Redpath, Brown & Co.

Redpath, Brown & Co., structural steel and construction engineers, was founded by John Redpath (c. 1773–1846) and John Stevenson Brown (born Peebles, c. 1782–1853) as an ironmongers at Cowgatehead, Edinburgh at the beginning of the 19th century (c. 1802 and before 1804). 1

Their energetic and innovative director around the turn of the 20th century, (later Sir) John Cowan (1844–1929), later Sir John, became an apprentice in 1860, and then a partner in 1868. His uncle, John Marshall, had also been a partner in the firm in the mid-19th century. 2 Cowan developed the firm's output from 'drain tools, shovels [and] manure forks' in the 1880s, to steel girders, 'the well-known Stirling water-tube boilers' and 'multiphase electric motors' by the late 1890s. 3 Under his guidance the firm became a public limited company in 1896, to fund further expansion, making four additions to St Andrews Steel Works, Edinburgh, and opening plants in Glasgow, Manchester and London. 4

Cowan was active on Edinburgh City Council, showing visiting experts round the steelworks, and giving demonstration girder sections to local colleges. 5 Product development also interested him, and he tested newly-invented building components, such as fireproof flooring. 6 In 1907, an architectural delegation were surprised 'that such an up to date establishment for ... rolled steel beams ... existed in Edinburgh.' 7 In 1895, British engineers used imported 'Belgium beams and little else'. Cowan broke the monopoly in only 12years, by making them in his Glasgow and other factories. By 1918, the firm offered ‘Designs ... for steel framed buildings, stanchions, roofs, bunkers, etc. etc.’ 8

The firm worked on Leith Academy (1896) and bonded warehouses in Leith (around 1898), The Scotsman Buildings (1904), and Usher Hall (1911) in Edinburgh. 9