Heritage and Arts

They held powdered tobacco, sewing needles, spectacles, pills, perfume, photographs and reels of thread. They carried pictures of Burns Cottage, Scottish castles and seaside resorts, but also scenes from France, America, Australia and South Africa. Behind these little wooden souvenirs was an Ayrshire industry

When former chief executive Michael Hyatt wrote The Thomas Neilson Way, the company whose name he led was described as the sixth-largest trade book publisher in the United States. That name belonged to a Scotsman born on a small farm near Stirling in 1780