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Scottish Newspapers
& Publishing
Borthwick Connections?
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William Murray
Borthwick (1782-1866) was a "journalist", and a printer
and publisher of books, poetry and newspapers in Scotland, at least between
1814 and 1823. Algernon Borthwick, Lord Glenesk, whose father began the
London Morning Post in ???, is said to have been a cousin of our
Borthwick family. Research into printing, publishing and newspapers has
led me to collect a lot of background information, some of which I'll
post here. My research has of course focused mainly on the Borthwick connections
& that will be the theme running through this page. More detailed
information about William Murray Borthwick's own career and business adventures
can be found on the page devoted to him (see link above). A short explanation
of his newspaper/printing connections is included below.
There are many wonderful sites on the internet
for research into newspapers and the printing industry. The British Library
catalogue is searchable online, as are catalogues of many English &
Scottish universities. Some sites concentrate on the history of particular
newspapers or journals, and some have digitised materials on line for
all to explore. The Cambridge
History of English and American Literature: An Encyclopedia in Eighteen
Volumes, available online, is a treasure trove
of material. Another key resource for any research in this area is the
Scottish Book Trade Index created by the National Library of Scotland.
Links to some of these sites can be found below.
Just a few searches on the
internet will demonstrate that I have merely dipped into tiny parts of
this enormous topic during my own research. I have focussed on the newspapers/journals
that my own ancestor was connected with but will add much more to this
page. If you are aware of errors I have made here, or would like to add
any information, please email
me.
My great-great-great-grandfather William Murray
Borthwick is said to have been employed by The Scotsman before
coming to Australia. If this is true he would have been employed there
some time between 1822 and 1834. He owned and published newspapers in
Lanarkshire prior to 1822 and I have quite a lot of information about
that period. In 1822 he was publisher of the Glasgow Sentinel but
as a result of a disagreement with his partner and libellous articles
(which led to the death of Sir Alexander Boswell in a duel) William Murray
Borthwick left that enterprise. It seems that in about 1823 he and his
family moved to Edinburgh where he was first a printer and then a spirit
dealer. Possibly also a coach proprietor in 1828/29.
I have been unable to trace him with certainty
after 1826. Did he go back into newspapers before leaving Scotland (via
Liverpool on the "Lady East") in June
1833?
That is the background to my interest in the
following bits and pieces about newspapers and publishing. I hope they
are also of some assistance to other researchers.
It seems that WMB may have assisted with
a column in a London periodical called 'The Star'. I know very little
about this at the moment. Aside from research in London libraries I'm
told that there may be information in the Mitchell Library , Glasgow Collingdale
Newspaper Library, or a publication called the Waterloo Index to Victorian
Periodicals.
The Glasgow Library catalogue includes the
following:
Title The Star Tuesday, January 14th, 1806
Publ. info. London, 1806
LOCATION CALL NO. STATUS Level 12 Spec Coll Sp Coll T.C.L. f178 REFERENCE
ONLY
Phys. descr fol Contents Contains a column about Lord Nelson's funeral,
also a note of the contribution of Glasgow churches to the Patriotic Fund
in celebration of the victory of Trafalgar, 21st October, 1805
Subject Nelson Horatio Nelson Viscount 1758-1805 Trafalgar, Battle of,
1805 Gul class Sp Coll T.C.L. f178
"William Murray Borthwick, printer &
publisher", is recorded from 1818 to 1820 as being at Castlegate,
in the town of Lanark, which is in the county of Lanarkshire, Scotland.
In 1818, William Murray Borthwick commenced publication of a cheap, octavo-size,
monthly magazine called The Clydesdale Magazine. This was a new
business venture in the town, although there had been publishers there
at one time during the previous century. Further information about this
venture, which was not successful, can be found on the WMB
page.
From 1819 to 1821 William Murray Borthwick,
printer & publisher, is recorded as having a business address of "Robert
Alexander & W.M. Borthwick, Clydesdale Journal Office, Hamilton".
Hamilton is also in the county of Lanarkshire, just a few miles from Glasgow.
It seems that on the failure of The Clydesdale Magazine WMB moved
his business to Hamilton where he commenced, in February 1820, The
Clydesdale Journal. He described it as "a loyal weekly paper".
Among other things, the Journal did not support the reform of Parliament
being called for at that time by discontented Scotsmen. At
this time, no doubt because of his financial difficulties, WMB took in
a partner, Robert Alexander, who was to pay for his share in "instalments"
. Further information about this ill-fated partnership can also be found
on the WMB
page.
The Concise History of the British Newspaper
in the Nineteenth Century indicates that the Scotsman was launched
on 25 January 1817. The principal founder was John McLaren .... In written
histories of the Scotsman William Murray Borthwick is not mentioned amongst
the founders of that newspaper (six people).
The Scotsman was a daily newspaper and went
through a number of name changes:
The Scotsman or Edinburgh political
and literary journal 1817-1853
The Daily Scotsman 1855-1860
The Scotsman 1860-
The Scotsman newspaper is housed at a prestigious
Holyrood Road address in Edinburgh.
I've written to the Scotsman itself but have
been advised that there are absolutely no records for these early years.
If any reader knows of secondary records for employees, journalists, writers,
editors or printers of The Scotsman between 1817 and 1833 I would be delighted
to hear of them.
There is a good deal of information about
this newspaper, commenced by Robert Alexander & William Murray Borthwick
in 1821, on the WMB
pages. William Murray Borthwick sold his share of the enterprise
to Alexander but was involved in civil court proceedings to recover the
money owing to him. It seems that when Alexander ceased publication in
1823 the Sentinel went out of circulation altogether until a new newspaper
with the same name was commenced in the late 1800s. The National Library
of Scotland catalogue includes:
Glasgow Sentinel
Place Glasgow; Strathclyde; Scotland
Main title Glasgow Sentinel
Numbers no.1-68
Dates 10 Oct.1821 - 22 Jan.1823
Edinburgh
Newspapers or "Broadsheets"
William Murray Borthwick is said to have published
newspapers - or perhaps "broadsheets" - in Edinburgh after 1822 and before
1833.
William Murray Borthwick, with
two cousins, had been editing a paper in Edinburgh before leaving for
Australia. From the stories that have been handed down to us, these Borthwicks
has very decided views on the political situation obtaining in Great Britain
at that time. It was their custom to print all news and advertisements
of an innocuous character in the ordinary way, but a second sheet, giving
heated criticisms of the way the country was run, would be printed with
each issue and sold "under the counter" as we would say now. Evidently
our great-grandfather had been too outspoken, and was warned by sympathetic
friends that trouble was ripening and he was advised to get out of the
country before he was sent out.
Another suggestion within family records is
that he worked for the Edinburgh Evening News or the Edinburgh
Times.
Directories indicate that WMB did live in
Edinburgh from 1823 to at least 1826, but by 1826 he was a spirit dealer,
rather than a printer or publisher.
A wonderful story about newspapers in the
early 1800s can be found at http://www.jamesthin.co.uk/150part1.htm
where the history of James Thin (1824-1915), newspaper boy to highly successful
bookseller, is told. An especially interesting part of that story describes
the publication and sale of newspapers, in 1836:
It will interest you to know something
of the bookselling trade at this time. The population of Edinburgh at
that period was only 136,000 as against 312,000 now [1905], while the
area covered by the city was only about one-third of what it is at present;
the number of booksellers was 105, of whom 12 are noted as stationers
only. The number of booksellers in the present directory is 134, and
the number of stationers is 250—or 384 in all, as against 105 in 1836.
The 12 stationers were stationers only, trading, not in books, but in
paper, pens, ink, and account books. The majority of present-day stationers
are not booksellers, but combine with their stationery business that
of newspapers, magazines, and periodicals, with the occasional addition
of other articles. The newsagency, then unknown, has now become a very
extensive business, and is carried on with much activity over the greatly
extended city, besides the large number sold at the railway stations.
In 1836 no newspapers were sold
in shops or in the street, the public being supplied solely by the newspaper
proprietors, who enrolled subscribers, and had men of their own for
delivery of the papers at the houses of their subscribers.
I recollect only one exception
to this, in the case of the Evening Post, published in South St. David
Street, which was sold in some districts of the New Town by a man blowing
a horn to announce his arrival to his waiting customers; but whether
‘the man with the horn’ was the servant of the newspaper or worked the
business on his own hook, I cannot say. The number of different newspapers
published in Edinburgh in 1836 was eleven. None of these was daily,
two were issued three times a week, the others either weekly or bi-weekly.
Now there are six, of which three are daily. The only survivor is the
Scotsman; the price of it was then 7d., of which 4d. went to the Government
as the price of an impressed stamp, which they were compelled by law
to bear.
The sale of these newspapers was
very limited, but their place was, on the occasion of any unusual occurrence,
supplied by ‘speech criers’ —a rough class, who, in gangs of two or
three, paraded the streets at a space of thirty yards apart from each
other, selling a slip of very coarsely printed paper, the title of which
they bawled as giving a true and correct account, it might be, of a
murder, a robbery, a criminal trial, or an ‘execution’, or a ‘drunken
summons for the New Year’. These slips they sold at ½d. each, and people,
especially in the humbler districts, bought with some eagerness their
flimsy wares.
Pamphlet
on the Church of Scotland "turmoil"
William Murray Borthwick's obituary, published
in the Inverell section of The Armidale Express on 19 May 1866
states that:
During a time of great commotion and discord
in the Scottish Church, he is said to have written and published a pamphlet
which went far towards setting matters at rest.
The upheaval in the Scottish Church was in
1843. When did William Murray Borthwick write this pamphlet, and where?
Was it in Scotland or Australia? I have not been able to find any trace
of it so far.
Some Links:
Concise History of the British Newspaper in
the Nineteenth Century http://www.bl.uk/collections/newspaper/brit19th.html
Some References:
Copyright: Ann Carson 2001
All rights reserved.
Created: 31 March 2001. Listed 27 April 2001.
Updated: 28 April 2001 |
