Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Chepman, Walter
CHEPMAN, WALTER (1473?–1538?), Scottish printer, burgess and merchant in Edinburgh, divides with Andrew Myllar the honour of being the first printer in Scotland, though Myllar is entitled to be called the first Scottish printer. The years of Chepman's birth and death are not precisely known, probably 1473-1538. His name, frequently misspelt Chapman, was by himself always written and printed Chepman. He first appears in 1494, when a payment of 20l. was made to him and Stobo by the treasurer for their services as clerks in the office of the king's secretary, and there are similar entries in 1496. Stobo, his fellow-clerk, was Sir William Reid of Stobo, a churchman and notary, who had served in the office in the reign of James II and III, from whom he got a pension in 1474; so Chepman was no doubt his assistant, and probably owed to him his introduction to the court of James IV and the circle of poets whose chief, William Dunbar, was a friend of Stobo, whom he calls 'Gud, gentle Stobo,' in his 'Lament for the Makaris.' This training in the duties of a writer in days when writing was an art, and under Patrick Panter, the royal secretary of this period, was a useful preparation for the future printer. Chepman was himself probably a notary, but the identity of a Walter Chepman so described in several writs of this period with the printer is not certain. It is not known how long he remained directly in the royal service, but in 1503 he had a present of a suit of English cloth on the marriage of James IV to Margaret of England, which, like Dunbar, he probably attended, and he is still styled servitor of the king in 1528. Long before this he had begun the more profitable business of a general merchant trading in wood for ships, and in wool, cloth, velvet damasks, and other stuffs imported from abroad. His success appears from frequent purchases of land. In May 1505 he bought Ewerland, a forty-shilling freehold in the manor of Cramond, in 1506 the life-rent for himself and wife of Meikle Jergeray in Perthshire, and in 1509 Prestonfield, then called Prestfield, on the south of Arthur Seat. Besides, he had property near the Borough Muir, and houses in the town of Edinburgh, at one of which, at the foot of the Blackfriars Wynd in the Cowgate, the first printing-press in Scotland was set up by him and Andrew Myllar. His own house was at the top of the same wynd in the High Street. While Chepman supplied the money Andrew Myllar is proved, by the researches of Mr. A. Claudin of Paris and Dr. R. Dickson of Carnoustie, to have supplied the skill, which he had acquired in France, then one of the chief centres of Printing. He is the printer of two very scarce books, one publisheci in 1505, and the other in 1506. Both, according to Mr. Claudin, to whom we owe their discovery, were printed at Rouen, and bear his device of a windmill. The former states in its colophon, 'quam Andreas Myllar Scotus mira arte imprimi ac diligenti studio corrigi orthograpieque stilo prout facultas suppetebat enucleatuque sollicitus fuit anno christiane redemptionis millesimo quingentesimo quinto,' As early as 29 March 1503, 10l. was paid to him by James for certain Latin books, whether printed or not is not said, and on 22 Dec. 1503, 50l. to his wife, for three 'printed bookis.' These, perhaps, were the first specimens of his art, which led to his return to Scotland, his partnership with Chepman, and the patent granted by the king to them on 15 Sept. 1507. This patent sets forth that 'our lovittis servitouris Walter Chepman and Andro Myllar, burgessis of our Burgh of Edinburgh, has at our instance and request, for our plesour, the honour and proffit of our realme and liegis, takin on thame to fumis and bring home ane prent, with all stuff belangand tharto, and expert men to use the samyne for imprenting within our realme of the bukis of our lawis, act is of parliament, cronicles, mess bukis, and portuus eftir the use of our realme with addicions and legendis of Scottis Sanctis now gaderit to be ekit tharto and al utheris bookis that salbe sene necessar and to sel the sammyn for competent pricis.' It narrates that the bishop of Aberdeen, Elphinston, and others, have prepared mass books and legends of the Scots saints, and forbids the importation of books of the use of Sarum. Chepman and Myllar are given not only a license, but a monopoly, and the right to prevent the importation of books from any other country. Thus encouraged, they at once set to work, and in 1508 the first book printed in Scotland was issued from their press. It contains, as bound together in the only copy preserved (now in the Advocates' Library), eleven small quarto books, which may have been issued in separate broadsheets. These are in the order in which they are bound : 1. 'The Porteous of Noblenes.' 2. 'The Knightly Tale of Golagros and Gawane.' 3. 'Sir Eglemor of Arteas.' 4. 'The Goldyn Targe' by Dunbar. 5. 'The Buke of Gude Counsale to the King,' by the same poet. 6. 'The Mayng or Disport' of Chaucer. 7. 'The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy.' 8. 'The Tale of Orpheus and Erudices.' 9. 'The Ballad of Lord Barnard Stewart, earl of Beaumont.' 10. 'The Twa Mariet Wemen and the Wedo,' and 'The Lament of the Makaris' by Dunbar. 11. 'A Gest of Robyn Hode.' Chepman's device is on four and Myllar's on seven of these pieces, and three different sets of types appear to have been used. The first nine are in a special type, which Dr. Dickson of Carnoustie supposes to have been cut for the Scottish press ; the tenth, with the same type as one of MyUar's Rouen books ; and the eleventh in a type identical with the one used by Bumgart, a Cologne printer of the end of the fifteenth century, so that it cannot be certain that they issued from the Edinburgh press.
The only other known work of Chepman's press is the Aberdeen breviary referred to in the patent as then in contemplation, and of which the 'Pars Hiemalis' bears on the title that it was 'in Edinburgensi oppido Walteri Chepman mercatoris impensis impressa Februariis idibus anno salutis nostre et gratie ix. M supra et quingentesimum.' The colophon repeats that 'it was printed by the care and at the expense of an honourable man, Walter Chepman, merchant of the city of Edinburgh in Scotland.'
The second volume, or 'Pars Æstiva,' states that it was printed in the town of Edinburgh, by the command, and at the expense, of Walter Chepman, merchant in the said town, on the 4tn day of the month of June 1510. Although a doubt has been expressed, from the description of Chepman as a merchant and not a printer, and the omission of any notice of Myllar, it seems all but certain that it proceeded from the same press as the poems printed in 1508. In 1509 Chepman had to assert his privilege against William and Francis Frost, William Lyon, Andrew Ross, and others who had begun to import foreign books, and on 14 Jan. the privy council gave decree in his favour prohibiting such importation. An expression at the close of this decree, which prohibits reprints of 'the buikis abonwrittin and Donatis and Wlric in personaSf or uither buikis that the said Walter hes prent it ellis,' suggests that Donatus, the Latin grammar most in use, had been printed by Chepman, as it was by Furst and Caxton, and possibly other books. If so, no copy has yet been found. The Breviary of Aberdeen closes the known work of Chepman's press, and as the works of Scottish writers between 1510 and his death in 1528 were all printed abroad, it is probable he abandoned the trade. As a merchant he continued to prosper. In 1510 he obtained the king's leave to alter his town house. In 1514-15 he served as dean of guild. James IV exempted him from the service of watching and warding and payment of the stent, and James V gave him a tavern on the north side of the High Street in 1526, the escheat of John Cockburn. As befitted a prosperous burgess, he deyoted part of his means to religious uses. In 1513 he erected an aisle on the south side of St. Giles’s Church, and endowed an altar where masses were to be said for the souls of the king and queen, his first spouse, Margaret Kerkettle, and himself, and fifteen years later he endowed a mortuary chapel in the cemetery of that church where prayers were to be said for James V, the founder and his wife Agnes Cockburn, Margaret Kerkettle, his former spouse, and especially for ‘the repose of the souls of the king and nobles and iii; faithful subjects slain at Floddon.’ He died soon after, for a reference has been found in an old protocol book as to the division of his estate between his relict, Agnes, and David Chepman, his son and heir. He was buried in the aisle he had built, where his arms, quartered with his wife’s, may be seen on a stone discovered in the recent restoration of the church. William Chambers [q. v.], another Scottish printer, the chief restorer of the church, has appropriately placed in it an inscription to the memory of Chepman.
[Laing’s Introduction to reprint of Chepman and Myllar's publications, 1827; Dickson’s Introduction of the Art of Printin into Scotland (1885); Original Records of the Lord High Treasurers and the Privy Council of Scotland.]