ON July 4, 1956, the Queen, in the words of this newspaper, “set her seal on more than 20 years of hope and endeavour” when she formally opened the new National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh.

Some 3,000 people watched on George IV Bridge as she unlocked the main door of the building with a ceremonial gilded key.

At the end of the ceremony she was presented by the Earl of Crawford with a facsimile edition of one of the library’s most precious possessions, the oldest Scottish book, known as the Chepman and Myllar prints.