Thomas Kay & Co.
Builder and joiners
From the late 1840s, Thomas Kay (born in Ayrshire c. 1817) and his partner Archibald McCraw were 'joiners, trunk and packing box makers' in Glasgow. 1 Kay went on to establish Thomas Kay & Co., a firm of builders and joiners: its employees increased from 20 men and 6 boys in 1861, to 113 men and 19 boys in 1871. 2 After a major fire in 1880, and the purchase of its premises for Glasgow's new underground railway, the company moved to Cathedral Street and Hopetoun Place c. 1884. Thomas Kay died in 1882 and his eldest son John took over the firm, before establishing his own tinplate works in Bridgeton, around 1888. 3 John's cousin, Thomas S. Kay Junior (born c. 1853), who specialised in surveying, valuation and loss-adjustment, was proprietor of the firm until after 1910. As Chairman of the Associated Carpenters (1895) and Scottish Building Trades Federation (1900), he was a strong advocate of mutual worker-management respect. 4 By 1890, Thomas Kay & Co. had three related businesses, as builders and timber merchants, wooden and zinc packing-case makers, and producers of 'tea, biscuit, preserve ... and paint tins'. 5
Among the buildings Thomas Kay & Co. worked on were the Evening Citizen offices (T. L. Watson, 1885–9); they were also responsible for picture-hanging at various fine art exhibitions, including the 1888 Glasgow International Exhibition. 6 .
Notes:
1: Glasgow Post Office directories, 1847–70.
2: Birth and census information, www.ancestry.co.uk [accessed 18 June 2012].
3: Glasgow Herald, 5 February 1880, p. 4; 21 February 1880, p. 7; Glasgow and its Environs, London: Stratten & Stratten, 1891, p. 192; death, will and census information, www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk [accessed 18 June 2012]; Glasgow Post Office directories, 1887–99.
4: Census information, www.ancestry.co.uk [accessed 18 June 2012]; Glasgow and its Environs, London: Stratten & Stratten, 1891, p. 192.Glasgow Herald, 12 April 1893, p. 8; 9 December 1895, p. 6; 29 October 1897, p. 7; 3 November 1899, p. 6; 26 July 1900, p. 8.
5: Glasgow Post Office Directory, 1890–1.
6: Glasgow and its Environs, London: Stratten & Stratten, 1891, p. 192
