Site Index
Britain in Print home , Graphics version , Partners , Learning Zone ,
Timelines , Introduction to print , , Help Index

Introduction, Early History of Printing , Printing in Europe , The Spread of Print , Printing in England ,
Printing in Scotland , Later Printing , Illustration , Type faces , Gothic or Black Letter , Roman , Italic ,
Paper , Paper Manufacture

Printing in Scotland

Printing did not arrive in Scotland until 1508, when Walter Chepman and Androw Myllar set up a press in Southgait Street (now part of the Cowgate) in Edinburgh, having been granted a licence to do so by King James IV the previous year. Myllar, who had previously been a bookseller, trained as a printer in France. His business partner, Edinburgh merchant Walter Chepman, provided the funding to set up the press, the purpose of which was primarily to print books for government and church use.

The earliest items printed by Chepman and Myllar to have survived are vernacular poetic texts, now known as the 'Chepman and Myllar Prints,' which include Blind Harry's Wallace and poems by Robert Henryson, John Lydgate and William Dunbar. These publications have survived only as fragments, and may have been originally printed as separate items or possibly as test pieces. As in other countries vernacular literature was not commonly printed during this period. The rarity of the 'Chepman and Myllar Prints' probably indicates that very few were printed.

The press of Chepman and Myllar closed in 1510 and there was little printing in Scotland for the next 20 years.

back to top