The architect and the poisoner? (1)

Glasgow's western expansion and 'Greek' Thomson's links to accused poisoner Madeleine Smith

Many members of Glasgow’s architectural profession worked in offices close to one another, sometimes even sharing premises, or were members of the same professional or social bodies, masonic lodges, or churches.

In 1857, there were 39 architects and architectural firms listed in the Glasgow Post Office Directory, two-thirds of them within a few minutes’ walk of one another’s offices.

That year, Alexander and his brother George Thomson had set up office at 4 Bothwell Street (the red dot in the map above), in the same building as architect Alexander Kirkland, who had designed it. Five minutes away was the office of architect James Smith (in blue), at 124 St Vincent Street. The yellow dot is the Gordon Street United Presbyterian Church, where both the Thomson and Smith families worshipped. And the white dot is 10 Bothwell Street, where a clerk named Pierre Emile L’Angelier was employed.

John Smith of Alloa

James Smith was from Alloa, where his father, John Smith was a builder, responsible for constructing James Gillespie Graham’s Alloa Parish Church, among others.

In 1806, John married Elizabeth ‘Betsy’ Thomson, the daughter of an Alloa maltster. She had two brothers: George, of who we know nothing, and John, of whom we will hear more. John Smith and Betsy had five sons and four daughters. Future architect James was the eldest, born in August 1806.

James’s younger brother, Thomas Thomson, qualified as a doctor, joined the East India Company and died in Madras in 1853. The next brother John, by 1851 was an agent for the sale of glass (presumably connected with the building trade) together with the youngest brother, William Archibald. The latter moved to Australia and died there. The fourth son, Henry was at one point listed as a ‘merchant, commercial agent, and agent for the Wishaw Distillery Co.’ but disappears afterwards.

Of the four daughters, nothing is known of the eldest. The second, Janet (‘or Jessie’), married Finlay Tower from Alloa. They had one daughter. Tower went into partnership with Archibald Arrol as Glasgow commission agents and merchants. living at Ibroxholm, which contained several villas, some of which may have been developed by James Smith, who purchased property there in 1845. That year Finlay Tower died; Jessie died at Largs five years later.

The youngest daughters, Margaret and Betsy Thomson both married (the latter twice) and had children.

Finlay Tower and Archibald Arrol must have been close since Arrol named one of his sons ‘Archibald Tower Arrol’. The firm were local agents for Roy’s Alloa Ales and when the Alloa Brewery came on the market in 1866, it was purchased by Archibald Arrol. His trademark was a pair of intertwined A’s and he and his sons became successful brewers and bottlers. They introduced Graham’s Golden Lager, later renamed Skol.

Banking competition

In Scotland, competition between banks in the late 1700s principally involved the Edinburgh-based Royal Bank and Bank of Scotland trying to kill off the opposition, especially in the west. Eventually, after thirty years’ effort to see off independent rivals, the Royal Bank established a Glasgow branch in 1783. Initially, they rented part of a linen shop occupied by David Dale – he of New Lanark mills fame – in the High Street. Dale became one of two cashiers or agents for the bank. Two years later, David Dale and his partner George Macintosh introduced Turkey Red dyeing to Glasgow.

Fifteen years later they moved to larger premises in St Andrew’s Square, and in 1817, purchased William Cunninghame’s former mansion in Queen Street (above) from the Stirlings of Cordale, who operated an extensive Turkey Red dyeing business in Leven and had purchased it after Cunninghame’s death. At the time, a David Stirling was one of the Royal Bank’s accountants (as was Alexander Mein, who would become Alexander Thomson’s brother-in-law), so there may have been a family connection.

Ten years later, the Bank offered to sell the mansion for fitting out as a new Royal Exchange. They then feued the land immediately to the west, fronting Buchanan Street.

Archbald Elliott II drew up plans for the Royal Bank’s new Glasgow office and John Smith was given the contract to construct it.

Why should an Alloa builder have been given the job? Possibly because John Smith’s brother-in-law, John Thomson, was the Royal Bank’s Glasgow manager at the time and had previously purchased Northwoodside House (above). Six years later, with the completion of the new Bank offices, he transferred to Edinburgh. This was a mistake: Glasgow, the Royal Bank’s only branch, would become not just its busiest office but one of the busiest in the United Kingdom.

Having made one poor decision, Thomson made another: he became Joint Manager of the Edinburgh & Glasgow Bank, a much smaller bank that struggled with bad loans and was eventually taken over by the Clydesdale Bank at no cost in 1858, a year before John Thomson’s death.

Back in Glasgow, the new Royal Bank was being completed: the later commemorative banknote (above) shows David Dale and both Royal Bank main offices in Edinburgh and Glasgow, the former another converted mansion. Meanwhile, John Smith was appointed one of the trustees to sort out the affairs of Hamilton William Garden, a developer who had gone bankrupt in 1826.

Hamilton William Garden’s father, Francis, had moved to Greenock from Kincardineshire. He was co-owner of the Gourock Ropework Co., which despite its name, was based in Port Glasgow, making ships’ ropes and sailcloth. By 1805 he was in Glasgow. His company, Francis Garden & Co., was a founding member of the Glasgow West India Association, probably involved in exporting dyed fabrics, such as the Turkey Red bandanas used by plantation slaves.

Dyeing, we’re told, ‘produced a bright shade … believed to be and often marketed as being very hardy and extremely slow to fade, even with repeated washing and bright sunlight, making it ideal for use in hotter climates such as the British colonies’.

The Association, founded in 1807, brought together West India merchants and planters. Within a year it had 28 corporate members and 43 individual ones. It was neither informal nor cheap: the annual corporate subscription was equivalent to £1,800 today and £375 for individuals. Over the next 25 years, it maintained an agent in London and addressed various petitions to Parliament to protect their interests. The Association was only wound up in 1969; its records are held in the Mitchell Library.

Dale was not an Association member: instead, he became chair of a Glasgow society ‘co-operating with the other Societies in Great Britain, in their endeavours to effect the Abolition of the African Slave Trade’. However, he died before Parliament passed the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act.

Of Francis’ four daughters and six sons, four children at least were alive when he died.

One daughter married a Writer to the Signet, another a Glasgow merchant. One son became an insurance broker and Justice of the Peace. Another, Alexander worked in the Glasgow merchant house of Monteith, Bogle & Co, and went on to marry the second daughter co-owner Henry Monteith, shown here, a merchant and sometime Lord Provost and MP.

Alexander and his father appear to have gone into partnership with Monteith (Francis may have brokered the insurance for ships carrying goods to and from the West Indies). Alexander became a council bailie, a JP, and by 1827 was Glasgow’s Dean of Guild, approving new construction and building repairs.

Hamilton William Garden was Francis Garden’s youngest son, of whom more in the next article.