Robert Foulis was born on 20 April 1707. He and his brother Andrew established the Foulis Press, printer to the University of Glasgow, which was known for the high quality of its output .
Tags: Glasgow | on this day | printers
On This Day
OTD 10 April 1878
The printing works of Thomas Nelson & Sons at Hope Park Crescent was destroyed by fire on the night of 10 April 1878. The firm were allowed to set up temporary works on the Meadows which their new factory at Parkside was being built. Columns at the east end of Melville Drive were erected by the company to thank the City of Edinburgh for their support.
OTD 4 April 1508
Scotland’s first printers, Walter Chepman and Andro Myllar, completed printing John Lydgate’s poem The Complaint of the Black Knight, at their press in Edinburgh’s Old Town.
Tags: Edinburgh | on this day | printers
OTD 5 March 1822
The Society of Bookbinders in Edinburgh was formed in 1814, as a relief society for sick and unemployed members. On 5 March 1822 the name changed to the Union Society of Edinburgh Journeyman Bookbinders. The Society continued for 50 years, remaining independent of the Bookbinders’ Consolidated Union until September 1872 when the two organisations amalgamated to form the local branch of the Bookbinders and Machine Rulers’ Consolidated Union.
Tags: bookbinding | on this day | unions
OTD 28 February 1803
Memorial of the Edinburgh Compositors to the Court of Session. This was a request from the compositors of Edinburgh that they be allowed to convene a meeting: the Combination Acts were in force at the time, preventing workmen from acting together to improve their conditions. Permission was granted and a request for an increase in wages, which had remained static since 1792, was passed to the employers who refused to grant it. A legal case followed, with the decision initially given in favour of the employers, but on appeal to the Court of Session, this 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.
Tags: Edinburgh | on this day | printers
OTD 25 January 1817
The first ever edition of The Scotsman, or Edinburgh Political and Literary Journal was produced on Saturday, January 25 1817, from premises in Edinburgh’s High Street. It was originally published weekly, and became a daily newspaper in 1850. The proprietors announced that their ‘first desire is to be honest, the second is to be useful’.
Tags: Edinburgh | newspapers | on this day
OTD 22 January 1935
The Edward Clark Wing of Heriot-Watt College was officially opened by the Secretary of State for Scotland, Sir Godfrey Collins (of the Glasgow printing firm) on 22 January 1935. It had been newly refurbished with up-to-date equipment for training apprentice printers under the terms of Edward Clark’s will.
OTD 19 January 1757
Thomas Ruddiman was born near Banff in 1674, son of a farmer, and was educated at the local grammar school and at Aberdeen University. After a period as a private tutor, and as the schoolmaster at Laurencekirk, he moved to Edinburgh in 1700 to become the assistant librarian at the Faculty of Advocates. He was a keen scholar, and began to proofread for local publishers, and his own scholarly editions of earlier works were published. His most famous work, Rudiments of the Latin Tongue was first published in 1714 and ran to 15 editions.
The following year, Thomas and his brother Walter, who had been trained as a printer, went into business together. From 1724 the Ruddimans took over the printing of The Caledonian Mercury, acquiring ownership of the title in 1729. In 1718, Thomas Ruddiman took an active part in forming a literary society and in 1728 he was appointed printer to the College of Edinburgh. Two years later he became Keeper of the Advocates’ Library: he remained in post despite Jacobite sympathies until 1752, when his sight began to fail. He died on 19 January 1757, and is buried in Greyfriars Churchyard, where there is a memorial tablet.
Tags: Edinburgh | on this day | printers
OTD 15 January 1826
James Ballantyne founded his printing firm in Kelso in 1796. Archibald Constable, Scott’s publisher, commissioned Ballantyne to print his Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, which led to the firm’s move to Edinburgh in 1802. After setting up near Holyrood, they moved to Foulis Close in the Canongate before settling in Paul’s Work, north back of Canongate, at the foot of Calton Hill.
Ballantyne’s had a good reputation for high quality work and combined this with a very large output of books: Scott’s Waverley was a great success and brought the Paul’s Work plant to capacity production. The relationship between Ballantyne, Scott and Constable was too close, however, and when Constable’s collapsed in 1826 both James Ballantyne and Scott were also bankrupted.
Tags: Edinburgh | on this day | printers
OTD 28 December 1804
On 28 December 1804 Alexander Keith Johnston, of the Edinburgh map-printing firm, W & A K Johnston, was born.
