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Kirkwood & Sons

Copper-plate Engravers

Kirkwood & Sons Copper-plate Engravers by Peter Symes (148 mm x 210 mm, soft cover, 110 pages, 10 B&W photographs and 7 scanned images of banknotes). US$22.00; price includes postage.

'James Kirkwood & Son' was the premier firm of engravers in Edinburgh at the end of the eighteenth century and beginning of the nineteenth century. This concise history of one of Edinburgh's leading family of engravers and printers, covers all the activities of the family. However, there is a bias towards their activities as manufacturers of bank notes, as they were responsible for producing a large proportion of the bank notes issued in Scotland from the 1790s through to the 1820s. The Kirkwood family was responsible for:

• Manufacturing most of the banknotes in Scotland (and many in England) during their ascendancy
• Producing many maps and plans
• Manufacturing globes of the world
• Creating some of the finest writing engraving ever produced on copper
• Preparing many illustrations for books and encyclopaedias

The Kirkwood family also played no small part in history:

• Edinburgh's Great Fire of 1824 started in their premises
• William Johnston and Alexander Keith Johnston (who later formed the noted firm of W. & A. K. Johnston) were both employed by the Kirkwood family
• Robert Kirkwood patented a printing press that changed the way printing from copper-plates could be achieved
• The Great Seal of Scotland was manufactured by a member of the Kirkwood family