Joseph Swan (engraver)

Joseph Swan (11 November 1796 Manchester, England – 22 September 1872 Anderston, Scotland) was an engraver and publisher active in Glasgow in the early nineteenth century.

[1] Swan was one of a number of engravers and printers in Glasgow whose business encompassed pictures, portraits, maps, bookplates, plans, invoices, bills, bank notes, and silver work.

The thirty-three plates include views of the city from different vantage points, the leading thoroughfares, buildings, and districts.

By February 1830 the series was complete and included views of country houses such as Blythswood, Carstairs, Erskine and Hamilton Place plus Helensburgh, Greenock, Rothesay, and Campbelltown.

Swan was keen to point out to potential subscribers and purchasers that the work was of national importance as it was the first to group together Highland and Lowland lochs and included many of the lesser-known ones.

All the engravings were based on pictures by John Fleming and the text was by Leighton with an introduction by Professor Wilson.

From 1832 to 1836 Swan’s entry in the Post Office Directory shows him as ‘engraver and publisher of the Lakes of Scotland’.

Swan’s engravings appear in further works including Strathclutha; or the Beauties of Clyde (1839), which combines views from the Glasgow and Clyde series; The Topographical, Statistical and Historical Gazetteer of Scotland (1845); and the new edition of James Browne’s A History of the Highlands and of the Highland Clans.

Joseph Swan was a committee member and for some time treasurer of the Glasgow Mechanics’ Institution which was founded in 1832.

He was an honorary member of the West of Scotland Academy of the Fine Arts, founded in 1841, to which his firms supplied printed material.