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
4 April 2025 by
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
28 February 2025 by
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
25 January 2025 by
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
22 January 2025 by
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
19 January 2025 by
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
15 January 2025 by
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 […]
OTD 28 December 1804
28 December 2024 by
On 28 December 1804 Alexander Keith Johnston, of the Edinburgh map-printing firm, W & A K Johnston, was born.
OTD 19 December 1904
19 December 2024 by
On 19 December 1904 the Scotsman and the Edinburgh Evening Dispatch moved from Cockburn Street to newly built premises on North Bridge, now the Scotsman Hotel.
OTD 11 December 1862
11 December 2024 by
Edward Clark, son of Robert Clark of the Edinburgh printing firm R & R Clark, was born on 11 December 1862. On his death in 1926, he left funds to support the teaching of printing in Edinburgh, including funding a collection of books for the use of the students. The Edward Clark Collection is in […]
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