TSO Heritage
Her Majesty’s Stationery Office (HMSO) was founded in 1786 as a Treasury department, to ensure that government departments were paying reasonable prices for stationery.
In 1806 the Treasury ordered that paper, parchment, pens and sealing wax should be bought by HMSO through public and open competition. In 1812 this was extended to all forms of stationery and in 1822 a review of HMSO operations led to the decision that all government departments had to buy through them.
In 1882 HMSO was made official publisher to both houses of Parliament, a role which was formalised in 1889 when it was granted the Royal Letters Patent as ’printer to Her Majesty of all Acts of Parliament’ and in 1889 HMSO became responsible for the London Gazette.
The demands placed on HMSO increased throughout the 20th century, with the organisation printing and publishing diverse materials on a wide range of topics including wartime documents, and scientific, technical and medical materials.
In 1996 the trading functions of HMSO were privatised and became The Stationery Office (TSO). Our 200-year heritage of secure no-fail delivery as publisher to Her Majesty’s Government, Parliament and other public and private sector organisations has given us an unrivalled understanding of the processes required when publishing and distributing official and regulatory information. This enables us to provide our clients with efficient outsourced publishing and corporate information solutions. View our case studies to find out how we've tailored our solutions to meet our clients' needs.
In January 2007, TSO was acquired by Williams Lea, the global Corporate Information Solutions provider.