Iviii 
Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. 
Thomas Nelson, F.E.S.E. By W. Scott Dalgleish, 
M.A., LL.D. 
(Eead December 19, 1892.) 
Thomas Nelson, the head of the publishing house of Thomas 
Nelson & Sons, died at his residence, St Leonard’s, Edinburgh, on 
October 20th, 1892 — within two months of completing his seven- 
tieth year. He was educated at the High School of Edinburgh ; 
and when he was seventeen years of age he joined his father’s 
business, which was that of a bookseller and ]3ublisher, carried on 
partly at the quaint old shop which stood till a few years ago at the 
head of the West Bow, and partly in the Gordon Mansion-house on 
the Castle Hill. His business faculty was rapidly developed, for in 
1844, when he was barely twenty-two, he was entrusted with the 
organisation of the London branch. Two years later, the business 
was removed from the Castle Hill to new premises at Hope Park. 
Some years before that, Thomas Nelson, senior, the head of the firm, 
had been laid aside by illness ; and the task of founding the 
extensive printing and publishing establishment at Hope Park was 
undertaken by his two sons, William and Thomas, who were 
comparatively young men. In this they succeeded so well that they 
brought to themselves fortune as well as fame. 
When the Hope Park premises had been in existence for upwards 
of thirty years, and had been extended to the utmost capacity of 
the available ground, and when the business in its many and varied 
departments was in full career in Edinburgh, London, and New 
York, it received a sudden check from the occurrence of the disastrous 
fire of 1878. This seeming calamity, however, turned out to be a 
blessing in disguise ; for it enabled the firm to make a fresh start at 
Parkside Works, in magnificent premises, conveniently arranged, and 
furnished with the latest and most approved forms of machinery. 
There, during the last fourteen years, the business has been carried 
on under the most favourable conditions, and with ever-increasing 
prosperity. 
Enough has been said, for the present occasion, of the history of 
the firm with which Thomas Nelson was identified. Something 
