Scotland’s Printing Industry Heritage

The Scot­tish Print­ing Archival Trust was formed in 1988 to con­serve ‘knowl­edge and exam­ples of Scot­land’s print­ing her­itage for the ben­e­fit of the pub­lic and print/media education’.

It pro­motes inter­est in the his­to­ry of the Scot­tish print­ing indus­try, which is one of Scot­land’s old­est. The Trust also col­lects print trade ephemera, and works with insti­tu­tions across Scot­land to ensure that print­ing archives and arte­facts are not lost.

Publications

The Trust’s books on the Scot­tish print­ing indus­try include Mechan­i­cal to Dig­i­tal Print­ing in Scot­land by the late Pro­fes­sor John Gen­nard, chart­ing the 100 year his­to­ry of the Scot­tish print employ­ers’ organ­i­sa­tion, pub­lished in asso­ci­a­tion with Print Scot­land (for­mer­ly Graph­ic Enter­prise Scotland).

The Trust has also four books in the Rep­u­ta­tion for excel­lence series of books on local print­ing indus­tries in Scot­land, a Glas­gow Print Trail leaflet, and a poster of Rules for the print­ing shop. The Edin­burgh Print Trail is now out of print, but a new edi­tion will be com­ing soon.

You can buy all our pub­li­ca­tions through our online shop.

Events & Activities

2018 was the 30th anniver­sary of the Trust’s foun­da­tion. To mark the occa­sion the Trust arranged an exhi­bi­tion on the her­itage of Scot­land’s print­ing indus­try in the Glas­gow Her­ald’s for­mer print­ing works, the Light­house.

Oth­er activ­i­ties, under­tak­en with the gen­er­ous spon­sor­ship of the John Wat­son Foun­da­tion, have includ­ed guid­ed walks and train­ing work­shops on tra­di­tion­al let­ter­press skills. You can find out more on our Projects page.

For more infor­ma­tion about any aspect of the Trust’s work, please con­tact the Hon­orary Sec­re­tary, use the con­tact form or fol­low us on Twit­ter.

Mate­r­i­al from this web­site should not be repro­duced with­out permission.