The Scotsman



The Scotsman is a Scottish compact newspaper and daily news website published from Edinburgh. It was a broadsheet until 16 August 2004. The Scotsman Publications Ltd also issues the Edinburgh Evening News and the Herald & Post series of free newspapers in Edinburgh, Fife, and West Lothian.

As of February 2016, it had an audited print circulation of 22,740, with a full-price paid-for circulation of 61.6% of this figure, about 14,000. Scotsman.com websites, including the news site, job site, property site, mobile site and others have an average of 119,672 visitors a day.

History


The Scotsman was launched in 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. The paper was pledged to "impartiality, firmness and independence". After the abolition of newspaper stamp tax in Scotland in 1850, The Scotsman was relaunched as a daily newspaper priced at 1d and a circulation of 6,000 copies.

Their premises were originally at 257 High Street on the Royal Mile.

In 1860 they obtained a purpose built office on Cockburn Street in Edinburgh designed in the Scots baronial style by the 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. On 19 December 1904, they moved to huge new offices at the top of the 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 (now the City Art Centre). The printworks connected below road level direct to Waverley Station in a highly 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 was acquired, in a £160million deal, by its present owners Johnston Press, a company founded in Scotland and now one of the top three largest local newspaper publishers in the UK. Ian Stewart has been the editor since June 2012, after a reshuffle of senior management in April 2012 during which John McLellan who was the paper's editor-in-chief was dismissed. Ian Stewart was previously editor of Edinburgh Evening News and remains as the editor of Scotland on Sunday.

In 2012, The Scotsman was named Newspaper of the Year at the Scottish Press Awards.

In 2006 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.

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

Source: The Scotsman Digital Archive

Scotsman.com
Since 1998, The Scotsman has had an internet portal that features the latest news, sports, business, property, motors and sport in different sections of the site. It has had live webcams and panoramas around Scotland. It also has sections for other Scotsman Publications including Scotland on Sunday and the Evening News.