|
|
A REPUTATION FOR EXCELLENCE
A History of the Glasgow Printing Industry
1 2
3
4
5
6
7
8 9
10
11 12
13
14 15
16
17
18
19 2021
A Late Start
Despite having a university and being an ancient Episcopal see,
Glasgow in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was a comparatively
small place, little more than what would now be regarded as a large
village. It is understandable, therefore, that the art of printing
had been practised in Scotland for 130 years before a press was
set up in the city. In addition to Edinburgh, where printing was
first practised in Scotland, Stirling, St Andrews, Dundee and Aberdeen
all had presses in operation long before George Anderson was invited
by the magistrates to transfer from Edinburgh to Glasgow in the
year 1638.
It is generally assumed that Anderson was brought to Glasgow in
order to print The Protestation of the General Assemblie of the
Church of Scotland... made in the high kirk, and at the Mercate
Crosse of Glasgow, the 28 and 29 of November 1638 but, while this
was the first book to be printed in the city, there is sufficient
evidence to show that the invitation was extended to Anderson some
months before the King’s proclamation summoning the church
court to meet in Glasgow was formally made in September 1638.
George Anderson printed in Glasgow until his death in 1647. He was
succeeded briefly by his wife and children, the ‘Heirs of George
Anderson’, but they returned to Edinburgh in 1649. For eight
years Glasgow was without a printer but, at the end of 1656, the
town council directed a letter to be sent to Andrew Anderson offering
the terms that they were ‘wont of old to pay his deceist fader’.2
He came to Glasgow in 1657 and remained there for four years before
returning to Edinburgh, there ‘to exercise a malignant power
over the craft in Scotland, and to raise even a dead hand against
his successor in Glasgow’.
Four months after the return of Andrew Anderson to Edinburgh the
Town Council of Glasgow agreed to grant to Robert Sanders for ‘his
better encouragement to hold up his prenting house heir the soume
of fortie punds yearlie so long as he keips up his prenting press
within this burgh and he to prent gratis anything short the toune
shall imploy him to prent’.4 The terms of the appointment imply
that Sanders was in business before Anderson left and, indeed, the
granting of municipal patronage to Sanders may have induced his
departure. This implication is supported by the fact that, while
the grant to assist Anderson in his flitting, was made on 18 May
1661, a warrant was granted to the town treasurer earlier, on 20
April, ‘for the sum of £20 Scots disburst by him to Robert
Sanders for printing of the preaching was preached by Mr Hugh Blair
before the Parliament’.
From the time of his appointment until 1672 Sanders described himself
as ‘The Town’s Printer’. In that year, however, he
began to describe himself as ‘Printer to the City and University’.
This form he continued to use until about 1684 when he figures as
‘one of His Majestie’s Printers’, a description which
appears in the imprints of his books, and afterwards those of his
son, until about 1713. The assumption of this title led Sanders,
and a number of Edinburgh printers who similarly described themselves,
into lengthy and bitter litigation with Andrew Anderson, who claimed
the sole use of the title to himself.
Robert Sanders printed in Glasgow until his death in 1694 when he
was succeeded by his son Robert Sanders the younger, also known
as Robert Sanders of Auldhouse, from the name of a small estate
purchased by his father some years earlier. To judge by the number
of his works which have survived, the younger Sanders was not a
particularly active printer and the standard of his work was, on
the whole, poor. The University appears to have found him to be
unsatisfactory for although he continued in business until his death
in 1730 he apparently did not print for the University after 1707.
|
|
Volume 2 published 1994
Buy a
copy of the illustrated book?
Download a PDF (9.9MB)
|
