Projects

Dur­ing its 30-year exis­tence, the Trust has pro­mot­ed projects relat­ed to the his­to­ry and her­itage of the print­ing indus­try in Scotland.

Printing Walks

The Trust arranges guid­ed walks, based on the Edin­burgh and Glas­gow Print Trail leaflets, often in asso­ci­a­tion with oth­er organ­i­sa­tions such as the Edin­burgh Bib­li­o­graph­i­cal Soci­ety, Doors Open Days and the Scot­tish Local His­to­ry Forum.

You can see some pic­tures from these walks at this link.

Exhibition on printing — More than just books

In Novem­ber and Decem­ber 2018, to mark the 30th anniver­sary of its estab­lish­ment, a free exhi­bi­tion on the her­itage of Scotland’s print­ing indus­try took place in the Glas­gow Her­ald’s for­mer print­ing works, now the Light­house, Mitchell Lane, Glas­gow. The exhi­bi­tion traced the evo­lu­tion of print­ing process­es, and looked at the growth and devel­op­ment of the print­ing indus­try and its organ­i­sa­tions in the City of Glasgow.

A Glas­gow Print Trail leaflet was also pub­lished in 2018 and is avail­able through our online shop.

Traditional skills workshops

The Trust also pro­motes train­ing in tra­di­tion­al let­ter­press skills, for exam­ple at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Stir­ling. The nine­teenth cen­tu­ry Columbian print­ing press in the Path­foot build­ing has been restored to work­ing order, and was on dis­play at the March 2017 open day cel­e­brat­ing the uni­ver­si­ty’s 50th anniver­sary. It con­tin­ues in use as the Path­foot Press.

The Cossar Press

The ‘Cos­sar Patent Flat Bed Web News­pa­per Print­ing Machine’ was devel­oped by Tom Cos­sar of the Clyde­bank firm, John Cos­sar Ltd. In March 2012, the Cos­sar print­ing machine was removed from the premis­es of David Philips Print­ers where it had print­ed the Strat­hearn Her­ald every week from its instal­la­tion in 1907 until 28 March 1991.

The 1907 Crieff Cos­sar was rebuilt and restored to work­ing order while in stor­age in Gov­an, near its inven­tor’s child­hood home. In April 2019 it moved once more, to Nation­al Muse­ums Scot­land’s Col­lec­tion Cen­tre in Edin­burgh. You can watch a clip of its last run, and read more about the back­ground and his­to­ry of this press on the project page. The project received gen­er­ous sup­port from the Nation­al Print­ing Her­itage Trust, the Scot­tish News­pa­per Soci­ety, Unite the Union and the Oxford Guild of Print­ers as well as indi­vid­ual donors. A 1907 Cos­sar Club was set up to bring togeth­er any­one with in inter­est in this machine.

Centenary history of the Scottish print employers

In 2010, the Trust, in asso­ci­a­tion with Graph­ic Enter­prise Scot­land, now Print Scot­land, pub­lished Mechan­i­cal to dig­i­tal print­ing in Scot­land: the employ­ers’ organ­isaton by Pro­fes­sor John Gen­nard, chart­ing the 100 year his­tory of the Scot­tish print employ­ers’ organisation.

You can buy this title, and all Trust pub­li­ca­tions through our online shop.

500 years of printing in Scotland

The Trust’s pre­vi­ous major project, in asso­ci­a­tion with the Nation­al Library of Scot­land and the Scot­tish Print Employ­ers Fed­er­a­tion (now Print Scot­land), was the cel­e­bra­tion of the 500th anniver­sary of the intro­duc­tion of print­ing to Scot­land which began in 2007. Through­out 2008 insti­tu­tions and organ­i­sa­tions through­out Scot­land marked Scot­land’s Year of the Print­ed Word.

On 15 Sep­tem­ber 1507, James IV of Scot­land grant­ed Wal­ter Chep­man, an Edin­burgh mer­chant, and his busi­ness part­ner Androw Myl­lar, a book­seller, the first roy­al licence for print­ing in Scot­land. Although the licence was actu­al­ly grant­ed to enable the print­ing of the Aberdeen bre­viary, a book of Scot­tish church prac­tices and the lives of local saints, com­plied by William Elphin­stone, Bish­op of Aberdeen, The Com­plaint of the Black Knight by John Lydgate, is the first known work from the press set up by Chep­man and Myl­lar, print­ed on 4 April 1508 near what is now Edin­burgh’s Cow­gate. Print­ing spread grad­u­al­ly through Scot­land, with a press estab­lished in St Andrews in 1552, a short-lived one in Stir­ling in 1571 and in Aberdeen in 1622, with oth­er major towns such as Glas­gow fol­low­ing lat­er in the sev­en­teenth century.

There is record of the exhi­bi­tions and events which took place through­out Scot­land on the project pages on this website

Earlier projects

These include:
— research and pub­li­ca­tion on the local his­to­ry of the print­ing indus­try in Scot­land, result­ing in the Rep­u­ta­tion for Excel­lence series of books, avail­able in our online shop.
— co-oper­a­tion with the SAPPHIRE project team at Edin­burgh Napi­er Uni­ver­si­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly on the project to record the rem­i­nis­cences of work­ers from Thomas Nel­son & Sons Spread­ing the print­ed word.

For more infor­ma­tion about the Trust’s work con­tact the Sec­re­tary.