B. Paterson

B. Paterson, Wholesale Cabinet Making and Upholstering, 77, Maxwell Street.—

    In the old-established and extensive business of the house named above are embodied all the characteristic features of a thoroughly representative and first-class cabinet-making industry, whose present standing and condition are the outcome of long experience and an intelligent application to the purposes of the trade engaged in of every worthy improvement and advancement that has marked the progress of that industry during the past half-century. The well-known house of Mr. B. Paterson dates its history, under its present name, back as far as 1833, and for fifty years prior to that time Mr. Paterson’s father had been engaged in a similar business in London Lane.

    The present premises of the house in Maxwell Street have been occupied for upwards of forty years. They comprise a large and substantial warehouse of three floors, spacious, commodious in plan and arrangement, convenient in situation, and covering in itself a ground area of fully three thousand square feet. In Arden Street, at the rear of this warehouse, are the workshops, of good extent, and employing a force of seventy hands of especial skill and experience, and here also is a large, well-stocked timber-yard, and general facilities for the storage of an extensive stock of finished furniture. The premises in their entirety occupy a space of about an acre and a half.

    The special feature of Mr. Paterson’s industry consists in the fact that all goods produced at his establishment are manufactured by hand labour, no machinery being employed for any purpose to which hand work is applicable. The class of furniture turned out under this system is of splendid quality, and combines all the strength, solidity, and durability of the old-time furniture of fifty or sixty years ago, with the graceful form and artistic beauty of the best modern designs. All the material used is of the very best class, and the firm are themselves direct importers, for their own purposes, of the finest and oldest timber obtainable. A splendid assortment of oak furniture — cabinets, sideboards, and other items of dining-room appointment — is shown, all the various articles comprised in the display being made from old oak timber from Cadzow Forest, Hamilton.

    This famous and historic wood, the property of the Duke of Hamilton, has long been renowned for the immense size, strength, and antiquity of its great oak-trees. A great storm in November, 1880, laid low five of the oldest and feeblest of Cadzow Chase’s ancient oaks, and these fallen patriarchs of the forest were only resolved into portable shape by being blown asunder with dynamite. The timber is of very beautiful figure in grain and of great richness in its colour, and the whole of the wood was purchased by Mr. Paterson, who was too wise to allow to pass such a valuable opportunity of securing a genuine prize in high-class cabinet-making timber. The furniture he has produced from this wood is in every way worthy of its material, and possesses a double attraction and interest in the vast antiquity of its substance and in the skilful and artistic manner in which that substance has been modelled and fashioned by modern hands to the uses of the present day. The business is conducted with marked ability and judgment, this excellence of administration being traceable to the fact that Mr. Paterson and his four sons, who assist him in management and supervision, are all practical cabinet-makers and upholsterers “to the manner born”, and are thoroughly familiar with every detail of a trade in which they have won for their house a national reputation.

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