Stewart & Sons

Stewart & Sons, Glasgow Paper Mills, 44 to 50, McNeil Street.—

    There are few Scottish industries which have been better developed within the past quarter of a century than the manufacture of paper, and in connection with the progress and steady advancement of this important branch of productive enterprise the house named at the head of this sketch has always maintained a prominent and creditable position. The business under notice was established in McNeil Street upwards of forty years ago by Messrs. John Brown & Son, and was afterwards for a lengthy period carried on under the style of Stewart & Brown. Ten years ago, Mr. Peter Stewart, who had succeeded to the sole control of the concern, assumed as partners his two sons, and the title of the firm was then changed to Stewart & Sons, as at present. The proprietary now includes Mr. Peter Stewart and his sons, Mr. John A. Stewart and Mr. James Stewart.

    The premises occupied in McNeil Street cover a ground area of about an acre. On one side of the main entrance to the buildings is a spacious store-room, with a suite of general and private offices adjoining. On the opposite side is a building of two floors which is utilised as a rag store and sorting-house. And beyond these, to the rear, are situate the paper machine house and the bleach and boiling house. These constitute the mill proper, which was, in accordance with a regulation during the paper duty now repealed, styled “Mill No. 3”. The mechanical equipment here is complete.

    That these facilities are fully utilised may be gathered from the fact that the weekly output of the mill averages twenty tons of paper of various kinds, or about three and one-third tons per day. This production is varied in character, and embraces large quantities of such standard grades and qualities of paper as the following :— Grey caps in four kinds, fine small hand papers, fine purple papers, middles, grocery and butter papers, grey bag papers, unglazed casings, merino and self-blue papers, cartridge and hosiery papers, and paper in webs, up to 60 inches in width. These goods are all well known and favourably reputed for excellence in their several classes, and the firm’s papers are highly esteemed for good finish and sound substance.

    Messrs. Stewart & Sons employ a large force of hands in all departments of their commerce and industry, and hold a prominent post among the leading representative business houses of Glasgow, which it is the object of this work to briefly and concisely review. The trade controlled is one of much magnitude and importance, and is widely and influentially connected in both the home and export markets. The business is one of constant growth and expansion, and all its affairs are administered with energy, enterprise, and careful observance of the most honourable mercantile methods and principles.

    Mr. Peter Stewart, the senior partner and head of the house, is a Glasgow citizen well known among the prominent members of an important and strikingly progressive community. He was a member of the Town Council for fifteen years, but resigned his seat in the Council Chamber eleven years ago owing to the increasing demands made upon his time by the constant growth of his business. He is at the present time President of the Glasgow Humane Society, an organization to whose credit stands the achievement of many a noble and worthy object in the interests of the cause indicated in its title.

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