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Penny Broadsides

Broadside-seller 'Hawkie'

How Ordinary Scots

in

Bygone Days

Found out what was Happening

In the centuries before there were newspapers and 24-hour news channels, the general public had to rely on street literature to find out what was going on. The most popular form of this for nearly 300 years was 'broadsides' - the tabloids of their day. Sometimes pinned up on walls in houses and ale-houses, these single sheets carried public notices, news, speeches and songs that could be read (or sung) aloud.

The National Library of Scotland's online collection of nearly 1,800 broadsides lets you see for yourself what 'the word on the street' was in Scotland between 1650 and 1910. Crime, politics, romance, emigration, humour, tragedy, royalty and superstitions - all these and more are here.

Each broadside comes with a detailed commentary and most also have a full transcription of the text, plus a downloadable PDF facsimile. You can search by keyword, browse by title or browse by subject.

Take a look, and discover what fascinated our ancestors!

Reports recounting dark and salacious deeds were popular with the public, and, like today's sensationalist tabloids, sold in large numbers. Crimes could generate sequences of sheets covering descriptive accounts, court proceedings, last words, lamentations and executions as they occurred. As competition was fierce, immediacy was paramount, and these occasions provided an opportunity for printers and patterers to maximise sales.

Broadsides were sold to a captive audience, since there were very few other forms of entertainment available to the poorer members of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century society. As a result, sensational or morally outrageous stories from up and down the country would be distributed. Despite the high levels of illiteracy and poverty, these stories would have reached a large section of the population, as they were intended to be read in public, to groups of people.

Broadsides are single sheets of paper, printed on one side, to be read unfolded. They carried public information such as proclamations as well as ballads and news of the day. Cheaply available, they were sold on the streets by pedlars and chapmen. Broadsides offer a valuable insight into many aspects of the society they were published in, and the National Library of Scotland holds over 250,000 of them.

Whilst a number of broadsides include a small woodcut illustration at the top of the sheet, adding to the visual appeal, this elegy contains an unusually high degree of illustrative detail. The top of the sheet shows a skull and crossbones along with the Latin phrase 'memento mori' (remember you must die), and the text is bordered on both sides by the image of the crossbones, a skeleton, and two crossed spades. Wilson must have been a prominent figure to warrant this rather ornate form of remembrance.

Broadsides are often crudely illustrated with woodcuts - the earliest form of printed illustration, first used in the mid-fifteenth century. Inclusion of an illustration on a broadside increased its perceived value, especially among the illiterate. To keep costs down, publishers would normally reuse their limited stock of generic woodcuts.

The cost of a broadside

Most broadsides, which cost one penny (around 16 pence in today’s money), were just about within the means of most working people, whereas quality prints at an average of 2s 6d each were well beyond the means of the working class and even lower middle class artisans.

Some ballads cost as little as a halfpenny. Newspapers, which eventually were to take over from broadsides, were taxed until 1855. Because of this, they were too expensive for most folk.

Spreading the word

Many of the printers who produced broadsides would also have printed chapbooks, tracts, playbills and garlands (collection of love songs in pamphlet form).

Sometimes the printers distributed their own wares, but they relied to a great extent on pedlars, hawkers, street criers and chapmen, who played a very important role in the commercial life of the country 200 years ago.

The sellers

Hawkers would buy broadsides from the printers in urban centres like Glasgow, Edinburgh, Falkirk and Stirling They would sing and shout about the latest publication on the streets or carry them to markets and fairs throughout Scotland.

There were a number of prominent Scottish hawkers and chapmen whose lives have been recorded in print by their contemporaries.

Included among these were two Glasgow characters - Dougal Graham (1724-1779), a writer and seller of chapbooks, and William Cameron - better known as 'Hawkie' (c.1790-1851) - a street orator, hawker and beggar.

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