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W & R Chambers, Publishers, Edinburgh

David Anson 02/28/2009 03:42 PM

Image © Fotolia

Founders of W & R Chambers, publishers, of Edinburgh, William and Robert Chambers were born into a relatively prosperous, mill-owning family in the Scottish Borders. An indirect consequence of the Napoleonic war was its adverse effect on the family fortunes. Their father extended many of the French prisoners-of-war garrisoned in Peebles credit to re-clothe themselves; to be repaid as soon as they returned home.  When the French let them down the Chambers family was ruined and in 1813 they left Peebles for Edinburgh.

Robert remained in Peebles to finish his education, but William was forced to find work to help support the family, as apprentice to a Mr Sutherland, bookseller, at just 4 shillings a week Robert exhibited early evidence of unusual literary taste and ability.  An avid reader, a small circulating library in the town, Elders Library in the High Street, and a copy of the Encyclopaedia Britannica furnished him with stores of reading.A deformity in his feet had left him lame and unable to join in games at school so, it is claimed, he would swap his ‘jeelie pieces’ (jam sandwiches) for books.

He later wrote of these early years: “Books, not playthings, filled my hands in childhood.  At twelve I was deep, not only in poetry and fiction, but in encyclopaedias.” Straitened circumstances denying him his chance at university and a career in the church, in 1818, at just sixteen, Robert opened a bookstall in Leith Walk.  The entire stock consisted of the remnants of his father’s library and his own personal collection.

At eighteen, on completing his apprenticeship, William started his own bookselling business, but later joined Robert in the shop in Leith Walk.From modest beginnings, they did well, helped in no small part by William’s undoubted business acumen and the habit of strict financial prudence acquired during his apprentice years, when he would scrupulously account for every penny, maintaining a strict daily budget, and maximising every potential economy.  A keen reader, he would rise at 5 am to read by the early-morning light to save on candles, later supplementing his meagre diet with fresh baked bread earned by reading aloud to a baker and his son as they baked.

An unexpected, early, boost came when, having helped unpack books for an Edinburgh book fair, William was offered £10 worth of stock; the money to be repaid when he had sold the books in his shop.  This increased the shop’s customer appeal, with concomitant increase in sales, and larger profits, some of which William applied to the purchase of an old, small hand press. Untrained in either printing or binding, William and Robert, undaunted, shrewdly set about printing, binding and publishing 750 copies of The Songs of Robert Burns.  An almost guaranteed best-seller in 19th-century Edinburgh, it further improved both profits and repute.

The printing of bills and notices and further success followed.  Drawing on his interest in the history and antiquities of Edinburgh, Robert’s first literary effort, Traditions of Edinburgh, published in-house in 1824, won him the approval and the personal friendship of Sir Walter Scott, and remains in print to this day.  A History of the Rebellions in Scotland from 1638 to 1745, in 5 volumes, and numerous other works followed of which Robert was, in whole or in part, the author.

Other titles included The Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen, The Life and Works of Robert Burns (the product of diligent and laborious original investigations and the gathering of many previously unrecorded facts from the poet’s sister, Mrs Begg, to whose benefit Chambers generously devoted the whole profits of the work), Ancient Sea Margins, The Domestic Annals of Scotland, The Book of Days, and The Cyclopaedia of English Literature (a series of selected extracts from the best authors of every period, “set in a biographical and critical history of the literature itself”). The Book of Days, Robert’s last publication, was a miscellany of popular antiquities associated with the calendar, and many believed that his excessive labour in connection with this book hastened his death on the 17th of March 1871 at his house on the Scores, in his adopted home of St, Andrews whose ancient University had conferred upon him the degree of doctor of laws just two years before.  He was further honoured by being buried in St Regulus Tower in the town.

Possibly as a result of their own curtailed formal schooling, education and making information available to as many people as possible were priorities for William and Robert. In 1832 they launched Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal, (sic), a weekly, 16-page journal containing articles – many of them written by Robert – on subjects such as history, religion, language and science.  At first only a contributor, by the fifteenth number Robert had joined his brother as joint editor.  It was an immediate success; within a few years the weekly circulation had risen to 84,000 copies

Chambers’s Instruction for the People - a series of sheets on subjects such as science, maths, history, geography and literature, bound in sets followed in 1824.  Eventually around 170,000 sets were sold, amounting to over 2 million individual sheets.  This publication also saw some success abroad; a US edition was published, and it was translated into French and even into Welsh.

In 1835, the brothers started work on Chambers’s Educational Course, a series of short works and schoolbooks; eventually numbering more than 100 titles on almost every subject.  The 520 parts of Chambers’s Encyclopaedia, edited by Dr Andrew Findlater, were published between 1859 and 1868.  1867 brought their first dictionary, Chambers’s Etymological Dictionary, by James Donald, with a larger version, Chambers’s English Dictionary in 1872.

By the end of the 19th century, W & R Chambers’ was one of the largest English-language publishers in the world.  Success continued with Chambers’s Biographical Dictionary in 1897, and a compact edition of the English dictionary, Chambers’s Twentieth Century Dictionary, in 1901. Constable took over the printing side in 1932, but the publishing side continues in Edinburgh to this day, producing dictionaries and other titles for a variety of users, including students and teachers of English as a foreign or second language. As well as the core business of publishing dictionaries and thesauruses, Chambers also publishes a range of titles on grammar and usage, single-volume reference titles on science, history, biography and quotations, as well as titles for Scrabble® and crosswords.

Although educational publishing made William and Robert famous, Robert was a learned man in his  own right.  Acknowledged as the more literary and intellectual of the two, a genuine polymath  and something of scientific geologist, despite having little formal scientific training, he  toured both Scandinavia and Canada conducting geological exploration.  His ensuing publications included Tracings of the North of Europe and Tracings in Iceland and the Faroe Islands.

However, possibly his greatest achievement is a controversial book on evolution which predated  Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species” by 15 years. Published in 1844, the 400-page Vestiges of the  Natural History of Creation, sought to present a comprehensive account of the history of the  Earth, from the formation of the Solar System through the development of plant and animal life,  up to the origins of humankind.

Typically, it dealt with a dangerously taboo subject, rejecting as it did the testimony of Genesis, in an attractive and accessible style, clearly written to appeal to the widest possible readership – the general public rather than the social and academic elites.  Vilified by some, applauded by others, containing many errors, and exhibiting a degree of naiivete and a certain lack of scientific circumspection, it sold over 20,000 copies in a decade, making it one of the best-sellers of its time.

Incredibly, despite his following it with a defence, corrections and amendments based on collaborations with an extensive list of experts, many subsequent editions, and its continued influence on Victorian science, art, and public opinion, Robert’s authorship was never discovered until it was revealed in the 12th edition long after his death!

Rightfully, and increasingly, Robert has begun to draw attention today.  James A. Secord at Cambridge, Sondra Miles Cooney and Robert Scholnick in the USA, and Alistair McCleery in Edinburgh, are just some of the notable academics currently involved in studies of the achievements of Robert Chambers.

In 1833 William Chambers, arguably the financial genius of the publishing firm, was elected at Edinburgh’s first popular election following the passing of The Burgh Reform Act. Eventually succeeding to Edinburgh’s highest civic office, Lord Provost, he is remembered for promoting the clearance of the medieval slums from Edinburgh's Old Town, together with the improvement of public health.

He was instrumental in procuring the passing of the Edinburgh City Improvement Act 1867, and stayed on for a second term to ensure the project’s realisation.  North College Street, Brown Square, and Adam Square were cleared away; St. Mary Street, Jeffrey Street, and a new thoroughfare between the South Bridge and George IV Bridge, to be called Chambers Street were created; at a cost of considerably over £500,000.

In recognition his name is remembered in Chambers Street, which includes his statue, and he was to have been honoured with a baronetcy but died before it could be bestowed.