Broadside ballad entitled 'One Pound Two'

Commentary

This ballad begins: 'Now Maggy dear, I do hear you have been on the spree, / Where is my whole week's wages gone, I pray come tell to me'. A note at the top states that the sheet was 'Printed and Sold by JAMES LINDSAY, Stationer, &c,, 9 King Street, Glasgow'.

James Lindsay had one of the biggest printers in Glasgow, and his business ran for over 50 years, at various addresses. He was at King Street between 1860 and 1894. The Glasgow Directory for 1847 also has him registered as a 'Paper and Rag Merchant, Rope and Twine Manufacturer'. With fierce competition from other firms, printers and publishers often diversified. Some even sold the ink residue from their presses as shoe blacking!

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.

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