Scotland’s Printing Industry Heritage

Scot­land’s Print­ing Her­itage pro­motes inter­est in the his­to­ry of the print­ing indus­try, which is one of Scot­land’s old­est and works with insti­tu­tions across Scot­land to ensure that print­ing archives and arte­facts are not lost. It is the pub­lic face of the Scot­tish Print­ing Archival Trust, formed in 1988 to con­serve ‘knowl­edge and exam­ples of Scot­land’s print­ing heritage’.

Our activ­i­ties include exhi­bi­tions (most recent­ly in in the Glas­gow Her­ald’s for­mer print­ing works in 2018), guid­ed walks and train­ing work­shops on tra­di­tion­al let­ter­press skills. We worked with Nation­al Muse­ums Scot­land to ensure that the 1904 ‘Cos­sar Patent Flat Bed Web News­pa­per Print­ing Machine’ from Crieff was not scrapped, and worked with the Nation­al Library of Scot­land and Print Scot­land to cel­e­brate 500 years of print­ing in Scot­land. You can find out more on the Projects page.

Our pub­li­ca­tions on the his­to­ry of the Scot­tish print­ing indus­try are all avail­able through our online shop:

  • four books in the Rep­u­ta­tion for excel­lence series cov­er­ing the print­ing indus­try in towns and cities through­out Scotland
  • Print Trail leaflets for Glas­gow and EdinburghMechanical to digital
  • a poster of Rules for the print­ing shop
  • Mechan­i­cal to Dig­i­tal Print­ing in Scot­land by Prof John Gen­nard, chart­ing the 100 year his­to­ry of the Scot­tish print employ­ers’ organ­i­sa­tion, pub­lished in asso­ci­a­tion with Print Scot­land.

For more infor­ma­tion about our work, con­tact the Hon­orary Sec­re­tary, use the con­tact form or fol­low us on X/Twit­ter.

Mate­r­i­al from this web­site should not be repro­duced with­out permission.

Last updat­ed 16 Feb­ru­ary 2024