The Scotsman is a Scottish compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until August 2004. Its parent company, National World, also publishes the Edinburgh Evening News. It had an audited print circulation of 8,762 for July to December 2022. Its website, Scotsman.com, had an average of 138,000 unique visitors a day as of 2017. The title celebrated its bicentenary on 25 January 2017.
History
The Scotsman was conceived in 1816Grant's Old and New Edinburgh vol.2 p.283 and first launched on 25 January 1817 as a liberal weekly newspaper by lawyer William Ritchie and customs official Charles Maclaren in response to the "unblushing subservience" of competing newspapers to the Edinburgh establishment. These two plus John Ramsay McCulloch were co-founders of the venture.Grant's Old and New Edinburgh vol.2 p.283 Circulation was 2,500 in 1837 and slowly rose to 3,500 in 1854.
The paper was pledged to "impartiality, firmness and independence". The price was originally 6d plus 4d tax.Grant's Old and New Edinburgh vol.2 p.283 After the abolition of newspaper stamp tax in Scotland in 1855, The Scotsman was relaunched as a daily newspaper priced at 1d and a circulation of 6,000 copies.
The fledgling paper was originally based at 257 High Street on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. Until 1860 the Scotsman shared a building with the Caledonian Mercury newspaper.Grant's Old and New Edinburgh vol.2, p. 283
In 1860, The Scotsman obtained its own purpose built office on Cockburn Street in Edinburgh designed in the Scots baronial style by the architects Peddie & Kinnear.Dictionary of Scottish Architects: Peddie & Kinnear This backed onto their original offices on the Royal Mile. The building bears the initials "JR" for John Ritchie, the founder of the company.
20th century On 19 December 1904, they moved to much larger new offices at the top of Cockburn Street, facing onto North Bridge, designed by Dunn & Findlay (Findlay being the son of the then owner). This huge building had taken three years to build and also had connected printworks on Market Street (in 2024 the City Art Centre). The printworks connected below road level direct to Waverley station in an efficient production line.
In 1953 the newspaper was bought by Canadian millionaire Roy Thomson who was in the process of building a large media group. The paper was bought in 1995 by David and Frederick Barclay for £85 million. They moved the newspaper from its Edinburgh office on North Bridge, which is now an upmarket hotel, to modern offices in Holyrood Road designed by Edinburgh architects CDA, near the subsequent location of the Scottish Parliament Building.
The daily was awarded by the Society for News Design (SND) the World's Best Designed Newspaper for 1994.
In December 2005, The Scotsman along with its sister titles owned by The Scotsman Publications Ltd was acquired, in a £160million deal, by Johnston Press, a company founded in Scotland and at the time one of the top three largest local newspaper publishers in the UK.
In 2012, The Scotsman was named Newspaper of the Year at the Scottish Press Awards.
In 2006 the Barclay Brothers sold Barclay House to Irish property magnate Lochlann Quinn, and in 2013 Scottish video games maker Rockstar North, of Grand Theft Auto fame, signed the lease, causing Johnston Press group to move out in June 2014. Johnston Press have downsized to refurbished premises at Orchard Brae House in Queensferry Road, Edinburgh, a move which was quoted as saving the group £1million per annum in rent.
The newspaper backed a 'No' vote in the referendum on Scottish independence.
In November 2018, Johnston Press filed for administration. Shortly after filing for administration, the company was bought out by JPIMedia, a company which was bought by former Daily Mirror executive David Montgomery's new National World group in 2020.
In July 2023 an extra 52 years were added to the archive alongside the previous archives (1951–2002).
Editors 1817: William Ritchie 1817: Charles Maclaren 1818: John Ramsay McCulloch 1843: John Hill Burton (acting) 1846: Alexander Russel 1876: Robert Wallace 1880: Charles Alfred Cooper 1905: John Pettigrew Croal 1924: George A. Waters 1944: James Murray Watson 1955: John Buchanan (acting) 1956: Alastair Dunnett 1972: Eric MacKay 1985: Chris Baur 1988: Magnus Linklater 1994: Andrew Jaspan 1995: James Seaton 1997: Martin Clarke 1998: Alan Ruddock 2000: Tim Luckhurst 2000: Rebecca Hardy 2001: Iain Martin 2004: John McGurk 2006: Mike Gilson 2009: John McLellan 2012: Ian Stewart 2017: Frank O'Donnell 2020: Euan McGrory 2021: Neil McIntosh 2024: Alan Young
See also List of newspapers in Scotland List of newspapers by date
References
Further reading Merrill, John C.; Harold A. Fisher (1980). The world's great dailies: profiles of fifty newspapers. pp. 273–79.
External links
The Scotsman Digital Archive 1817–1950 Johnston Press Comprehensive Design Architects