|
|
A REPUTATION FOR EXCELLENCE
A History of the Perth Printing Industry
1 2
3
4
5
6
7
8 9
10
11 12
13
14 15
Dundee
James
P. Matthew & Co., printers, publishers, bookbinders, and stationers,
was founded in 1854. It appears the company was first situated at
32 Meadow Entry, Meadowside, and later at 11—15 Cowgate. Perhaps
the firm was best known as printers and publishers of the Dundee
Directory which they produced from 1864 until 1927.
William Kidd who had worked for Frederick Shaw, bookseller, set
up his own business at 3 Union Street in 1871. On Shaw’s retiral,
Kidd purchased the firm and moved to 112 Nethergate. As a consequence
of the rapid development of the business and thus the need for increased
accommodation, Kidd built the handsome block in Whitehall Street
known as the ‘Palace Buildings’ and moved there in 1885.
The machine-room was located in the basement where a number of new
presses were powered by an ‘Otto’ gas engine of six horse-power.
The litho department was situated on the first floor above the shops
while the bookbinding and composing departments occupied the third
and fourth floors respectively. Among the books published by Kidd
were Maxwell’s History of Old Dundee, Allen’s Guide to
Navigation, and numerous guide books to Dundee, Arbroath, etc.
In the year 1886 William Burns, a practising sta-tioner in business
in Dundee, was joined by his friend William Harris to form a joint
venture as stationers, booksellers and printers at 112 Nethergate,
a location already familiar to that trade. William Burns had served
his time and gained experience with several firms in the city while
William Harris had learned his trade in Cupar. From the start the
new firm engaged in both letterpress and lithographic processes.
The staff during the early years of the company consisted of eight
adults and thirteen juniors in addition to the two partners.
Behind the retail shop was a small one-storey building with an entrance
from Yeaman Shore and Sea Close, and within this a beginning was
made to the printing side of the business. For a time bookbinding
was ‘sent out’, but in 1890 Strathmore Hall, a dance hail
in the Sea Wynd, was offered to rent and the company took this opportunity
to establish its bookbinding department there. It became increasingly
inconvenient to have departments housed separately so in 1892 a
tenement building in Sea Close was demolished and a four storey
building erected as the workshop. Burns and Harris continued to
expand into the general trade of the city and one of their most
successful developments was the printing of coloured labels for
distillers and also the preserves and confectionery trades. The
orders for those labels ran into millions and given that all the
double crown sheets had to be bronzed by hand, this will give an
indication of the scale of the operation. Milk was not supplied
at that time to protect workers from the effects of bronze dust
entering the nostrils. Instead, a ration of snuff was issued. There
were three disastrous fires during the life of the company after
its move to Long Wynd. The first was in 1900 when the factory of
James Keiller & Son of marmalade fame was burned to the ground.
Another was the great fire in Watson’s Bond in 1906. On the
third occasion Burns & Harris were the victims. Paper hung in
the printing-room roof became ignited and the pressmen were literally
left ‘without a roof over their heads’. Fortunately, business
was not interrupted even during the reconstruction period.
Around 1927 another printing company in Dundee, Paul and Matthew
situated in the Murraygate, ceased trading and Burns & Harris
purchased the publishing rights to the Dundee Directory. The Directory
was published annually over the next half century but in the early
1970s production costs started to outstrip the market value and
in 1974 the last edition went to press. From the late 1920s the
business continued to expand until disaster struck again with a
devastating fire at the factory premises on 11 January 1957, gutting
the machine-room and severely crippling the office premises. What
might have been a lethal blow to the company was mitigated by the
fact that a year earlier the young third generation of the Burns
family had purchased a small printing concern in Arbroath, Central
Printers (Arbroath) Ltd, which had significant space available.
This was acquired temporarily and, together with the goodwill and
help received from competitors, the company retained their staff
on full time until they could be relocated in the new expanded factory
on the original site. In 1967, the death of William Harris, son
of the co-founder, left the company in the hands of the Burns family
and the great-grandchildren of William Burns, one of the founders,
continued to manage the business. In April 1995 Burns & Harris
(Print) Ltd and George E. Findlay & Co. Ltd merged forming the
new company name Burns Harris & Findlay Ltd.
|
|
Volume 3 published 1996
Buy a
copy of the illustrated book?
Download a PDF (8MB)
|
