Edward Raban (printer)
English printer associated with Aberdeen, Scotland (died 1658)
Edward Raban (died 1658) was an English soldier in the Eighty Years War and Anglo-Spanish War, who became a printer chiefly associated with Aberdeen, Scotland. Raban may have been involved in the publication of the Perth Assembly, a controversial book opposing religious reforms of James VI.
Biography
Edward Raban is best known as a printer, arriving in Aberdeen in 1622 and remaining there until his death. Details of his life are sparse. His place of birth appears to be in England, perhaps in 1579, and he has been supposed to be a native of Worcestershire, based on his writings in Rabans Resolution against Drunkennesse, printed in 1622, in which he speaks of his "father's brother, Peter Raban, a parson at Meltonmowbre in Wooster-shyre." A contemporary appraisal of Raban's life notes that "This is incorrect as Melton Mowbray is in Leicestershire and not Worcestershire, and no Raban was ever vicar there. However, a gentleman called ‘Raven’ was briefly curate at Keysham Chapel in Leicestershire." His ancestry may be German, based on a longform version of his name as sometimes published: "Edward Rabanus, Anglo Britannus, Gente Germanus" and his self-ifentification as originating from the same country as Pope Joan.
In 1600 Raban set off, along with a number of "bankrout merchands and run-away prentizes", to serve with the army in the Netherlands. He was a soldier in the Eighty Years' War and the Anglo-Spanish War for some ten years, including fighting at the Battle of Nieuwpoort in July 1600 and after that time seems to have travelled over a considerable portion of the continent of Europe, and learnt his trade as a printer, including at Leiden and Amsterdam from as early as 1607.
Circumstantially it appears Raban may have been involved in the publication of the Perth Assembly, a criticism of the James VI and I's Five Articles of Perth, which offended the monarch and provided impetus to the departure of the Pilgrim Fathers in the Mayflower.
Although the Dictionary of National Biography first places him in as a printer in Edinburgh in 1620, at the sign of the A. B. C., in a house at the Cowgate Port, where he printed only one book, contemporary research identifies that he had returned to Edinburgh by 1616 and was associated with Andro Hart, a Scottish printer, publisher, and bookseller in Edinburgh.
In 1620 he appears at St.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q21197910. VIAF identifies the subject as 304636595. The Library of Congress control number is nr93008558. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1658, 1622, 1579 and 1600.
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