Robert Foulis

Printer and publisher
Robert Foulis was a Scottish printer and publisher whose work had considerable influence on the bookmakers of his time. He was the son of a brewer and was qualified as a master barber. Foulis befriended the philosopher Francis Hutcheson while attending his lectures at the University of Glasgow, and Hutcheson and encouraged him to take up the trade of printing and bookselling.

In partnership with his bother Andrew, Foulis turned to bookselling. In 1738 and 1739 they imported books from France they sold at a profit in London. In 1741 Robert began selling books in Glasgow in 1741 and a year after he set up a press. In 1743 he was appointed printer to the University of Glasgow. In the same year he produced the first Greek book printed in Glasgow, the Peri hermēneias, in both Greek and Latin, of the pseudo-Demetrius Phalereus. In 1748 he formed a partnership with his brother, and by 1775 they had produced more than 500 separate editions, including a Homer, Callimachus, Thomas Gray’s Poems, Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon with Latin translations, and one of the first Scottish editions of Shakespeare. Their work was distinguished by their excellent layout, legibility, and accuracy.

Given to the efforts of Foulis brothers in 1754 Glasgow Academy of Arts was opened. Robert procured most of the pictures during his trip to the European Continent in 1751–53, and has also engaged teachers of drawing, engraving, and modeling. However, the venture was unsuccessful, Robert sold his pictures in London and the academy had to be closed. After Robert’s death on June 2, 1776, his business was continued by his son Andrew.