Agnes Campbell (printer)

Agnes Campbell, Lady Roseburn (1637 — 24 July 1716), Scottish businesswoman, was "Scotland's wealthiest early modern printer."[1]

Early life

Agnes Campbell was the daughter of Isobel Orr and James Campbell. Her father was a merchant in Edinburgh, Scotland. She was baptised on 1 September 1637.[2]

Career

Agnes Campbell married the printer Andrew Anderson in 1656. In 1663, Anderson became printer to the Edinburgh Town Council, and in 1671, he was named King's Printer for Scotland. When her husband died in 1676, 38-year-old Agnes took over the exclusive licence[3] and built the largest printing business in Edinburgh.[4]

Agnes Campbell remarried in 1681.[5] In 1693, her petition to Parliament was granted, and Agnes Campbell's printing business remained independent from her second husband Patrick Telfer's financial oversight.[6][7] She was Daniel Defoe's Scottish printer, and published a folio edition of his poem "Caledonia."[8][9]

In 1709, she launched a paper mill at Penicuik, the first paper mill on the River Esk.[10] She was appointed printer to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1712, around the same time that the King's Printer appointment expired and was granted to one of her rivals.[2]

Personal life

Agnes Campbell was Presbyterian in religious affiliation.[11] She purchased an estate, Roseburn, in 1704, and was thereafter known as Lady Roseburn. She married twice, and had at least eight children. She died in July 1716, age 78, in Edinburgh, and left a significant fortune to her heirs.[12]

A short biography of Lady Roseburn was published in 1925.[13]

References
  1. Alastair J. Mann, "'A Mongrel of Early Copyright': Scotland in European Perspective" in Ronan Deazley, Martin Kretschmer, and Lionel Bently, eds., Privilege and Property: Essays on the History of Copyright (Open Book Publishers 2010): 53. ISBN 9781906924188
  2. Jane Rendall, "Agnes Campbell (Lady Roseburn)" in Elizabeth Ewan, Sue Innes, and Sian Reynolds, eds., The Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women (Edinburgh University Press 2006): 61-62. ISBN 9780748626601
  3. Clare Jackson, Restoration Scotland, 1660-1690: Royalist Politics, Religion and Ideas (Boydell Press 2003): 43. ISBN 9780851159300
  4. Adam Fox, "'Little Story Books' and 'Small Pamphlets' in Edinburgh, 1680-1760: The Making of the Scottish Chapbook" Scottish Historical Review 92(2)(2013): 207-230.
  5. Deborah Simonton, "Widows and Wenches: Single Women in Eighteenth-Century Urban Economies" in Deborah Simonton and Anne Montenach, eds., Female Agency in the Urban Economy: Gender in European Towns, 1640-1830 (Routledge 2013): 116. ISBN 9781136275029
  6. Alastair J. Mann, "Book Commerce, Litigation and the Art of Monopoly: The Case of Agnes Campbell, Royal Printer, 1676-1712" Scottish Economic and Social History 18(2)(1998): 132-156. doi:10.3366/sesh.1998.18.2.132
  7. "Act in Favour of Agnes Campbell" (1693), The Records of the Parliaments of Scotland to 1707, K.M. Brown et al eds (St Andrews, 2007-2015).
  8. Paula R. Backscheider, Daniel Defoe: His Life (Taylor & Francis 1992): 224. ISBN 9780801845123
  9. Charles Eaton Burch, "Defoe and his Northern Printers" Proceedings of the Modern Language Association (PMLA) 60(1)(March 1945): 121-128. doi:10.2307/459125
  10. "Paper Mills". Penicuik Papermaking: 300th Anniversary. Retrieved 27 October 2022.
  11. Warren McDougall, "Developing a Marketplace for Books: Edinburgh" in Stephen Brown and Warren McDougall, eds., The Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland Volume 2 (Edinburgh University Press 2011): 118. ISBN 9780748628964
  12. Alastair Mann, "Embroidery to Enterprise: The Role of Women in the Book Trade of Early Modern Scotland" in Elizabeth Ewan and Maureen M. Meikle, eds., Women in Scotland, c. 1100 - c. 1750 (Tuckwell Press 1999): 144. ISBN 9781862320468
  13. John A. Fairley, Agnes Campbell, Lady Roseburn, Relict of Andrew Anderson, the King's Printer: A Contribution to the History of Printing in Scotland (D. Wyllie & Son 1925).
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