224 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street.
ROBERT CHAMBERS.
(From a *ate PkOtog~U#h.)
1
volume by the firm in 1868, and is the preface tD
which Robert writes :-
?<I am about to do what very few could do
without emotion-revise a book which I wrote
turreted edifice, that now forms the west side of
Warriston?s Close, and built in 1868. It bears
the legend Gracia . Dei. Ro6erfus . Bruiss, with a
WILLIAM CHAMBERS.
(From a Pktograplr by jokta Lamwrd.)
shield at each end, one having the arms sf Bruce
of Binning in Linlithgowshire, impaled with those
of Preston-three unicorns? heads.
The eminent publishers, whose extensive premises
now occupy the west side of Warriston?s
Close, William and Robert Chambers-the great
pioneers of the cheap literature movement-were
born at Peebles, in 1800 and 1802 respectively.
Their ancestors were woollen manufacturers, and
their father carried on the business in cotton at
Peebles, on so large a scale that he used sometimes
to have a hundred looms at work.
He was thus enabled to give his sons a good
education at the schools of their native town, where
Robert passed through a classical course, with the
view of taking orders in the church of Scotland ;
but monetary misfortunes having overtaken his
parents, the family removed to Edinburgh, where
the two brothers were thrown in a great measure
on their own resources, but formed the noble
resolution to try by stem industry to regain the
ground their family had lost ; and a love of reading
led them gradually into the business of bookselling.
William served an apprenticeship, from 1814 to
1819, with Mr. Sutherland, Calton Street, who gave
him four shillings weekly as wages, and on this
small sum-shrinking from being a burden on his
delicate and struggling mother-he took a lodging,
it IS. 6d. per week, in Boak?s Land, West Port, a
ittle bed closet, which he shared with a poor
livinity student from the hills of Tweeddale. Out
)f these slender wages he contrived to save a few
ihillings, and began business, in a very small way,
n 1819, and by the following year added printing
hereto, having taught himself that craft, cutting
vith his own hand the larger types out of wood.
By 1818 Robert had begun business in a tiny
;hop as a bookstall-keeper, in Leith Walk, and
iaving a strong literary turn, he made an essay
is author, by starting a small periodical called
he KaZez?doscoje, the types of which were set up
md printed off by William, in an old rickety
xess, which, he relates, ? emitted a jangling,
xeaking noise, like a shriek of anguish,? when
vorked. After a brief career this publication was
hopped, to enable Robert, in 1822, to write a
rolume likely to be popular-? Illustrations of the
4uthor of Waverley,? referring to the supposed
xiginal characters of the novelist. Of this work
William was printer, binder, and publisher, and a
iecond edition appeared in 1824.
Immediately after its issue he began his ? Traiiitions
of Edinburgh ? (in the plan and production
Df which the brothers anticipated a joint work, that
was to have been written by Scott and Kirkpatrick
S1iarpe)-a book re-written and re-published in one
.
High Street.] MESSRS. W. & R. CHAMBERS. 225
fortyyfve years ago. This little work came out in
the Augustan days of Edinburgh, when Jeffrey and
Scott, Wilson and the Ettrick Shepherd, Dugald
Stewart and Alison, were daily giving the producpublic
victory, and in a few days the sale in Scotland
alone was 50,000 copies, while No. 3 rose to
80,ooo in the Esglish market. Robert threw himself
heart and soul into the successful periodical ;
tions of their minds
to the public, and
while yet Archibald
Constable acted as
the unquestioned
emperor of the publishing
world.?
In 1826 Robert
published his ? Popular
Rhymes of
Scotland,? and the
? Picture of Scotland,?
and shortly
afterwards five
volumes of Scottish
history, for Consiable?s
Miscellany.
The brothers were
now making
money, and in tolerably
prosperous
c i r cu m s t a n c es,
though they lost
much of their hardwon
savings by assisting
their father
in a piece of unsuccessful
litigation.
About that time
William produced
the ?Book of Scotland,?
a work describing
the institutions
of the country,
for which he
got A30, while
Robert got 6100
for preparing a
?Gazetteer of Scotland
;? and in I 83 2
William projected
the great work
ADVOCATES? CLOSE.
which made the firm prosperous and famous wherever
the English language is spoken-- Chambers?s Edinburgh
journal, the vanguard of all that is wholesome,
sensible, and unsectarian in cheap literature, as it ap
peared six weeks before the famous Penny Magazin~
The first weekly number appeared on the 4th
February, 1832. Robert thought the speculation a
hazardous one, but William?s courage achieved a
29
and speaking of
partnership with
him, his brother
writes : ?? Such was
the degree of mutual
confidence between
us that not
for the space of
twenty-one years
was it thought expedient
to execute
any deed of agreement.?
While constantly
contributing
to the Journal,
Robert, in 1835,
completed his ?Biographical
Dictionary
of Eminent
Scotsmen,? in foul
volumes.
The brothers
issued, in the preceding
year, their
?? Information for
the People,? and
after this venture
came a series of
about a hundred
school books-the
? Chambers?s Edu,
cational Course,?
still so familiar to
many middle-class
school-boys. While
collecting information
upon the subject
of public education,
William got
together materials in
1839 for his ?Tour
in Holland and the
Rhine Countries i
and about this time, twenty volumes of a series
entitled ? Chambers?s Miscellany ? were issued by
the firm, which had an enormous circulation j but
the great and crowning enterprise of Messrs.
W. and R Chambers was unquestionably their
?? Encyclopzedia, or Dictionary of Uni;ersal Information
for the People,? a work begun in 1859 and
completed in 1868-a work unrivalled by any in
