Thaw & Campbell
Masons
Fife-born stonemasons John Thaw and Thomas Campbell married two sisters named 'Law' in the early 1870s. 1 . As well as their family relationship, they also formed a professional one, trading as Thaw & Campbell, builders in Glasgow. 2 They were based at various premises in the congested industrial East End before moving to Haghill Depot, Paton Street around 1894. 3
The partners' respective sons also trained as masons. 4 When John Thaw died in 1910, Thomas Campbell 'acquired the whole business' and it was his sons, Peter T. and George Law Campbell, who continued the original firm. 5 George became vice-president of the Scottish Building Contractors' Association in 1926, and President the following year. 6
In 1886, Thaw & Campbell erected tenements for an individual carpenter-developer in Claythorn Street, in the East End. 7 A decade later they provided foundations, brick and concrete worth over £5400 for Glasgow Corporation's Maryhill Baths (City Engineer A. B. McDonald, 1896–8). 8 Thaw & Campbell were established as nationally significant contractors before the Second World War. They became specialists in reinforced concrete, winning the first contract for the new Scottish Offices on Calton Hill, Edinburgh, they duly levelled the site and sank the piles (1935–6). 9 The firm also extended the BBC's Glasgow Studios in the former Queen Margaret College (1936–7), 10 and restored the crossing and transepts of Holy Rude Church, Stirling. 11 An advertisement of 1938 lists the following buildings on which they worked: Binn's Stores, Princes Street, and National Bank Head Offices, both Edinburgh; Royal Ordnance Factory, Irvine; Peebles Hydro; and the Scottish Legal Buildings, Bothwell Street, Glasgow. 12
Notes:
1: Birth and marriage information, www.ancestry.co.uk and www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk [accessed 15 August 2012].
2: Glasgow Post Office directories, 1865–1923.
3: Glasgow Post Office directories, 1865–1923.
4: Census data, www.ancestry.co.uk [accessed 15 August 2012].
5: Edinburgh Gazette, 28 March 1911, p. 339; Scotsman, 16 August 1932, p. 7; Birth and death information, www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk; Census information, www.ancestry.co.uk [accessed 15 August 2012].
6: Scotsman, 30 January 1926, p. 7; 28 January 1927, p. 7.
7: Glasgow Herald, 16 March 1886, p. 4.
8: Glasgow Herald, 28 July 1896, p. 8; 31 May 1898, p. 4.
9: Scotsman, 29 October 1935, p. 9; 22 February 1936, p. 16.
10: Scotsman, 9 October 1936, p. 11.
11: Scotsman, 1 June 1937, p. 8.
12: Scotsman, 'Trade Review' supplement, 29 April 1938, p. 74.
