It existed as a private firm, Arthur King and Co. until 1900 when the public company, Aberdeen University Press was created to acquire it.
[3] The origins of AUP can be sought in a small short-lived printing firm founded by brothers George and Robert King, which operated between 1840 and 1850 in the city of Aberdeen.
The firm "did much jobbing work, and for many years had printed the Aberdeen Free Press and produced a great many papers, announcements and notices relating to the expansion of the railway system into the North and North-East of Scotland.
"[3] The new owners were: John Thomson, former compositor and later foreman in the case room of the Aberdeen Journal, Alexander Troup, a wholesale bookseller and stationer, and a Mr. Mackenzie.
Cross-pollination between the two entities continued when James Trail, Professor of Botany joined the board in 1907, and the University Librarian, P. J. Anderson, in 1921.
Besides printing equipment, AUP also inherited 3 type-casting machines and a vast collection of type; over 600 tons worth, including Russian, German, Bengali, Greek, and Hebrew.
Due to this labor shortage, though AUP was a defiantly non-union shop, the company "had got itself into an ultimately unsustainable and unsympathetic position, in that every time there was a wage increase – either a general increase, or a War Bonus – agreed between union shops, the unions themselves, and employers’ federations, the firm was obliged to match it, for fear of losing valuable and skilled staff to other printers.
The company had a handful of dutiful customers and seemed to have a close relationship with the John Rylands Library and the Manchester University Press, but periods of steady productivity were few and far between.
"AUP was predominately a book and journal printer, whilst the Rosemount Press carried out considerably more jobbing and general commercial work.
However, in 1941, the company noted that the volume of work had increased, "a considerable number of reprint orders having come in as a result of the destruction of printed stocks by recent enemy action in London.
"[3] From the postwar period until 1970, AUP maintained a pattern of comfortable growth and small-scale absorptions: William Jackson Ltd. in 1950; John Avery & Co. (the Greyfriars Press), a firm of general printers, in 1953; Edmond & Spark, stationers and bookbinders, in 1966.
The bank's small acquisition spree continued with Central Press Ltd. and George Cornwall and Sons Ltd. between 1970 and 1972, fully integrating each new firm with AUP.
The publication of the Concise Scots Dictionary after its rejection by three other publishers was a point of pride for AUP; it became a best-seller at the Edinburgh International Book Festival that year.
[1] The first title published was Taking Part in Music: Case Studies in Ethnomusicology, released in 2013 by the Elphinstone Institute.
The next volume will be Vita Mea, the autobiography of Scottish literary scholar and Aberdeen alumnus, Sir Herbert Grierson.