Scottish print veteran John Watson backs Glasgow venture

The entrepreneur made his title increase the Glasgow-based John Watson and Firm printing enterprise, which specialised in labels for the Scotch whisky trade, over 5 many years earlier than promoting it to Multi-Color Company of Ohio in a multi-million-pound deal in 2013.

Since then, he has largely devoted his time to philanthropy by The Watson Basis, which has now made a “sizeable” donation to Glasgow Press.

The Govan-based neighborhood curiosity firm mentioned the funding would “turbo cost” its efforts to protect and rejoice conventional printing strategies, which it hopes to spotlight by a sequence of workshops and studying alternatives.

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The corporate has over a few years been amassing printing presses together with wooden and metallic sort which might in any other case have been discarded as printing know-how moved on.

A key focus of the organisation is letterpress printing, a type of aid printing, which entails the raised floor of letters or photos being inked after which pressed into paper. Phrases will be typeset by hand, letter by letter, after which printed on forged iron presses which in some circumstances are greater than 100 years previous.

Dan Clark, who runs Glasgow Press together with his household, mentioned: “Letterpress printing is on the purple listing for endangered crafts, and we’re eager to try to maintain it alive.

“There aren’t any school programs for anybody who needs to be a letterpress printer so far as we all know, so by attempting to make issues extra accessible, by getting folks in for programs or introducing youngsters into this technique of printing, we try to maintain this commerce going a bit longer.”

Mr Clark’s father, additionally Dan, continues to work part-time within the enterprise, aged 88. He started his profession as a message boy at a printworks within the Nineteen Forties earlier than opening the household enterprise in 1960, after finishing his apprenticeship.

READ MORE: John Watson & Co purchased by US big

Dan Clark junior added: “We’re immensely grateful to John Watson and The Watson Basis for this beneficiant and substantial funding.

“We are going to make sure to put the cash to good use partaking with the area people and extra extensively provided that we share John Watson’s long-held social justice credentials in addition to his ardour for printing.

“The increase in digital printing has eclipsed letterpress printing and we’re proud to be making the case for the letterpress course of. We’re certain that partaking with the neighborhood in our Govan dwelling and past will seize the general public’s creativeness and spark renewed curiosity in printing.”

Mr Watson described his efforts to assist protect conventional printing strategies in Scotland as a “labour of affection”. In 2018 The Watson Basis, working with the Scottish Printing Archival Belief, produced booklets entitled the Glasgow Print Path and the Edinburgh Print Path which explored why printing was so necessary to each cities.

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Mr Watson mentioned: “Preserving conventional printing strategies for me is a labour of affection.

“Most individuals related to the printing trade usually agree that there have been extra basic adjustments within the final 50 years than within the previous centuries since Johannes Gutenberg invented printing from movable sort in 1450.

“It’s value remembering that printing was a mainstay of Glasgow’s trade – third solely in significance to [the] heaving engineering and shipbuilding [sectors].

“The tempo of change has been unrelenting and with know-how and new processes, methods of speaking the printed phrase have modified out of all recognition. Sadly, the trade has too, and most of the corporations have fallen by the wayside.

“Because of this it’s vital to make sure conventional print strategies comparable to letterpress printing shouldn’t be forgotten, and Glasgow Press are main the way in which with their neighborhood outreach initiative. I’m happy to be supporting it and need them effectively.”

Alongside his assist for conventional printing, Mr Watson is long-term backer of the Social Chunk co-founded by entrepreneur Josh Littlejohn to sort out homelessness. In Might, it was revealed that The Watson Basis was a significant backer of the latest Social Chunk café in Glasgow, based mostly in Sauchiehall Road near Buchanan Galleries.

Social Chunk was arrange by Mr Littlejohn and Alice Thompson in 2012 to supply jobs in its cafes to folks affected by homelessness or dealing with problem discovering employment. Its cafes supply a “pay it ahead” scheme which permits the general public to purchase a meal or sizzling drink for somebody in want.