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A REPUTATION FOR EXCELLENCE
A History of the Perth Printing Industry
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Dundee
It is not possible to pinpoint precisely the date when printing
was introduced to Dundee but there is some evidence that it was
around 1547. Shortly after the death of Cardinal Beaton of St Andrews
in 1546, an Edinburgh printer named John Scot took refuge in Dundee
from the perse-cution of the Scottish Privy Council. John Scrymgeour,
Constable and Provost of Dundee, was commanded to apprehend him
and take him prisoner to the Council. The Provost refused to undertake
this task and as a result it is thought that Scot set up his printing
press within the burgh and continued there until he found means
to establish himself in St Andrews. No examples of his work have
been found either in Dundee or St Andrews but there is a strong
probability that Wedderburn’s Gude and Godlie Ballates was
printed by Scot in 1567 after his return to Edinburgh.
The next reference to printing in the town is to be. found in Lamont’s
Diary in the year 1661 when a number of theses written by St Andrews
professors were ‘printed in Dundee’.
In 1678 another work, a map of the County of Forfar bearing a Latin
description, was printed in Dundee. The publisher was the Rev. Robert
Edwards, minister of Murroes, but the identity of the printer is
not known.
From that time little is known of the progress of the press until
the beginning of the next century when an attempt was made by a
number of the clergy to establish printing in the district. It appears
from the parochial records of Foulis Easter that on 18 April 1703
the Presbytery of Dundee directed a special collection be made in
the churches. As a result Foulis gave the modest sum of one pound
and four shillings ‘to Daniel Gaines to help him in setting
up the Art of Printing in Dundee’. Whether Gaines pocketed
the proceeds of this pious contribution and made off is not known,
but there is no evidence that he succeeded in reviving the art as
no printed matter bearing his name seems to exist.
It was not until 1755 that Henry Galbraith & Co. established
a printing business in Dundee, but no records have been found to
show in which part of the burgh their office was situated. Although
credited with the production of two major works, viz: the whole
of the theological works of Isaac Ambrose in one large folio volume
and Ostervald’s Bible, there is evidence that the two texts
were printed in Holland. The title-pages and lists of subscribers
were printed by Galbraith, hence the confusion over who was responsible
for the production of both titles. Printed in 1763, the Bible was
dedicated to ‘Patrick Maxwell Esq., Lord Provost of Dundee’.
Thomas Yule Miller has written about this period, when the population
of the town was around 14,000. Trade, chiefly linen manufacturing,
was in a flourishing state and about one hundred small wooden vessels
belonged to the port which had a single landing quay but no harbour.
Land travel was by means of the stage coach.
News of what was going on in the kingdom and in other parts of the
world was extremely limited. There were no newspapers, and letters
were regarded as expensive: the postage costing sixpence. It was
in this environment that Henry Galbraith & Co. sought to contribute
to the enlightenment of the people by launching a newspaper. The
year 1755 saw the birth of Dundee’s first newspaper entitled
the Dundee Weekly Intelligencer. Unfortunately this first enterprise
did not receive the support it deserved and the newspaper quickly
succumbed.
It is known that from c. 1770 to c. 1775 a printing business was
run in the Kirk Wynd by Laurence Chalmers and David Ogilvie, but
no examples of their work have been traced.
Around 1775 Thomas Colville took over Galbraith’s business
and until his death in 1819 printed a number of books and a range
of peri-odicals and newspapers. It is claimed with some justification
that he did more than anyone to introduce the printed word to the
populace of Dundee.
Thomas Miller wrote ‘Colville was gifted with great inception,
energy and industry, and left behind him a name on the page of local
history’. One could add ‘perseverance’ to those qualities
as he experienced many fluctuations of fortune. One example of this
occurred in 1776. Early in the year he started a weekly publication
called the Dundee Weekly Magazine or a History of the Present Times
which resembled its Edinburgh contemporary the Edinburgh Weekly
Amusement. Unfortunately the magazine was suppressed in the summer
of the same year by a decision of the Court of Exchequer.
Also in 1775 Colville printed a work by Charles Thornton entitled
A Table Calculated for the use of Weavers, shewing the length the
pirns will run according to the size of the web. About the same
time he produced a weekly newspaper which again was short lived.
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Volume 3 published 1996
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