Chambers (publisher)

Robert remained at home to finish his education, but William was forced to find work to support his parents.

He was a keen reader and would get up early in the morning to read by the dawn light because he was too poor to buy candles.

He too moved to Edinburgh, rented a one-roomed shop in Leith Walk, and set himself up as a bookseller when he was just 16 years old.

[1] In 1832, they published The Chambers Journal, a weekly newspaper containing articles on subjects such as history, religion, language and science, many of which were written by Robert himself.

The work was lauded by the then Lord Chancellor, Lord Jowitt, as "outstanding proof" of British scholarship, while the managing editor, M. D. Law, commented that she believed the work to be the first major encyclopaedia to be published in Britain since before the First World War.

[5] Chambers also published an extensive list of innovative and ultra-reliable language and reference titles, covering English-language dictionaries, thesauruses, bilingual dictionaries, and specialist titles on subjects such as biography, quotations, literary characters, science and technology and world history.

In the UK, Harrap publishes bilingual titles in French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German and Polish.

The Chambers imprint was managed from London by Hodder Education, while Harrap titles were moved to Larousse in Paris.