Thread: Memory Lane (In my own language)

A documentary (photos not included) titled: First Printing

The Siamese had been familiar with the printing press since the reign of King Narai the Great in the Ayutthaya period, when a French Catholic missionary named Louis Laneau established a printing house in 1662.

(A drawing by Jean-Baptiste Nolin depicts an event that took place on 18 October 1685 CE at the Hall of Sanphet in Ayutthaya Kingdom (now a province). The picture showed Louis Laneau (on the right, forefront) being closely involved in the contacts with King Narai the Great. Here, Chevalier de Chaumont presents a letter from King Louis XIV to King Narai.)


The French chronicles of the day claimed that he mass-produced Christian sermons, but all hard evidence was lost with the collapse of the old Kingdom in 1767.

In the period that followed, a Catholic priest founded a printing house at Santa Cruz Church in Thonburi Province and published the book “Kham Son Christang (= Christian sermons), (1796)", using Roman script. The Thai alphabet had yet to be cut into printing blocks.

(The book was found in a private hand. It has been claimed to be the first printed book in Siam/Thailand and the only one left in the world. The original shape of the book was not allowed to be shown in public but as a rough sketch of the cover submitted to The National Book Development Board, it is seen as above, at the top right corner)


The format had been changed some time after 1819, when another missionary, American Ann Yudson, and a Burmese printer created the first complete set of Siamese font.

Two books were published using Siamese text: a group of Baptists released “Christian Preaching” in Burma, and James Low issued “Tamra Waiyakorn Thai” (“Thai Grammar”) in Calcutta.

Before he moved to Siam, American physician and missionary Dan Beach Bradley was offered Yudson’s printing press and Thai font while in Singapore.

He launched his own printing business in 1836 in Thonburi’s Santa Cruz district before moving to what is now Captain Bush Lane off New Road and later to a house near Wat Prayoon.

The first book Bradley printed was “The Ten Commandments”, the first Thai-language book published in Siam.

In 1839 the government hired Bradley to print an announcement outlawing opium smoking. This is regarded as the country’s first official published announcement.

Bradley, two years later, with the skills of a Singaporean printer, developed a far more beautiful Thai font.

In 1861 he published “Niras Muang London” (“A Voyage to London”) by Mom Rachothai, being Siam’s first copyrighted book.

Bradley continued tinkering with Thai fonts. By the end of King Rama IV’s reign, there were four known fonts. The font he devised became the basis for the printed Thai still used today.