The Douglas Firebrick Company was a manufacturer of
bricks used throughout the United Kingdom, based in Galston, Ayrshire.
William Douglas, a master
blacksmith, and his wife Janet, had a son, John, born at Moorhouses,
Stevenson, in 1822. John grew up in the clay industry, and became the
manager of the Corse-hill Tile Works, Dreghorn, where on 4th May 1855,
his eldest child was born. He was named William after his grandfather,
and was destined later to found the Douglas Firebrick Company. Shortly
after his birth the family moved to Ardeer Tile Works at Stevenson,
where his father became manager. The father died twenty years later,
aged 53 years, but his son, now aged twenty, had already left home and
was working at Drumchapel Colliery at Duntochar, Dumbartonshire.
William moved to the Glenboig Fireclay works owned by the famous James
Dunnachie and here he met and formed a friend-ship with John Stein which
was to last them all their lives.
William’s younger brother,
John, also came to work at Glenboig and remained there to become the
Works Manager after Dunnachie’s death in 1921, until his own death in
1928. While at Glenboig, William Douglas became a keen geologist and a
member of the Glasgow Geological Society. He made a particular study of
the fireclays in Ayrshire and this became easier when he moved about
1892 to become the manager of the freestone quarries and brickworks at
Lylestone near Kilwinning. This was a good centre for exploring the
Garnock river valley, some two miles to the west, where some fireclay
seams were exposed south of Dalry. Samples were taken and sent to J. T.
Norman in London who reported the results in June 1910. This report
convinced William that he had founded a commercially workable, highly
refractory fireclay. Later the Geological Survey named these deposits
the Douglas Fireclays. Mention has already been made of William and E.
M. Anderson of the Geological Survey taking samples of the bauxitic
fireclays on the beach at Saltcoats about 1912, so by this time William
knew some excellent refractory raw materials, and was ready to start up
his own business. Perhaps the success of his friend, John Stein,
encouraged this course.
A lease of minerals was obtained from
Charles Edward Grant of Monkcastle, and signed on 19th January 1912.
Fireclay from the lease was made into bricks and burnt in the kilns at
Lyle-stone. So keen were they to see the first bricks from the kiln,
that Richmond Douglas recalls his father telling him to ‘Take your
bunnet to it’, as the hot brick was extracted from the kiln. The
Kilmarnock bunnet was sacrificed in the process. The trial was judged
satisfactory, and a mine was driven into the seams on Monkcastle estate
which lay on the west side of the Garnock river. There was no access to
a railway on that side so a further lease was negotiated with Colonel F.
G. Blair of Blair Castle, and signed on 24th January 1914. Here on the
eastern side of the Garnock with access to the Glasgow and South-Western
Railway, a works was built and connected to the mine by a mineral
railway, The Douglas Firebrick company was incorporated on 19th August
1914, a few days after the declaration of war with Germany. William
Douglas was 59 years old.
The initial share capital was 1,400 £10
shares, of which William received 300 and £560 in cash for the fireclay
stock, mine, and buildings, together with a yearly salary of £150. The
remaining shares were issued for cash at £2-10-0 (£2.50p) paid up, and
various members of the Douglas family subscribed for 500, and the public
took up the remaining 600. The first directors were William Douglas,
senior and junior, James Black, Robert King, and frank Paterson.
An early link with the Morgan Crucible furnace department was
established when Leonard Harvey, the manager, was so impressed with the
Douglas firebrick that he ordered a rail wagon of fireclay to be sent to
Morgan’s Battersea works. This was followed by an order for 3,000 tons
of firebricks on condition that they were fired in a kiln similar to
those at Battersea, they entered into further discussions which resulted
in a financial agreement signed on 1st March 1918, whereby Morgan became
the sole selling agent of the Douglas Firebrick company in the United
Kingdom and elsewhere. The Douglas capital was divided into £1 shares,
and Morgan subscribed for a further 6,000 new shares making the total
capital 320,000. In April 1920, Morgan subscribed for a further 10,000
ordinary shares giving them effective control.
This extra capital
was used to bring in a supply of electricity from the grid, and to
install semi-plastic brick-making machines to take over much of the hand
making. Two modern tunnel kilns were built in 1935, and two American
Boyd dry presses replaced the semi-plastic brick machines. The kilns
were fired by producer gas made from anthracite coal in fully mechanised
producers.
The sole selling agreement of 1918 was cancelled in
1944, and in return Morgan received 40,000 deferred 5/-d (25p) shares.
The existing ordinary shares were restricted to a 10% dividend, and the
deferred shares were entitled to a dividend up to 50% of the nett
selling price free on rail. This gave them effectively all profits after
the 10% ordinary dividend. The capital was further increased to £60,000
by a scrip issue of 80,000 5/-d (25p) to Morgan in 1949.
William
Douglas discovered some excellent fireclays, and was the last of the
Scottish entrepreneurs to set up his own business, at the relatively
late and difficult time of 1914. He suffered from the usual lack of
sufficient capital to expand it early on, and had to turn to Morgan
Crucible who supplied it and took effective control. Both parties
benefited and the co-operation worked well, but it would not have suited
the temperaments of James Dunnachie or John Stein.
The VIIth
International Ceramic congress was held in Britain in 1960, and on 24th
May the members visited the Douglas Works at Dalry. A small descriptive
booklet was issued for the occasion describing the various Douglas
firebrick brands, and the high alumina Triangle brands based on calcined
bauxite from Guyana, and the local bauxitic fireclays from high
Smith-stone mine, and the Langside mine at Galston. The bauxitic clays
were calcined in a shaft kiln with a capacity of about 3,000 tons a
year, while firebricks amounted to about 25,000 tons a year. A most
profitable range of refractory cements and castables added another 7,000
tons a year.
William Douglas died in 1937, aged 82 years. His
son, Richmond, had seen the company grow from the first beginnings and
had led it ably through the depression of the 1930’s until his own
retrial in February 1970. Richmond was in turn President of the Scottish
Employers’ Council for the Clay Industries(1), the National Federation of
Clay Industries, and the British Ceramic Society. He was a man of great
charm and always ready to help a young man with advice. He died on 7th
September 1980, aged 89 years.
Richmond’s nephew, William
Douglas, a grandson of the Founder, served as a director and works
manager after the 1939-45 war. Robert Kerr was the company secretary,
and Ian Tulloch, the sales director. Ian Tulloch started at Morgan’s
Neston works, and came to Dalry in 1960 to build up the Douglas’ own
sales force, which helped to retain orders in the years of declining
demand. Morgan sold the Douglas Company to A. P. Green Refractories in
1970, but the continuing decline in orders forced the closure of the
Monkcastle mine, and the works in 1982. The works is now a mushroom
farm!
Source Kenneth W Sanderson
Notes:
1. In
1917, William Douglas from Douglas Firebrick Company helped form the
Scottish Employers Council for the Clay Industries.
2. John
Douglas: 19 June 1901, Certificate Number: 4,248 (2nd), District: East
Scotland. Certificate of Competency as an Under-Manager of Mines granted
under the Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1887 (50 & 51 Vict. Cap. 58, Secs.
23 and 80)
 The Glasgow
Herald, 27 March 1957
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