OTD 30 July 1938

The first edi­tion of the Beano was pub­lished on 30 July 1938, by D C Thom­son of Dundee.

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 […]

OTD 11 June 1825

11 June 1825 The first issue of The Glas­gow Look­ing Glass was pub­lished by John Wat­son in Glas­gow. It pio­neered the use of the rel­a­tive­ly  new lith­o­graph­ic print­ing process, and has been described as the world’s first comic.

Robert Smail’s Printing Works opening 2024

The Nation­al Trust for Scot­land’s Robert Smail’s Print­ing Works opens for the sea­son on 29 March 2024. For full details of open­ing times and how to get there see the NTS website.

Unfinished business’: Print Networks 2024

This year’s Print Net­works con­fer­ence, Unfin­ished Busi­ness: Progress, Sta­sis and New Direc­tions in the study of the Book Trade since Peter Isaac, will be held at New­cas­tle Uni­ver­si­ty on 9–10 July 2024. Details of the call for papers are on the Cen­tre for Print­ing His­to­ry and Cul­ture web­site. Please sub­mit abstracts of 200–250 words by February […]

Printing Historical Society grants 2024

The Print­ing His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety is cur­rent­ly invit­ing appli­ca­tions for research grants under their annu­al grant scheme. The total amount avail­able this year is £3,000, and the dead­line for sub­mis­sions is Fri­day 22 March 2024. Eli­gi­bil­i­ty and appli­ca­tion details are on the Soci­ety’s Grants page.

Conference on printing by subscription

Book­ing is now open for Pre-paid Print­ing: a con­fer­ence organ­ised by the Baskerville Soci­ety on the role of pri­vate funds and pub­lic sub­scribers in the issu­ing and cir­cu­la­tion of print­ed mat­ter, to be held at Win­ter­bourne House and Gar­den at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Birm­ing­ham on Sep­tem­ber 14 and 15, 2023. For more details see the […]

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 […]

Print Networks 2023

The annu­al Print Net­works / CPHC Sym­po­sium takes place in part­ner­ship with St Bride Library in Lon­don on 19 July 2023 The theme this year is ‘Print net­works between Lon­don and the regions, look­ing at looks at phys­i­cal and metaphor­i­cal book trade con­nec­tions between Lon­don and the regions from the ear­ly mod­ern to the present. […]

Edinburgh Printmakers’ Family Print Club session on letterpress

The Edin­burgh Print­mak­ers Fam­i­ly Print Club ses­sion on 25 June is on let­ter­press print­ing and sim­ple book­mak­ing. For more details and how to book, see the Edin­burgh Print­mak­ers website.