Oliver and Boyd

Last updated

Oliver and Boyd
StatusDefunct
Founded1807 or 1808
FounderThomas Oliver and George Boyd
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Headquarters location Edinburgh
Publication types Educational, scientific and medical books

Oliver and Boyd was a British publishing and printing firm that traded from 1807 or 1808 until 1990. [1] The firm has been described as a "stalwart in Scottish publishing". [2]

Contents

History

Building on Tweeddale Court Tweeddale Court - geograph.org.uk - 1302590.jpg
Building on Tweeddale Court
The grave of Thomas Oliver, Grange Cemetery The grave of Thomas Oliver, Grange Cemetery.jpg
The grave of Thomas Oliver, Grange Cemetery

Oliver and Boyd was founded in Edinburgh by two partners: Thomas Oliver (1776–1853) [3] and George Boyd (died 1843). The exact foundation year is not known but is believed to have been either 1807 or 1808. [4]

The firm operated from the 1820s until the 1970s at the same address in Tweeddale Court, [5] near the Royal Mile in Edinburgh [4] (the old "Oliver and Boyd" sign remains above the front door of the Tweeddale Court building to this day). [5] It was one of the "auld" firms to survive in the area after the crash of 1825–26. [2]

By the 1830s, the firm was not only publishing but also printing and bookbinding under the same roof at Tweeddale Court, an innovative practice for Edinburgh in that period. [4] By 1836, the firm carried out printing there on a "massive scale". Prior to Oliver & Boyd, printing and publishing in Scotland had been a cottage industry with the printing done on wooden presses and it was only in 1800 that the iron press had been invented. [6] [7]

In the years 1811–1841, Oliver and Boyd issued a number of catalogues for the firm's juvenile books "selling from a halfpenny upwards" [3] and also printed and published "abridged histories in fancy covers and songbooks". [1]

When Thomas Oliver retired and George Boyd died in 1843, the firm remained under family control with George's nephew Thomas Jamieson Boyd [8] being appointed as managing partner in 1843 and then acting as senior partner from 1869 to 1894. [2] In this period the firm gained a reputation in the fields of education [9] [10] and medical textbook publishing and had a strong presence in the British colonial markets. [1] [2] When Benjamin Disraeli visited the firm in 1885 he found the firm did 'everything but making paper'. They were printers, publishers and binders. [11]

In 1896, Oliver and Boyd was taken over by three "well-established" [2] Edinburgh booksellers, George and James Thin and John Grant. [7] [1]

During the 20th century, the firm maintained its reputation as "educational and general publishers of high standing". [12]

In 1962, the firm was acquired by the Financial Times group and, later, Longmans acquired its publishing operations. [7] [1] In 1984, a public library known as the Scottish Poetry Library was set up in what had previously been a storage area of Oliver and Boyd's Tweeddale Court offices. [13] Oliver and Boyd ceased operations in 1990.

Book series

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Archibald Constable</span> Scottish publisher, bookseller and stationer

Archibald David Constable was a Scottish publisher, bookseller and stationer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patrick Fraser Tytler</span> 19th-century Scottish historian

Patrick Fraser Tytler FRSE FSA (Scot) was a Scottish advocate and historian. He was described as the "Episcopalian historian of a Presbyterian country".

T&T Clark is a British publishing firm which was founded in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1821 and which now exists as an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing.

George Bell & Sons was an English book publishing house. It was based in London and existed from 1839 to 1986.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blackie and Son</span> Publishing house

Blackie & Son was a publishing house in Glasgow, Scotland, and London, England, from 1809 to 1991.

John Mein was a Boston, Massachusetts, bookseller and publisher in the time before the American Revolution. Mein started Boston's first circulating library, and with his business partner, John Fleeming, Mein published the Loyalist newspaper, the Boston Chronicle, the first semi-weekly in New England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Wallace (Edinburgh MP)</span> British writer

Robert Wallace was a British writer who had a varied career as a classics teacher, minister, university professor, newspaper editor, barrister, and finally a Member of Parliament for Edinburgh East.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Brown (Free Church of Scotland)</span> Scottish professor of theology and minister

David Brown was a son of bookseller who was twice Provost of the city. He was a Free Church of Scotland minister who served as Moderator of the General Assembly 1885/86. He was co-author of the Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Commentary on the whole Bible.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Jamieson Boyd</span> Scottish publisher and philanthropist

Sir Thomas Jamieson Boyd, publisher and philanthropist, was Lord Provost of Edinburgh from 1877 to 1882. He was the catalyst behind the building of the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary on Lauriston Place.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William King Tweedie</span>

William King Tweedie (1803–1863) was an historian, biographer and a minister of the Free Church of Scotland Tolbooth Church, Edinburgh.

Thomas Constable FRSE was a Scottish printer and publisher.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Buchanan (minister)</span> Scottish minister and historian

Robert Buchanan (1802–1875) was a Scottish Presbyterian minister and historian who served as Moderator of the General Assembly to the Free Church of Scotland in 1860/61. He was one of the leading figures in the Disruption of 1843.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Julius Wood</span> Scottish minister

James Julius Wood (1800–1877) was a 19th-century Scottish minister who served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland 1857/8.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles John Brown (moderator)</span> Scottish minister

Charles John Brown (1806–1884) was a Scottish minister, who served as Moderator of the General Assembly for the Free Church of Scotland from 1872 to 1873.

T. N. Foulis was a British publisher founded in Edinburgh in 1903. During its first ten years, the firm became well known for producing "highly original, beautifully illustrated books", with contributions by "artists of considerable merit" such as Jessie M. King, H. M. Brock, Hannah MacGoun and Walter Crane. Works published included classics of poetry and prose, gift books, and nonfiction books, many with a Scottish theme.

Simpkin & Marshall was a British bookseller, wholesaler and publisher. The firm was founded in 1819 and traded until the 1940s. For many decades the firm was Britain's largest book wholesaler and a respected family-owned company, but it was acquired by the media proprietor Robert Maxwell and went bankrupt in 1954, an event which, according to Lionel Leventhal, "sounded a warning to the book trade about Captain Robert Maxwell's way of doing business".

Thomas Taylor (c.1770–1831) was a 19th century Church of Scotland minister, who served as Moderator of the General Assembly in 1826.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St Paul's Parish Church, Edinburgh</span> Church in Scotland

St Paul's Parish Church was a parish church of the Church of Scotland located in St Leonard's, Edinburgh, Scotland. Its building served as a church between 1836 and 1942 before being demolished in 1980.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Pitcairn</span> Scottish Presbyterian minister

Thomas Pitcairn was a Presbyterian minister at Cockpen in the parish of Dalkeith. He is remembered for his being elected Clerk of the Free Church General Assembly during the early days of, the Free Church of Scotland. He was the subject of a portrait by Hill & Adamson.

James Pearson Alison (1862–1932) was a Scottish architect, principally practising in Roxburghshire with offices in Hawick.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 British Museum: Term Details - Oliver & Boyd (Biographical details), britishmuseum.org. Retrieved 24 June 2018.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 David Finkelstein, "Publishing 1830-80", in: Bill Bell, ed., The Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland, Volume 3: Ambition and Industry 1800–1880, Edinburgh University Press, p. 97. Retrieved 13 March 2019.
  3. 1 2 Thomas Oliver (1775-1853) Archived 2016-08-12 at the Wayback Machine , gaedin.co.uk. Retrieved 13 March 2019.
  4. 1 2 3 James Mitchell, Oliver & Boyd, nls.uk. Retrieved 12 March 2019.
  5. 1 2 Tweeddale Court Archived 2018-02-13 at the Wayback Machine , cityofliterature.com. Retrieved 13 March 2019.
  6. ↑ Edinburgh’s Publishing Heritage Archived 2018-10-10 at the Wayback Machine , cityofliterature.com. Retrieved 12 March 2019.
  7. 1 2 3 Print room at Oliver & Boyd Archived 2015-10-26 at the Wayback Machine , flickr.com. Retrieved 12 March 2019.
  8. ↑ Norgate, Gerald le Grys (1912). "Boyd, Thomas Jamieson"  . Dictionary of National Biography (2nd supplement). Vol. 1. pp. 204–205.
  9. ↑ A. Weedon, Victorian Publishing: The Economics of Book Production for a Mass Market 1836-1916, London: Routledge, 2016 pp.111-139.
  10. ↑ W. McDowall, Caesar's Gallic War: First Book: With Vocabulary and Notes , Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1892, "Educational Books" listing (24 page publisher's advertisement). Retrieved 16 March 2019.
  11. ↑ A. Weedon, Victorian Publishing: The Economics of Book Production for a Mass Market 1836-1916, London: Routledge, 2016. p.180.
  12. ↑ Lord Robbins, "The Financial Times Limited: Broadened Scope of Company's Activities", The Observer , 2 June 1963, p. 5.
  13. ↑ A brief history of the Scottish Poetry Society, scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk. Retrieved 19 May 2022.
  14. ↑ "Oliver & Boyd" + "Quest Library", worldcat.org. Retrieved 25 September 2023.
  15. ↑ Self-Study English Series, worldcat.org. Retrieved 2 July 2024.
  16. ↑ "Oliver & Boyd" + "Signpost Library", worldcat.org. Retrieved 25 September 2023.
  17. ↑ Wide Range Readers, schoolreading70sbooks.weebly.com. Retrieved 28 November 2023.
  18. ↑ Writers and Critics (Oliver & Boyd) - Book Series List, publishinghistory.com. Retrieved 22 June 2019.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.