|
|
A REPUTATION FOR EXCELLENCE
A History of the Edinburgh Printing Industry
1 2
3
4
5
6
7
8 9
10
11 12
13
14 15
16
17
18
19 2021
Part Two
Chequered Careers
The latter part of the seventeenth century is dominated by one family:
the Andersons. Andro Anderson (whose father had introduced printing
to Glasgow in 1638) was made King’s Printer by Charles II.
However, he printed few works and, when he died in 1676 his wife
Agnes (who reverted to her maiden name of Campbell) took over the
business, the title and the monopoly which went with it. Inheriting
little else but debts from her husband she pursued the monopoly
ruthlessly, prosecuting any who dared print without her permission.
Her domination of the printing indus-try in Scotland lasted for
forty years, punctuated by legal disputes, appeals, allegations
of bad workshop practice and condemnations of the atrocious quality
of her work.
Her Bibles came in for especially heavy criticism, containing errors
such as ‘he killed’ for ‘he is killed’, ‘longed’
for ‘lodged’, ‘covereth the sinner’ for ‘cônverteth
the sinner’ and ‘his eyes’ for ‘his ears’.
In one edition an italic ‘a’ was used 700 times in five
columns when its Roman equivalent was used up in the fount of type4.
As James Watson, her most tenacious opponent, put it: ‘nothing
was study’d but gaining of money by printing of Bibles at any
rate; which she knew none other durst do, and that nobody could
want them’5. This being taken into account and not withstanding
the atrocious quality of her work (which was in many cases only
slightly worse than the generally bad printing of the time), her
financial achievement was remarkable. Having inherited debts of
£745 18s. 8d. from her husband she left a legacy of £78,196
10s. 6d. upon her death in 1716.
Agnes Campbell’s’ reign of terror’ over the Scottish
printing trade was brought to a close in 1711 when, upon the expiry
of her patent, successful applica-tion was made for it by James
Watson and Robert Freebairn, both Edinburgh printers.
|
|
Volume 1, published 1990
Buy a copy of the illustrated book?
Download a PDF (6MB)
|
