Hutcheson & Grant

Hutcheson & Grant first appear in the Glasgow Post Office Directory in 1875 as a firm of wrights. From 1895, they are described additionally as builders. James Grant (c. 1841–1916), from Cawdor, near Inverness, never married, and he and his brother lodged with a succession of landladies in the streets around their workplace for some 40 years. 1 Glaswegian James Hutcheson (c. 1849–1916) moved from living 'above the shop' to a series of addresses of gradually increasing prosperity in Glasgow's West End. By 1891, his eldest son had been apprenticed as a joiner. 2

Hutcheson & Grant's first premises were at 34 Napiershall Street. Later, from 1890, they were in Kelvin Street. The Kelvin Street premises were destroyed by fire in 1895, throwing between 50 and 60 men out of work 3 From 1900, the firm was located at 128 Pitt Street, close to the concentration of architects in the Blythswood area of the city centre.

Hutcheson & Grant tendered successfully for the joinery for Stewartville Street School in Partick, designed by W. & J. Barclay. 4 They built the organ case for Pollokshields Free Church, designed by Alexander McGibbon and decorated by C. T. Bowie, Fisher & Co., another firm of Mackintosh collaborators. 5 An application to the Glasgow Dean of Guild Court in 1875, to erect new buildings at 67 West Regent Street, suggests that they may have aspired to be property developers. 6 In 1899, John Honeyman & Keppie wrote to a client, 'Hutcheson & Grant have done a large amount of work for us and we have no hesitation in recommending them.' 7

The firm was dissolved in 1901 when Hutcheson retired. 8 James Grant continued under his own name at 128 Pitt Street. By 1917 the firm had been taken over by James Grieve. 9 Hutcheson became a timber merchant, though he still advertised himself as 'late of Grant & Hutcheson' ten years after he had left the company. 10