Thomas Constable

Thomas Constable FRSE (29 June 1812 – 26 May 1881) was a Scottish printer and publisher.

Early life and career Thomas Constable was born on 29 June 1812 in Craigcrook Castle, west of Edinburgh. He was the fourth son of the Scottish publisher, bookseller and stationer Archibald David Constable (1774–1827) and Mary, daughter of David Willison.

In his youth he studied printing under the tutelage of Mr. Charles Richards of St. Martin's Lane, London and then returned to Edinburgh to establish his own printing business. Following the death of his father Archibald in 1827, Thomas took over his father's printing, publishing and bookselling business in 1833 and moved the business to 11 Thistle Street, New Town, Edinburgh. In conformity with his late father's wishes, Thomas continued the publishing programme that was already under way, issuing new books on "practical" topics such as history, geography, engineering and travel accounts, and issuing new volumes in his father's Constable's Miscellany book series. Thomas also continued and expanded the Edinburgh printing business of his grandfather, David Willison (father-in-law of Archibald Constable).

In 1835 he became the His Majesty's Printer and Publisher in Edinburgh (which gave him the privilege of Acts of Parliaments, Edicts, Proclamations, and other papers" but did not give him a monopoly of printing the Bible in Scotland as had formerly been the case) and four years later he was appointed Printer to the University of Edinburgh.

Thomas Constable & Company

In the late 1840s he began publishing under the aegis of Thomas Constable & Company.

Some of the other notable works published by Thomas Constable included the Letters of Calvin Compiled from the Original Manuscripts and Edited with Historical Notes (1855), Giovanni Ruffini's novels such as Lorenzo Benoni Or Passages in the Life of an Italian (1853), The Paragreens on a Visit to the Paris Universal Exhibition (1856) and Doctor Antonio: A Tale (1858), and the earlier works of John Brown, M.D., such as Rab and his Friends (1859).

T. & A. Constable Ltd

Thomas Constable continued publishing until 1860, at which point he sold the publishing part of his business to Edmonston & Douglas. and the firm began publishing as T. & A. Constable Ltd.

Personal life and death

On 14 October 1837 Constable married Lucia Anna Cowan, the daughter of Alexander Cowan, a papermaker in Valleyfield, Penicuik. Their children included Archibald David Constable (1843–1915),

Freemasonry Constable was a Scottish Freemason. He was Initiated in Lodge Canongate Kilwinning, No. 2, on 13 March 1835.

Assessment

The book history academic Alexis Weedon has described Thomas Constable's career "modest". However, Constable maintained a publishing programme and printing over many years and improved efficiency by modernising the working practices and acquiring new fonts (adding "Arabic, Hebrew, Coptic, Sanskrit, German, and Music" fonts to the "fount of Greek" originally owned in 1835) and presses (adding sixteen presses and a cylinder and three platen machines" to the four presses owned in 1835).

It was also partly as a result of Thomas taking over the firm of his father Archibald Constable in 1833 after the bankruptcy of the previous decade that the Constable publishing firm would survive into the twentieth century as a major publisher of fiction and non-fiction books. The Constable name continues today under the imprint name of Constable and Robinson.