Chambers (publisher)
the publishers of Chambers Dictionary
Chambers is a reference publisher based in London (formerly Edinburgh, Scotland). It held the property rights of W. & R. Chambers Publishers.
History of Chambers
Chambers was founded as W. & R. Chambers Publishers by the two brothers William Chambers of Glenormiston and Robert Chambers. They were born into a rich, mill-owning family in Peebles in Scotland in 1800 and 1802 respectively, during the time of the war with France. The war impoverished the family and, in 1813, the family left Peebles for Edinburgh. While Robert remained at home to finish his education, William was forced to find work to support his parents. He was a keen reader and would get up early in the morning to read by the dawn light because he was too poor to buy candles. He was apprenticed to a bookseller, at the sum of 4 shillings a week. Robert, also an avid reader, could not go to university when he finished school because his parents could not afford to pay. He too moved to Edinburgh, rented a one-roomed shop in Leith Walk, and set himself up as a bookseller when he was just 16 years old.
The public source identifies “Chambers (publisher)” as the publishers of Chambers Dictionary. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Chambers, publisher and publishers.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5069648. VIAF identifies the subject as 264492873. The Library of Congress control number is no95031249. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1800, 1802 and 1813.
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This entry incorporates text from “Chambers (publisher)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.