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A REPUTATION FOR EXCELLENCE
A History of the Perth Printing Industry
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Perth
What were the working conditions in the print-ing industry in the
middle of the nineteenth century? In a lecture in 1892, James Bridges,
a former bailie of Perth, described them. In 1883 the working hours
were from 7 am to 8 pm, Monday to Saturday, with one hour break.
Apprenticeships lasted seven years and the starting rate was one
shilling and sixpence per week, rising by annual increments of one
shilling plus to ten or eleven shillings. The standard journeyman’s
wage was twenty shillings per week, or thereabouts, but those newly
out of their time earned between twelve and fifteen shillings.
It was the job of the youngest apprentice to prepare the workshop
for the staff arriving in the morning. This meant he had to be at
the office by 6 am to sweep it out, kindle the stove, and carry
in such fuel as would be required to keep it going all day. In addition,
he had to fill the lamps with oil and see that they were properly
trimmed.
If he worked in a newspaper office, he could be found at 10 pm on
Wednesday nights, in all weathers, waiting for the arrival of the
London mail coach which brought copies of the Times and Park Lane
Express published in London on the previ-ous Monday. Sometimes he
would wait until 2 am or 3 am and, having rushed home for breakfast
after handing over the papers to the editor, he had to be back at
the office to help handfold, put the papers into covers, and then
deliver copies to scribers. His work was rarely over by 2 pm and
so this part of the week was almost an unbroken stretch of over
thirty hours. Despite this, the trade was widely regarded as a desirable
one. The earliest records of the organisation of print workers in
Scotland show that a Perth branch of the General Typographical Association
of Scotland existed from 1836 to 1844. When the Association was
amalgamated in 1844 with the National Typographical Association,
which covered England, Ireland and Scotland, societies of the Association
were formed that year in Dundee and Perth. The Northern District
resources of the National Association were severely tested in 1846
due to numerous trade disputes and a downturn in trade generally.
Not unexpectedly, the death blow to the Northern District came in
1847 as a consequence of a serious strike in Edinburgh. Attempts
were made to reform a Scottish Association in 1849 but it was not
until 1853 that the Scottish Typographi-cal Association was born.
At its formation, the Association consisted of five branches but
it in-creased in strength over the next two years. Perth was one
of the new branches set up in 1855. Towards the end of the century
the Perth branch became heavily involved in the struggle by male
compositors against the recruitment of women, who were regarded
as cheap labour. This had its origin in the major dispute in Edinburgh
of 1872 when the jobs of men on strike were filled by non-union
labour and by female labour.
In 1890 an attempt was made by a Perth firm to introduce female
compositors and other companies maintained they had to do likewise
if they were to compete. A lengthy dispute followed during which
the former decision to admit women provided they were employed under
the same conditions as men, but to oppose underpaid female labour,
was upheld. Negotiations with two Perth offices proved unsuccessful
and a resultant strike lasted from July until November, culminating
in the closure of the two offices concerned.
After that dispute, industrial relations remained relatively calm
for nearly seventy years until the printing industry was disrupted
by a major strike in 1959. In the late Spring of that year all ten
British print unions submitted claims for a ten per cent wage increase
and a 40-hour week but these were firmly rejected by the employers.
As members of the STA, the Perth branch was involved and work ceased
in the town on 18 June 1959 and was not resumed again until 6 August
following the national agreement reached through the good offices
of Lord Birkett who had acted as independent chairman.
In the Perth Directory published in 1832 by the Morisons at 14 High
Street, the only printer’s name entered was their own. However,
it is known that at this time R. Crearer & Son had a printing
press in Perth, in the Watergate, from which they issued small local
publications. In 1818 they had printed John Sinclair’s Simple
Lays and in 1822 William Roy’s Specimens of Poetical Productions.
The picture one has of printing offices in the city around the 1830s
and 1840s is that of the Morisons still occupying their old quarters
at 14 High Street; the Perth Printing Company (Perthshire Advertiser)
had located itself in the Kirk Close; there was a printing office
in King’s Arms Close which had been occupied by Taylor, but
he removed to Parliament Close and later to Dundee; Mr Charles Sidey,
postmaster, had started a printing business in a cellar at the old
Post Office at the corner of Charlotte Street; and there was the
Constitutional at the Kirkside.
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Volume 3 published 1996
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