Author: Balfour, John
Biography:
BALFOUR, John (1715-95: ODNB)
A prominent Edinburgh bookseller and printer, he was born at South Leith, the son of shipbuilder James Balfour and Louisa (Hamilton) Balfour. He had a Presbyterian upbringing and was educated at Edinburgh University. From about 1733 he was a clerk in the bookselling business of Gavin Hamilton (who had married Balfour’s sister), and in 1739-62 he was Hamilton’s partner. Together they built up a highly successful and innovative business. In 1747 he married Catherine Cant; they had two sons who followed their father into the book trade. When the partnership with Hamilton was dissolved, Balfour joined with printers William Smellie and William Auld, and he successfully established links with major London publishers as a way of promoting Scottish writers. The prefatory note to Daphnis records that the elegy was written in 1755 on the death of a friend in North America. Balfour died at Edinburgh. (ODNB 7 Feb. 2019; ancestry.co.uk 7 Feb. 2018; Scottish Book Trade Index)