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A REPUTATION FOR EXCELLENCE
A History of the Edinburgh Printing Industry
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Inasmuch
as the nineteenth century was the era of industrialisation it was
also the era which saw the introduction of industrial relations
as we know them.
Traditionally, workshops had been organised into ‘chapels’,
involving both masters and men, which regulated the internal affairs
of the shop and raised funds to cover special occasions, sickness
and misfortune. Increasing size of workplace, unavoidably, began
the separation of masters and men. By the time of the Combination
Acts (1799 and 1800), which proscribed trade unions, this process
was well established and printers, amongst others, resorted to the
‘Friendly Society’ and met semi-formally in ale-houses
in order to maintain their organisations.
It was from this sort of organisation that the first major dispute
in Edinburgh’s printing history arose. In 1803 the compositors
of Edinburgh submitted a request to the sheriff that they be allowed
to convene a meeting of the craft. Their grievance was that, although
trade was flourishing prices were steadily rising and wages had
remained static since 1792. Permission was granted and a request
for an increase in wages was passed to the employers. When this
initial request was refused the case was. .taken to law and a decision
returned against the compositors. However, on appeal to the Court
of Session, this decision was reversed and an Interlocutor was issued
which, as well as awarding the case to the compositors, gave the
new scale of prices the force of law.
This ensured some years of calm but the economic turmoil which followed
the Napoleonic War meant that the new scale of wages became quickly
out-dated by events. Aided by the repeal of the Combination Acts
in 1824, the process of unionisa-tion continued and, in 1836, the
General Typographical Association of Scotland was formed. It was
concerned mainly with the regulation of prices and with controlling
the number of apprentices. It found itself strained by the large
number of small strikes which the latter issue provoked and so,
in 1844, it became the Northern District of the National Typographical
Association (a British organisation).
Soon after this the Northern District Board found itself with an
adversary. Alarmed by the growth of trade unionism, the printing
employers of Edinburgh formed themselves into an organisation, the
Master Printers Association, to defend their own interests. In October
1846, they issued a three-part resolution:
1 That no journeyman shall be taken into employ-ment who either
leaves or threatens to leave his employer on ‘strike’.
2 No journeyman shall be taken into employment without producing
a certificate from his last employer.
3 That in all cases Masters shall prefer Non-Unionists to Unionists.
The new union could not allow such an obvious and dangerous blow
to pass unchallenged. The bitter dispute which followed lasted a
year and ended with the demise of the Northern District Board of
the National Typographical Association.
The late forties were years of deep economic depression and this
made the revival of the union much more difficult Nonetheless, this
was slowly accomplished and the Edinburgh Typographical Society
rose from the ruins of the Northern District Board. In December
of 1851 the Edinburgh Typographical Society gave its approval to
a proposed amalgamation of all Scottish printing societies and the
Scottish Typographical Association eventually came into being on
1st January 1853. The introduction of new technology into the printing
industry was a relatively smooth and gradual process. Steam presses
became a feature of the workshop as early as 1815 while the much
more complicated composing and distributing machines were not to
arrive until the last three decades of the century. Their arrival
had long been foreseen and the objection raised was not against
their use but against the employment of unskilled hands to operate
them.
Thus when the last great dispute of the nineteenth century arrived
in 1872 it was not the encroach-ment of new technology which gave
rise to it but the desire among the men to reduce their hours to
51 per week and to secure a rise of 1/2d. per 1000 ens on piece
rates of pay.
The employers acted en masse, as the Master Printers Association,
in refusing these demands and 750 men came out on strike. Four months
later it was found that these places had almost all been filled
by non-union men, women and children. The strike was ended. Almost
all of the strikers were re-employed and the main significance of
the dispute was that for the first time women compositors were trained
and employed by the major firms.
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Volume 1, published 1990
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