland with harmonised tunes. Perhaps
of greater significance, however, was his Prognostication or Almanac,
first published in 1623. It continued to be printed annually and
its considerable success attracted other Scottish print-ers to pirate
the work.
One incident worthy of mention was the licence taken at that time
by early printers. For example, Raban found himself in trouble with
the General Assembly in 1640 for shortening the prayer at the end
of an edition of the Psalms, printed some years earlier. He was
called to account and pleaded short-age of paper, humbly asked for
pardon, and was dismissed with a caution.
Among Raban’s productions were hornbooks (now rare), a single
leaf protected by a thin layer of horn, which were used by children
in school classrooms. Conditions in schools at that period were
relatively primitive and must cause wonderment as to the treatment
school books must have experienced. Generally a single fire was
all that warmed the earthen-floor room, but even this was dependent
on scholars bringing their peats or faggots so that the fire could
be lit. At a higher level at that time, university students shivered
in their chambers and on Meal Monday they would return home to collect
oatmeal to make their porridge.
Raban continued as printer to the town and univer-sity until 1649,
and a year later was succeeded by James Brown, son of William Brown,
minister of Invernochty. His work was largely insignificant except
for one publication, viz. The form and order of the Coronation of
Charles the Second; King of Scotland, England, France and Ireland;
as it was acted and done at Scoone, the first day of Januarie, 1651.
Several editions of this work were published by Brown in 1651 and
some nine years later at least three editions were reprinted in
London.
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Volume 3 published 1996
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