OTD 11 August 1711

Robert Free­bairn was appoint­ed Print­er to the Queen for Scot­land on 11 August 1711 in Edin­burgh. He lat­er print­ed for the ‘Pre­tender’s Army’ at Perth in 1715.

OTD 8 August 1857

On 8 August 1857, there was a major fire in James’s Court, off the Lawn­mar­ket in Edin­burgh’s Old Town, in which the print­ing works of H & J Pil­lans was destroyed.

Bookings for Doors Open Day 2025 walks

If you would like to book for the Doors Open Day walk in Glas­gow on 18 Sep­tem­ber, please use this link: Glas­gow in Print If you would like to book for the Doors Open Day walk in Edin­burgh on 28 Sep­tem­ber, please use this link: Edin­burgh in Print

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 […]

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.

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 […]

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’.

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 […]

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 […]