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A REPUTATION FOR EXCELLENCE
A History of the Aberdeen and Northern Counties Printing
Industry
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Wick
It is claimed that the first printer in Caithness was one William
Todd, a saddler, who acquired the necessary type and press in 1825
and installed them in his shop in Thurso. His first publication,
Three Sermons by the late Rev James Renwick, appeared twelve months
later.
Some four years passed before he published the first Caithness book,
Poems: English and Scottish on various subjects, a volume of 208
pages which was sold by subscription. The author was a Wick schoolmaster,
James Hay, whose by-name was ‘Flogger Hay’. In 1830 Todd
moved to Wick, where he continued to print in a shop just off Bridge
Street. Two years later his business closed down, soon after Peter
Reid began printing in the town. Peter Reid was born at Gallowhill,
near Wick, in July 1809, a son of a local Pulteneytown fishcurer.
At the age of seventeen he left home for Dundee and obtained employment
with a Mr Miller, a printer and publisher. After three years training
in the art of printing Reid returned to Wick in 1829 and set up
as a bookseller and stationer in a shop which was formerly the offices
of the British Fisheries Society. The premises at the Bridgend,
Union Street, are to this day the home of The Jo/ui O’Groat
Journal or, as is more widely known locally, the ‘Groat’.
For four years before The John O’Groat Journal was first published,
Reid developed the printing side of his business. He was particularly
active in the production of pamphlets mainly commissioned by ministers
and other educated members of the community. Much of this work had
previously been undertaken by William Todd but, as mentioned above,
by 1832 Todd’s printing business failed.
On an early visit to Edinburgh, Reid visited the well-known printers
and publishers W. & R. Chambers when they were introducing a
new typeface for their Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal. He purchased
the discarded type and, when the Groat was launched in February
1836, the first issues were almost facsimiles of the famous Chambers
magazine. Reid had adopted the same format, namely an eight-page
large quarto with three columns to the page, and the title displayed
in a similar semi-circular form.
In October 1836 a rival newspaper, The Northern Star, was published
in Wick by John Stewart. It adopted an opposing political line —
the Groat was Liberal, the Star Tory — and it is said ‘competition
was vigorous, verging on the vitriolic’. There are a number
of stories told of the Star’s struggle for survival during
its short two years existence, including one relating the theft
of ink from its rival newspaper.
Benjamin Miller Kennedy was the first editor of the Groat and had
a reputation as a trenchant and fearless writer. However, he remained
in that office for only six years before moving to Arbroath where
he became the proprietor and editor of The Arbroath Journal and
later founded The Arbroath Guide which succeeded it.
Kennedy’s successor was Edward Roverscroft, an Englishman,
who stayed only three years before John Mackie took over. For five
years Mackie edited the Groat then left in 1850 to found and edit
his own newspaper in Wick, The Northern Ensign. He was soon to encounter
financial difficulties and in 1853 William Rae bought the newspaper.
Mackie’s services were retained as editor and he continued
in that role until his death twenty-six years later. The Ensign
ceased publication in 1926. The John O’Groat Journal has had
seventeen editors during its long history, each contributing in
his own way to the success of the newspaper. Special mention should
perhaps be made of two of them, namely R. Miller and David Oag.
Miller had two spells of editorship amounting to forty-seven years
in all, while Oag served the Groat for fifty years, thirty of them
as editor. During the latter’s period as editor, the newspaper
was taken over by the Highland News Group.
The Caithness Courier was already a member of the Group and was
being printed at Inverness with its editorial office in Thurso.
In 1965 a decision was taken to print the Courier in Wick on the
Groat presses, and in 1977 the editorial functions were also transferred
to the Groat office. Since then the two newspapers have been produced
along the lines of a bi-weekly with each retaining its own title.
Mechanisation was almost unknown when many local newspapers were
launched during the last century. The introduction of steam power
in the pressroom was a major step forward but com-position was entirely
by hand until the beginning of this century.
Writing in the 150th Anniversary Supplement of the Groat, George
Harold, who worked in the caseroom for half a century, described
conditions when he began his apprenticeship in 1928. Starting at
6 am his first job was to light the gas jet, then the gas pots for
melting the lead. Two Linotypes were in use, powered by a gas engine,
but much of the work had still to be set by hand. The presses were
hand-fed, one side of the sheet being printed on Thursdays and the
reverse side in the early hours of Friday mornings.
The first major change in the pressroom was the installation of
a Cossar press in 1952 at a cost of £12,000.
The most revolutionary transformation occurred in 1985, however,
with the switch from hot-metal setting to photo composition. A Linotype
system was installed consisting of two Linotronic 100 series typesetters,
one Linoscreen Composer II and four APL II terminals. Additional
equipment included several Processors and a Superautomatic Camera.
The newspaper is now printed on a Solna Offset RP 36 Distributor.
The Groat management is to be applauded for their decision to set
up a replica of the earlier hot-metal caseroom in the Heritage Centre
Museum in Wick. It consists of a Linotype machine and ancillary
equipment including cases of type and the last front pages of both
the Groat and Courier in type in their chases. In addition, North
of Scotland Newspapers have had a video film made showing the old
and the new production methods.
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Volume 3 published 1996
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