OTD 19 January 1757

Thomas Rud­di­man was born near Banff in 1674, son of a farmer, and was edu­cat­ed at the local gram­mar school and at Aberdeen Uni­ver­si­ty. After a peri­od as a pri­vate tutor, and as the school­mas­ter at Lau­rencekirk, he moved to Edin­burgh in 1700 to become the assis­tant librar­i­an at the Fac­ul­ty of Advo­cates. He was […]

OTD 15 January 1826

James Bal­lan­tyne found­ed his print­ing firm in Kel­so in 1796. Archibald Con­sta­ble, Scot­t’s pub­lish­er, com­mis­sioned Bal­lan­tyne to print his Min­strel­sy of the Scot­tish Bor­der, which led to the fir­m’s move to Edin­burgh in 1802. After set­ting up near Holy­rood, they moved to Foulis Close in the Canon­gate before set­tling in Paul’s Work, north back of […]

OTD 28 December 1804

On 28 Decem­ber 1804 Alexan­der Kei­th John­ston, of the Edin­burgh map-print­­ing firm, W & A K John­ston, was born.

OTD 19 December 1904

On 19 Decem­ber 1904 the Scots­man and the Edin­burgh Evening Dis­patch moved from Cock­burn Street to new­ly built premis­es on North Bridge, now the Scots­man Hotel.

OTD 11 December 1862

Edward Clark, son of Robert Clark of the Edin­burgh print­ing firm R & R Clark, was born on 11 Decem­ber 1862. On his death in 1926, he left funds to sup­port the teach­ing of print­ing in Edin­burgh, includ­ing fund­ing a col­lec­tion of books for the use of the stu­dents. The Edward Clark Col­lec­tion is in […]

OTD 7 December 1749

Patrick Neill found­ed the com­pa­ny which was to become Neill & Co on 7 Decem­ber 1749 in Edin­burgh. It occu­pied premis­es in Old Fish­mar­ket Close off the High Street for many years.

OTD 6 December 1752

The Edin­burgh sta­tionery and print­ing firm of George Water­ston & Sons was estab­lished on 6 Decem­ber 1752. Orig­i­nal­ly seal­ing wax man­u­fac­tur­ers, the com­pa­ny soon moved into sta­tionery production .

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 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.