page_title: Alexander Mathieson & Sons
section_title: Growth of the Glasgow business
hierarchical_section_title: Alexander Mathieson & Sons / Thomas Adam Mathieson / Growth of the Glasgow business
caption_attribution_description: Mark of Alexander Mathieson &amp; Son (on a cap iron)
context_page_description: The firm of Alexander Mathieson & Sons was one of the leading makers of hand tools in Scotland. Its success went hand in hand with the growth of the shipbuilding industries on the Firth of Clyde in the nineteenth century and the emergence of Glasgow as the "second city of the Empire". It also reflected the firm's skill in responding to an unprecedented demand for quality tools by shipyards, cooperages and other industries, both locally and far and wide.
context_section_description: The 1851 census records that Alexander was working as a tool and plane-maker employing eight men. Later that year Alexander died and his son Thomas took over the business. Under the heading of edge-tool maker in the 1852/3 Post-Office Glasgow Annual Directory the firm is now listed as Alexander Mathieson & Son, with further lines as "turning-lathe and vice manufacturers" added. By the early 1850s the business had moved to 24 Saracen Lane. The directory for 1857/8 records that the firm had moved again only a few years later to East Campbell Street, also off the Gallowgate, and that through further diversification was also manufacturing coopers' and tinmen's tools. The ten-yearly censuses log the firm's growth: in 1861 Thomas was a tool manufacturer employing 95 men and 30 boys; in 1871 he had 200 men working for him; and in 1881 300 men. By 1899 the firm had been incorporated as Alexander Mathieson & Sons Ltd, notwithstanding the fact that only Alexander's son Thomas appears ever to have joined the firm.
caption: Crescent-and-star mark for Alexander Mathieson & Son, from a cap iron
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