David McIlwraith

Plumber

David McIlwraith (born Girvan, Ayrshire c. 1847) was a plumber in Anderston, Glasgow in the 1870s. He moved to the affluent commuter village of Kilmalcolm, Renfrewshire, during the late 1880s. In 1886, he advertised there as a 'sanitary plumber, gasfitter, and bellhanger'. McIlwraith's two sons had joined the business by 1901, and in due course the company became known as David McIlwraith & Sons. By 1903 the firm advertised solely as plumbers. Son James Towers McIlwraith continued the firm in Kilmalcolm, as ‘plumbers, gasfitters and electricians’, until his death in 1944. 1

Notes:

1: Slater's Royal National Commercial Directory of Scotland 1886, Manchester: Isaac Slater, 1886, p. 1164; 1903, vol. 1, p. 1230; Edinburgh Gazette, 7 April 1944, p. 113; census information, www.ancestry.co.uk [accessed 15 July 2012].

'Mackintosh Architecture' led by The Hunterian, University of Glasgow, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council; with additional support from The Monument Trust, The Pilgrim Trust, and the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art; and collaborative input from Historic Scotland and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland.