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.

OTD 11 August 1711

Robert Free­bairn was appoint­ed Print­er to the Queen for Scot­land on 11 August 1711 in Edin­burgh. He lat­er print­ed for the ‘Pre­tender’s Army’ at Perth in 1715.

OTD 8 August 1857

On 8 August 1857, there was a major fire in James’s Court, off the Lawn­mar­ket in Edin­burgh’s Old Town, in which the print­ing works of H & J Pil­lans was destroyed.

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 […]