Reputation for Excellence: Edinburgh

A his­tory of the Edinburgh print­ing industry, the first book in this series of local his­tor­ies of the Scottish print­ing industry, gives a brief account of the advent of print­ing to Scotland. It is known that a patent was gran­ted by King James IV in September 1507 to Walter Chepman and Androw Myllar. The part­ner­ship set up busi­ness in the Southgait (Cowgate) of Edinburgh. From that time until the end of the sev­en­teenth cen­tury royal pat­ents were issued to the trade, thus con­fin­ing print­ing to a select number.

The intro­duc­tion of print­ing presses to Scotland pro­ceeded slowly. The begin­nings in Edinburgh in 1507 were fol­lowed after forty-five years by St Andrews in 1552, Stirling in 1571 (for a brief period), Aberdeen in 1622 and Glasgow in 1638.

The three earlier books in this series give accounts of the his­tory of print­ing in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Dundee and Perth. The fourth endeav­ours to cover a much wider area: the first part deals with the his­tory of print­ing in Aberdeen, while the second part covers the Northern Counties.