Osborne & Hunter

Electrical engineers

Osborne & Hunter were a Glasgow firm of electricians, founded in 1900–1 by engineers, Hugh Osborne (born c. 1873), and John McNab Hunter (born c. 1872), with premises at 99 Waterloo Street, where Osborne had been trading by himself for about a year. 1 Osborne had apprenticed as a general- and Hunter as a mechanical-engineer. They moved to West Regent Street around 1903, eventually setting in Douglas Street about 9 years later. 2 Hunter left the business in 1904, by which time John W. Black had also become a partner. 3 Black was the former manager at Drake & Gorham, another city-centre firm of electrical contractors, and was a member the professional and educational body, the Institute of Electrical Engineers (I.E.E.). 4 He retired in 1935, leaving Osborne as the sole partner. The name of Osborne & Hunter far outlasted the principals' own involvment in the firm: successors trading under that name were only dissolved in the early 21st century. 5

Notes:

1: Glasgow Post Office Directories, 1897–1917; censuses 1881–1901, www.ancestry.co.uk [accessed 22 July 2012].

2: Census data,www.ancestry.co.uk [accessed 22 July 2-12]; Glasgow Post Office Directories 1897–1917.

3: Edinburgh Gazette, 29 November 1904, p. 1312.

4: Glasgow Post Office directories, 1902–3.

5: Edinburgh Gazette, 28 June 1935, p. 575; company data, www.cdrex.com; company data, www.companiesintheuk.co.uk [accessed 26 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.