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A REPUTATION FOR EXCELLENCE
A History of the Glasgow Printing Industry
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Part Four - Development,
Decline and Development
Twentieth-century
Glasgow saw printing develop along with population growth and the
expansion of the education system. However, constraints due to two
world wars were followed by the re-distribution of housing and population
which declined from over one million to less than three-quarters
of a million by the 1980s.
The industry witnessed the increasing use of hot metal composition
from its experimental stage at the end of the last century to its
virtual extinction through the impact of photo and electronic composition
in the last quarter of this century. Similarly, in the letterpress
field, vast technical improvements have been followed by its almost
complete replacement by litho printing in the late twentieth century.
Those technological changes also had tremendous effects on the number
of employees required to produce print of the highest standards
in full colour. Organised labour too did not escape those changes
and now a single union exists instead of the half dozen or more
earlier this century.
It would appear that at the very beginning of the century the agreement
for net prices for the sale of books was introduced. Robert MacLehose
is given credit for helping to bring in this agreement. It has caused
concern and controversy from time to time, and in mid-1992 the European
Court in Luxembourg ruled that a price fixing agreement operating
between Britain and Ireland was illegal. Nevertheless, the overview
of the industry will show that the city of Glasgow and its surrounding
areas, as the twentieth century draws to a close, includes successful
major printing companies which carry the same name as when they
were founded, almost 200 years ago.
New technology in the printing industry in Glasgow was much in evidence
in the middle of the twentieth century. In 1956 the Corporation
of the City of Glasgow, Printing and Stationery Department, installed
an Intertype Fotosetter Line Composing Machine. This was the first
of its kind in Britain. The Daily Record and Sunday Mail in the
late 1960s moved out to Anderston Quay from its city centre base
in Hope Street and changed (between issues) from hot metal composition
and rotary letterpress printing to photocomposition and capacity
for full-colour litho printing. It is believed this was the first
daily in Britain to use full colour within its newspapers rather
than insetting pre-printed sections.
Scots read more newspapers than any other nationality, and this
is reflected in the large number of dailies and weeklies sold in
and around Glasgow in the twentieth century.
Apart from the popular morning papers, the Herald and the Daily
Record, the city supported three evening newspapers at the end of
the Second World War. The news vendors in the town centre canvassed
pavement sales from the hurrying pedestrians with the familiar call
‘Times, News ‘n’ Citizen’. Between them the
three papers sold more than 500,000 copies to a population then
of about 1,100,000.
The Evening News, printed in Hope Street, died in January 1957 and
the Evening Citizen closed in 1974. The Scottish Daily Express,
from the same stable, moved production to Manchester. The black
glass building on Albion Street built by Beaverbrook in the thirties
is now occupied by the Herald and its sister the Evening Times.
In spite of the electronic media, neighbourhood loyalties today
call for local weeklies in the smaller districts and towns surrounding
Glasgow. The city itself used to have local rags covering every
cardinal point, namely the Southside News, the Eastern Standard,
the Western Pioneer News and, for the north, the Springburn News.
The largest local group based in Glasgow was owned by John Cossar
Ltd who produced three weeklies from their Clydeside factory between
1878 and 1983. Their Govan Press, Clydeside Press and Renfrew Press
were printed on a Cossar flatbed web newspaper printing machine,
which was invented by Thomas Cossar, son of the firm’s founder,
John.
Tom took his blueprints to England at the turn of the century. His
machine combined the simplicity and economy of a flat-bed press
with the speed and convenience of printing on a reel of newsprint.
A flong was not needed, and the paper was printed direct from type.
In its sixty-year career, more than 500 Cossar machines were made,
mainly by the Yorkshire printing engineers, Dawson, Payne &
Elliot. The first Cossar was shipped to New Zealand in 1903, and
the last was made at Otley in 1964. Cossar units could be tandem-linked
to give higher pagination but the basic machine produced 3,600 copies
of a l6pp tabloid per hour. Among its more distinguished jobs were
the printing of the famous Times of Malta and the Parisian Bourse
daily news-sheets.
Some Cossars are still at work in the Third World; the last in Scotland,
in Crieff, was gently consigned to a museum three years ago.
There are many survivors in the weekly newspaper world in or near
Glasgow, and they are still selling strongly against the competition
of the free newspapers such as The Glaswegian. These include The
Bearsden & Milngavie Herald, The Kirkintilloch Herald, The Ruthergien
Reformer, The Airdrie & Coat bridge Advertiser, The Paisley
& Renfrewshire Gazette and the successor to the former Press,
The Clydebank Post.
The developments from the first quarter of the century were for
firms to move out from the city centre to greenfield sites and custom-built
factories. The Glasgow University Printers, Robert MacLehose &
Co., started this at the beginning of the century when they moved
to a new factory at Anniesland in 1904. When it was opened two new
streets were formed beside the new works by courtesy of Glasgow
Corporation. They were called Foulis Street and Caxton Street. The
firm ceased to trade in the late 1970s but the fine red brick building
then became part of the optical engineering firm of Barr & Stroud.
In 1993 it was demolished to make way for a huge shopping complex.
In 1925 Blackie & Son purchased a site at Bishopbriggs and built
a fine single-storey factory. They retained the name of ‘Villafield’,
and by 1928 had transferred their binding department; the printing
department completed the move in July 1931. When Walter W. Blackie
died in 1953 this ended the family name as chairman. In 1966, agreement
was reached to sell the Villafield works and some of the equipment
to William Collins Sons & Co. In October 1966 some presses were
in operation at Villafield with the entire Collins production plant
transferred from Cathedral Street the following year. Blackie &
Son reverted to publishing only and remained at Bishopbriggs until
their demise in 1992.
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Volume 2 published 1994
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