Records of A & W Smith & Co Ltd, sugar machine manufacturers, Glasgow, Scotland

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Bookmark:http://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/data/gb248-ugd118/1,/118/8,/118/12

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Scope and Content

Minutes 1909-1947
Order books 1845-1886
Duplicate order books 1863-1906, 1926-1965
Sub-order books 1872-1919
Job books 1900-1962
Cost price books 1906-1934
Photographs 1907-1924
Drawing registers 1859-1959
Miscellaneous volumes and historical notes 1897-1963
Production order books 1954-1970
Sugar machinery drawings [to be identified]

Administrative / Biographical History

In 1837, the brothers Andrew and William Smith, millwrights, entered into a partnership as agricultural and general engineers in Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland, under the name A & W Smith & Co , millwrights and machine engineers. Their first machine was a 16 inch x 30 inch steam-driven sugar mill for Tobago, West Indies. In 1855, the firm moved to the Eglinton Engine Works in Tradeston, Glasgow, Scotland, and began to specialise in the manufacture of sugar machinery, having been introduced to the sugar industry by W & A McOnie, engineers, Glasgow, who had subcontracted to them the manufacture of cattle-driven sugar mills. In 1896, they became a limited company, A & W Smith & Co Ltd , and the first chairman was John Wilson, MP. As well as producing sugar machinery, the firm also produced bridge and structural steelwork for locomotive sheds and buildings. Railway wagons and weighbridges were also a speciality and in 1869 the company produced its first tank locomotive for Robson Maynard & Co, coalmasters, Middlesborough, England.

In the twentieth century, the inter-war period saw the sugar machine industry struggle in the general depression of the world economy. Most of the sugar-producing areas were equipped with relatively new machinery with a long life expectancy so the stable demand for sugar meant little work for machinery builders. Most of the West of Scotland firms survived, but only through diversification. A & W Smith & Co Ltd, for example, bought the power hammer business of R G Ross & Sons Ltd in the early 1930s , made Loudon planes for Russia, and took out a licence for sandslingers for foundry use. In 1953 , the company was acquired by Tate & Lyle Ltd, sugar refiners, London, England.

The 1950s and 1960s saw a collapse in the industry with A & W Smith & Co Ltd acquiring the goodwill of most of its former rivals. In 1967 they acquired The Mirrlees Watson Co Ltd , and subsequently traded as Smith Mirrlees . Smith Mirrlees was acquired in 1988 by Fletcher & Stewart Ltd , sugar machine manufacturers, Derby, England. They ceased to operate at the Eglinton Works in the late 1980s . In 2002, A & W Smith & Co Ltd was a non-trading subsidiary company of United Molasses, itself a subsidiary of Tate & Lyle plc. The company was the last sugar machinery manufacturers in Scotland.

Source: Michael Moss and John Hume, Workshop of the British Empire: Engineering and Shipbuilding in the West of Scotland(London, 1977)

Arrangement

This material is arranged into series, which consists of numbers of items related by format and/or function. Within series, the items are generally arranged chronologically