S. Stewart & Son
Slaters
Master slater Samuel Stewart (1808–1882) was the son of a handloom weaver. He and his son Thomas (c. 1835–1896) spent their working lives in the Ayrshire seaside town of Largs, where in 1861, Samuel employed two men and in 1881 Thomas employed two men and a boy. In 1877, their firm advertised for a 'good journeyman, wages 8½d per hour'. 1
Samuel's first wife, Marion Reid, ran a grocer's shop in Largs. Their two further sons became a photographer and a chemist, while their daughters became teachers. After their father's death, the family appear to have rented out his house to summer holidaymakers, and Thomas also let a villa in the town at that time. 2 Samuel Stewart's second wife continued to run the slater's firm and a cement works following his death. In 1909, son John Stewart, the photographer, took on the family businesses as well as continuing to run his studio. 3
Notes:
1: Census, birth, marriage, death and will information, www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk and www.ancestry.co.uk [accessed 28 November 2012]; Glasgow Herald, 18 August 1877, p. 1.
2: Glasgow Herald, 19 May 1885, p. 2; 22 May 1886, p. 2; 24 January 1887, p. 4; 15 May 1888, p. 2.
3: Edinburgh Gazette, 18 May 1909, p. 543; Slater's Royal National Directory of Scotland 1911, Counties Volume, p. 298; census, birth, marriage, death and will information, www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk and www.ancestry.co.uk [accessed 28 November 2012].
