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William Baird & Co Ltd
coal and iron masters |
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In around 1816, Alexander Baird
began working coal leases in
Lanarkshire, Scotland, and, by 1826,
he and his sons owned numerous coal
and mineral leases there. In 1828,
two of these sons, William and
James, began to erect the Ironworks
at Gartsherrie, and within 15 years
the works had grown to be the
largest in the country with 16
furnaces.
In 1830, William and James took over
all the coal leases and formed the
partnership William Baird & Co. In
around 1843, William and James Baird
were involved in the establishment
of the Eglinton Iron Company that
managed the Gartsherrie Ironworks,
building furnaces at Kilwinning,
North Ayrshire, Scotland, and
purchasing those at Blair and Dalry,
North Ayrshire, in 1852; Lugar, East
Ayrshire, in 1856; and Portland in
1864. Bairds became responsible for
25 per cent of Scotland’s output -
making them the largest producers of
pig iron in the world.
In 1852, the company was the first
to introduce the cylindrical furnace
in Scotland and experimented with
blast heaters, raising the heat to
800 degrees Fahrenheit. Gartsherrie
Ironworks gained a reputation for
technical sophistication and
attracted visitors from England,
Europe and America. The Bairds
provided schools, churches and
recreational institutes for their
work force but opposed trade
unionism. The Baird brothers also
had considerable interests in
banking and held 29 railway company
directorships and 5 chairmanships.
By the 1870s William Baird & Co were
working mines in the North East of
England, in what was the county of
Cumberland, and also in Spain. In
1893, the firm was incorporated as
William Baird & Co Ltd.
In 1931, the company’s Ayrshire coal
interests were combined with those
of the Dalmellington Iron Co in
Ayrshire, to form Bairds &
Dalmellington Ltd. The new company,
75 percent owned by William Baird &
Co Ltd, controlled 70 percent of the
Ayrshire coalfields.
In around 1938, the company
underwent reorganisation and entered
voluntary liquidation. William Baird
& Co Ltd was reconstituted, and the
company’s Lanarkshire interests
merged with the Scottish Iron &
Steel Co Ltd, Glasgow, founded in
1912, to form Bairds & Scottish
Steel Ltd, pig iron and steel
manufacturers. This merger was the
idea of Andrew K McCosh, chairman of
William Baird & Co Ltd, who saw the
mutual benefit in linking up the
Northern Steelworks of Scottish Iron
& Steel Co Ltd with the Gartsherrie
Ironworks of William Baird & Co Ltd.
Between 1946 and 1951, the whole of
William Baird’s coal, iron and steel
interests were nationalised and the
company began to diversify into
other areas of business, including
the textile industry. In 1961, the
company merged with Northern
Mercantile out of which the groups
engineering division was formed.
The company continued to diversify
and acquired the raincoat
manufacturing company, Dannimac Ltd,
London, England, in 1981 and in 1988
acquired the Windsmoor Group.
Between 1992 and 1994, the company
disposed of it engineering and
building services but in 1994
acquired the Melka and Tenson
menswear brands. The company
acquired the Lowe Alpine sportswear
brand in 1999. |
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