ROBERT MACLAREN & COMPANY LTD. (later Maclaren Controls) by Ian Garnet
Maclaren 1962

Th every earliest predecessors of the firm Robert Maclaren & Company
are a bit obscure but they appear to be centered around the Falkirk
area where the original Maclarens were connected with Iron Foundry,
and at the same time in the early 1800 Robert Maclaren inherited a
firm of Iron Founders from his uncle, a Mr Liddel. However there seems
to have been a bit of dirty work over the inheritance as Robert
Maclaren was very young at the time, and eventually he brought an
action against the Executors or Trustees of Mr Liddel from whom he won
a substantial sum in damages. With this money he started a firm of his
own.

The Robert Maclaren firm first appears on the registry as a business
in 1845, and was at that time a firm of Iron Founders in Washington
Street, off Argyle Street. Rumour has it that they made the mortars
for the Crimean War. The business expanded till in 1960 it moved to
its present site, which in those days, consisted of the area bounded
by West Street, Kilbernie Street and the railway siding on the other
side of the Express deliveries, they opened out to Stromness Street
and up to the railway, which in those days was a canal. The iron was
brought by barge along the canal to the works, and the main business
was pipe making. The canal was filled in 1880.

Cast iron pipes of 11/2" to 48" were made, as well as valves and water
meters. The old man Robert Maclaren, or "Bobbie the Rogue", died about
1890. The firm continued to be known locally at the time as "Rabbie
the Rogue". In 1905 it turned into a limited company. At that time a
very large export business was done with India, Rumania, Japan and
Italy. In 1912 a working agreement was arranged with Macfarlane
Strang, and an interchange of Directors a staff took place between the
two companies. The payroll was then about 800.

When war broke out in 1914 all supplies of iron stopped and demand for
pipes dried up. However the firm went over to munitions and got a
contract for eight million fuse stampings, among other things. Later
in the war it teamed up with William Beardmore to make tank tracks.

After the war, in 1920, a subsidiary company was formed, called
Eglinton Founders Limited, half of which was owned by Beardmore and
half by Robert Maclaren & Company. Robert Maclaren & Company sold them
half of the land which roughly consisted of all the present works and
buildings up to our present fence.

Ingot molds were made here for casting steel ingots at Parkhead Forge,
but eventually the early 1920s depression finished it and the company
was liquidated in about 1926.

In the meantime Robert Maclaren & Company turned over to making brass
bars and small quantities of pipes, but the situation had rather
changed as all the plant had been cleared out during the war to
manufacture munitions and the site was no longer a good one for heavy
steel industries because of the difficulty of transport. The cost of
re-equipping was too great, so all the remaining plant was sold and by
1925 no further casting or work took place, but a merchant business
only in Cast Iron pipes was carried on until 1931.

In 1931, the old company was wound up, and a new company with the same
name was formed on this site as the present company.

However, we must go back a bit, for in 1919 Dr Norman Maclaren had
been controlling temperature for medical research work at Glasgow
University, and Colonel Robert Maclaren (his brother) caught a cold in
a train, so they got together and decided that the temperature in
trains could, and should, be controlled. In 1920 Mr. Richmond joined
the firm to investigated temperature control generally. He started off
in the mess room of the old foundry, which is still standing by the
railway in the Standard Oil Company's grounds. That was in November
1920, and in January 1921 Mr Eyles joined him. They started
experimenting with mercury type thermostats run in conjunction with
relays, and also spent some time getting the place fitted out as a
workshop, until the plant consisted of one foot operated lathe, one
mill and one drill were installed later and motorised.

The first five years were almost entirely experimental, causing a lot
of headaches until most of the original ideas were scrapped and also
the original idea of controlling the temperature in railway carriages
had to be abandoned due to the extreme dirtiness of the steam.

At that time almost all the output was to universities on the same
type of work as Dr Maclaren. The first recorded order on the books is
for an incubator embedding oven and a hot plate for Baird & Tatlock on
1.5.23. Then there are one hundred and fifty orders for Glasgow,
Belfast and other universities, and to Baird & Tatlock. Up to 24.1.25
all these were for laboratory equipment, etc., then we got an order
for one hundred gas cooker controls from Falkirk Iron Company and thus
became the pioneers of gas oven thermostats.

Our 201st order was from Wild Barfied for a furnace thermostat up to
900 degrees and was a slow break type. Our 202nd order , a month
later, was from George Nobbs. This was the original firm which went
bankrupt in 1934, owing us six hundred pounds, which we could ill
afford in those days. However they did give their name to our
instruments, because the thermostats for use in Boiler by Nobbs became
Boiler Nobbs, or BN , similarly FN and SN followed on from Furnace
Nobbs and Surface Nobbs. So on we plodded, and during 1926, apart from
universities, etc., we got new customers such as Archibald Low,
Carron, Wild-Barfield, Falkirk Iron Company, G.E.C. and by the end of
1926 we had two hundred and ninety six orders in six years, most of
them in the last six months of 1926.

In 1927 we made six hundred and twenty five thermostats, and new
customers included Clyde Fuel, Benham, Haden, and Hotpoint and the
orders had changed to mainly thermostats and contactor switches, as
opposed to laboratory equipment. The turnover for that year was three
thousand three hundred pounds, and the loss is not stated. In 1928 we
had seven hundred and twenty three instruments with a turnover of two
thousand, seven hundred and twenty eight pounds. In 1929 we moved to
the present office block and site as staff had increased to twelve.
Five of these originals are still here i.e., Mr. Eyles, Mr. Gallacher,
Mr. King, Mr. H. Harrison and Mr. H. Henderson. The layout was a M/C
shop in the first floor were the Pre-production department now is, and
test and assembly in the present top flat of the offices with the
store in the drawing office, the office consisted of a large room on
the ground floor.

In 1929 we made one thousand six hundred and sixty nine instruments
and a turnover of four thousand and seventy seven pounds. So It was
thought that the firm was on its feet and round the corner.
Unfortunately however, we went round the corner slap into the great
industrial depression when no one had any money to buy such new
fangled ideas as thermostats.

So in 1930 we made one thousand six hundred instruments and our
turnover was down to three thousand two hundred and thirty seven
pounds. In 1931 only one thousand two hundred instruments and turnover
was three thousand one hundred pounds.

In 1931 old Robert Maclaren & Company was wound up as already mention
in the earlier part, and a new firm was started with its own capital
and setup.

The new company , therefore had its own financial arrangements, and
instead of a yearly loss of two to three thousand pounds being
absorbed by the parent company, these now appeared in all their glory
on the new company's books.

However things were starting to look up, and the loss of 1932 was
about eight hundred pounds, with two thousand two hundred and forty
eight instruments made and a turnover of three thousand two hundred
and ninety pounds.

1933 showed the start of a real revival in trade, and we started
getting going properly, with six thousand six hundred and one
instruments made and a modest profit of two hundred pounds. We also
started on magnetic snap action about this time or a bit earlier, but
disaster soon overtook us again the shape of a patent case with
Rheostatic Company. This dragged on for the next three years, in 1935
during the fair holiday, the result of the action was that we were
forbidden to manufacture anymore thermostats with the magnetic snap
action. This would have meant completely closing down the works.
However, Mr. Richmond got to work and thought out a new non magnetic
snap action, working away by himself in the empty works he perfected
it by himself and modified it to suit the existing instruments so that
when the works reopened, the mechanism was ready and patented and work
proceeded right away, and the new action proved better than the
magnetic type.

During this time the output had gradually increased, and the top flat
was used for assembly, until in 1936 the turnover was about eighteen
thousand pounds but the legal expenses of the litigation put the loss
at about three thousand pounds a year. In 1936 Colonel Robert Maclaren
died.

 In 1937 the patent case was settled out of court, after we had lost
 the appeal, and a large sum was paid out in damages. Also in 1937 Dr
 Norman Maclaren died.

In 1938 we started to show a slight profit and thought about
expanding, so that in 1939 we put up what was supposed to be a
temporary M/C shop and moved the test into the first flat, and the
dispatch into what had been the store. We also did up the offices a
bit.

The war of course started and seventeen members of the firm were
called up and in 1940 girls were engaged for the first time.

During the war we just jogged along. As we had no profits to show for
the preceding three years, Excess Profits Tax took all the profits we
made, until in 1945 the real rush started and expansion was necessary.

1945 was momentous, in that we paid our first dividend, which took
about four hundred pounds, just twenty five years after the start of
the business. In the middle of 1946 we moved the assembly and test
into the new extension beside the machine shop, and made new offices
and a drawing room on the first floor. These new offices were ready in
1947. Also Mr Bourne retired in that year after fourty five years with
the firm. Mr. Warden joined us in 1950.

For the next few years we suffered the ups and downs of purchase tax
and credit restrictions, but we gradually re-equipped the M/C shop and
the last belt driven machine was disposed of in 1954.

In 1952 we started a separate Research and Development (R & D) in one
of the offices under Mr. Adam. This moved in 1954 to the top flat, and
in 1954 we took on R & D for Ferranti.

In 1956 we started building the new assembly shop and dispatch, and
got into this in August 1956. Then followed a nine month period of
reorganizing the shop generally with an enlarged test setup, new
lighting, new service department, new layout for sub-assembly and
increased tool room. So that all production was on one floor and a
pre-production unit in the middle flat.

1958 was the next most important date in our history, in that a
decision was made, then, to employ the Personnel Administration in an
assignment to improve methods and institute a direct incentive scheme.
This started at the end of 1958 and fortunately coincided with the
increase in demand for our products, so that in the next two years we
increased our production very considerably and felt the benefit of the
re-organization in the terms of increased profits.

1960 and 61 were periods of consolidation, and in 1961 and 62,
particularly, showed an increased activity in new designs and the
decision to make our own capillary systems, which entailed building a
small addition to the works and installing suitable machinery for
this.

Ian Garnet Maclaren 1962