William Collins (12 October 1789 – 2 January 1853) was a Scottish schoolmaster, editor and publisher who founded William Collins, Sons, now part of HarperCollins. William Collins was born at Eastwood, Renfrewshire, on 12 October 1789. He was a millworker who established a company in 1819 for printing and publishing. The business eventually published pamphlets, sermons, hymn books and prayer books as well as a wide range of office products. By 1824 he had produced the company's first dictionary, the Greek and English Lexicon. He was instrumental in bringing Thomas Chalmers from Kilmany to Glasgow. He also obtained a licence to publish the Bible in the 1840s. In 1856, the first Collins atlas was published. He was promoter of Scotland's first temperance movement. He founded the Glasgow Church Building Society which created 20 new churches. He died on 2 January 1853 at Rothesay, Buteshire. Church elder At the age of twenty-five Mr Collins was ordained an elder in the congregation of the Tron Church, Glasgow, then under the pastoral care of Dr M'Gill. In the course of his reading he happened to peruse the article on the Evidences of Christianity in the Encydopcedia Britannica. The freshness of its intellectual power, and the glow of its moral and evangelical enthusiasm, impressed and delighted him. Accordingly, when Dr M'Gill died, Mr Collins turned his eyes to the author of the article which had so fascinated him, the Rev. Thomas Chalmers, as a suitable successor to Dr M'Gill, and greatly aided in the movement which resulted in the appointment by the Town Council of the young minister of Kilmany to the church and parish of the Tron. From no one did Dr Chalmers receive a heartier welcome on his induction in 1815 than from the youngest member of his session, Mr Collins. Work with Thomas Chalmers When Dr Chalmers originated the idea of local Sabbath Schools, Mr Collins opened the first school. Chalmers was next transferred to the new parish of St John's. Mr Collins accompanied his minister to his new charge, and still kept his place by his side. To Dr Chalmers, with his keen political and social insight, it belonged to originate methods of civic and Christian economy, and to expound and recommend them. But his elder, quiet and unobtrusive, came after him, testing the ideas of his chief, and giving them practical realization in the hovels of the poor. Collins