Stationers

By the beginning of the 20th century, stationery manufacture rivalled in importance as its parent industry the book trade.The term stationer  was originally applied to booksellers who received the writing paper  they acquired direct from the papermakers.

The industry developed through the need to supply Edinburgh's thriving financial, legal and educational establishments, all consumers of great quantities of stationery. As the trade diversified branches began to stock box and carton manufacturers, label printing, greetings cards and fancy goods, and the manufacture of sealing wax, a process carried out in large scale at George Waterstons.