Smith & Wellstood
Stove and range manufacturers
Smith & Wellstood comprised James Smith (1816–1886) and Stephen Wellstood (c. 1812–1886), Edinburgh-born 'American stove and range manufacturers' and general ironfounders. 1 They founded the Columbian Ironworks, of Bonnybridge, Stirlingshire in the 1850s. Smith had run his own ironworks in Jackson, Mississippi. 2
Wellstood designed a worker's reading-room in Bonnybridge (1863), 3 but their main showrooms were off St Enoch Square, Glasgow from the mid-1860s until the Second World War. 4 In the 1870s and 1880s, the firm produced portable stoves (the 'Victoress' and 'Mistress'), boilers and bath heaters. 5 Their ‘paraffin yacht stoves’, among others, won several exhibition medals. 6 Wellstood retired to Edinburgh in the mid-1870s and became a town councillor. 7
After his father's death, James Brown Smith (c. 1855–1913; knighted 1907) headed the company. 8 He had begun as a patternmaker, learning the trade firsthand. 9 Smith retired in 1888. 10 The firm amalgamated with George Ure & Co. (Smith's brother-in-law) in 1890, 11 The company, with partial success, defended their brand names against infringement by their competitors the Carron Ironworks in the 1890s. 12 Smith & Wellstood closed in 1949. 13
Notes:
1: Glasgow Post Office Directories 1850–1900
2: Glasgow Herald, 12 April 1886, p. 6.
3: Glasgow Herald, 11 March 1863, p. 6.
4: Glasgow Post Office Directories 1850–1924; Post Office Telephone Directory Vol. 5, January 1939, Scotland, Section 48, Glasgow Area, p. 241, at www.ancestry.co.uk, accessed 27 August 2012.
5: Glasgow Herald, 23 February 1866, p. 2; Glasgow Post Office Directory 1872–3, Appendix p. 169; Scotsman, 21 July 1877, p. 11.
6: Aberdeen Weekly Journal, 22 April 1882, p. 3; Glasgow Post Office Directory 1880–1, Appendix, p. 217.
7: Scotsman, 11 September 1874, p. 4; 2 November 1874, p. 1.
8: Glasgow Herald, 12 May 1913, p. 8; Scotsman, 12 May 1913, p. 8.
9: James Smith, Census 1861, Parish: Edinburgh St George; ED: 8; Page: 1; Line: 22; Roll: CSSCT1861_126, at www.ancestry.co.uk, accessed 27 August 2012; Scotsman, 12 May 1913, p. 8.
10: The Times, 11 January 1888, p. 10B (Partnerships Dissolved); 12 May 1913, p. 9.
11: Scotsman, 1 April 1890, p. 5; 12 May 1913, p. 8; Ure-Smith, Statutory Marriages 1870, Partick, Glasgow, 646/03 0082, at www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk, accessed 31 August 2012; Harriet D. Ure, Census 1871, Parish: Falkirk Landward; ED: 10; Page: 1; Line: 2; Roll: CSSCT1871_83, at www.ancestry.co.uk, accessed 27 August 2012.
12: Glasgow Herald, 8 January 1896, p. 10; 15 February 1896, p. 6.
13: Edinburgh Gazette, 25 March 1949, p. 130; 28 October 1949, p. 505.
