OTD 30 October 1577

30 October 1577 Thomas Bassendyne died in Edinburgh on 30 October 1577. Together with Alexander Arbuthnot, he printed the first translation of the Bible in Scotland, known as the Bassendyne Bible. The New Testament, printed by Bassendyne, was completed first, and the Bible as a whole is known as the Bassendyne Bible.

OTD 19 October 1749

William Ged died in Edinburgh on 19 October 1749. He had trained as a goldsmith, but pioneered a system of stereotyping, though he was unsuccessful in persuading printers to adopt it. It became a standard process early in the 19th century. 

OTD 12 October 1789

William Collins, founder of the Glasgow printing and publishing house, was born.

OTD 15 September 1507

On 15 September 1507 James IV granted Walter Chepman and Andro Myllar a licence to set up a printing press in Edinburgh.

OTD 29 August 1553

John Scot completed the printing of the Catechism on 29 August 1553. It was the first book to be printed in St Andrews.

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.

OTD 6 July 1907

On 6 July 1907 the Strathearn Herald in Crieff was printed for the first time on the newly-installed Cossar Patent Flat Bed Web Newspaper Printing Machine. The installation had been supervised by its inventor, Tom Cossar of Govan, and it produced every issue until its final run on 28 March 1991. This machine is now […]

Talk by Helen Williams

As part of the National Trust for Scotland’s Gladstone’s Land Lecture Series, the Trust’s Honorary Secretary, Helen S Williams will be giving a talk on August 31 on Edinburgh’s Print Workers and their Organisations. Printers had a tradition of collective organisation: the typographical societies, which later became the print unions, operated as welfare organisations for […]