Details

Name

Neilson, Shaw & MacGregor

Brief Biography

1866 - 1921, British / Scottish

Occupation

silk mercers, warehouse, carpet manufacturers, upholsterers

Description

Neilson, Shaw and MacGregor was a warehouse by John Neilson, William Shaw, and John Masline MacGregor, after the co-partnery of Campbells, Neilson, Shaw, & Company, was dissolved on 30 June 1866. The business took over the prior firm's premises at 44 Buchanan Street, known as The Pavilion, which later gave the name to the firm's telegraphic address, and held a 'Clearing Sale' of 'their entire present stock' in January 1867. By the 1880s departments included drapery, 'costumes & robes de bal', upholstery and carpets, and the management had passed to the next generation, John Birkmyre Neilson and William Shaw jr. In 1888 the firms stall at the International Exhibition of Science, Art and Industry, Glasgow, displayed a range of tartans representing over 140 clans and families. The Index of Firms exhibiting stated that their premises 'very large, commodious, and in every respect well adapted for a drapery warehouse of the first class […] containing four extensive floors' and approximately 300 employees. The following year they exhibited at the Paris Exhibition, where they won silver a medal for their tartans, and nearly twenty years later they had a tartan stall in the Franco-British exhibition, London. In 1894 the business expanded into 54 Buchanan Street.

The co-partnership was dissolved on 31 December 1912 due to the retirement of additional subscribers with Neilson and Shaw taking sole ownership of the assets. The warehouse was last listed at 44 and 54 Buchanan Street in the Post Office Directory for Glasgow in 1913. A notice in the Daily Record and Mail on 12 March 1917 advertised 'an epoch making' sale of the stock due to the retirement of Neilson and Shaw. A week later The Hamilton Advertiser declared the closure would 'leave a blank in Buchanan Street as noticeable as a missing front tooth', but that stock worth over £12,000 had been purchased by the managing director of the Royal Polytechnic, Glasgow. The firm was listed at 94 Hope Street in the Post Office Directory for Glasgow until 1921, while the business was wound up.