Robert Foulis (1707 - 1776)

RA Collection: People and Organisations

Robert Foulis was the son of Andrew Faulls, or Faulds, a barber and maltman from Glasgow. Robert, and his brother Andrew, changed their surname in the 1730s. Robert Foulis trained as a barber, and subsequently attended Francis Hutcheson’s classes at the Glasgow University. It was that great professor of moral philosophy who encouraged him to become a printer and bookseller.

In 1741 Foulis established a bookshop at the College in Glasgow, ten years before John Smith opened his first shop in the city. He soon began to publish books. At first they were printed by other firms, but he acquired his own press in 1742. The following year he was appointed the University’s printer, and soon established a reputation for high quality works which were mainly classical and literary. Shortly afterwards he went into partnership with his brother, Andrew Foulis (1712-1775).

Their press published books in English, Latin, Greek, French and Italian that were noticeable for their quality. Among authors whose works were published by the Foulis press were Homer, Horace, Milton and Thomas Gray. The Homer, for which John Flaxman’s designs were executed, is perhaps the most famous production of the Foulis press.

The names of the brothers are often reproduced on title-pages and colophons of their publications in their Latinized form, “Robertus et Andreas Foulis”.

Robert Foulis’s achievements were not confined to printing and publishing books. He also established a school of art and design in Glasgow. It opened at the University in 1753, fifteen years before the Royal Academy in London, and has been described as ‘the single most influential factor in the development of eighteenth-century Scottish art’. It became known as the Foulis Academy.