They were keen advocates of popular education and his firm pioneered the use of industrial technologies within publishing to make books and newspapers available cheaply.

They also made money in promulgating the many new science discoveries as the modern world emerged from prior modes of thinking in such periodicals as the Edinburgh Journal.

William was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1860, his proposer was John Shank More.

[11] Chambers died at home at 13 Chester Street[12] in Edinburgh's West End on 20 May 1883 and was buried in the family plot in Peebles Cemetery.

In 1867, in his capacity as Lord Provost of Edinburgh, William Chambers (who was also a director of the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), granted a dog licence to Greyfriars Bobby, paying for the licence and for a customised dog collar, now in the Museum of Edinburgh, himself.

[16] The statue was relocated in 2020 as part of a relandscaping exercise on Chambers Street, increasing paved area outside the National Museum of Scotland.

After fourteen issues had appeared, Robert became associated with his brother as joint editor, and his collaboration may have contributed more than anything else to the success of the Journal.

[22] The firm would eventually become part of Chambers Harrap Publishers in the late 20th century.

Among the other numerous works of which Robert was in whole or in part the author, the Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen (4 vols., Glasgow, 1832–1835), the Cyclopædia of English Literature (1844), the Life and Works of Robert Burns (4 vols., 1851), Ancient Sea Margins (1848), the Domestic Annals of Scotland (1859–1861) and the Book of Days (2 vols., 1862–1864) were the most important.