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William Douglas, Painter
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William Douglas
Painter
William Douglas, house-painter and wallpaperer, first appears in the
Glasgow Post Office Directory in 1880, trading from 26 West Campbell
Street, in a fairly upmarket area of terraced townhouses interspersed
with businesses. Douglas was the son of a farmer from Countlich, Dowally,
in rural Perthshire, and trained as a house-painter during his teens in
Blairgowrie. By 1871, he and his widowed mother had moved to the Gorbals,
Glasgow, probably in search of better employment prospects.
By 1881, he had built up a business employing seven men and two boys,
and was the decorator used by McKissack & Rowan for their Mure Memorial
Church, Baillieston, in 1882. The scheme – 'in pleasing tones, and with
suitable ornaments' – seems to have been quite plain, appropriately for
a budget-conscious, working-class congregation. The masons who worked on
this building, R. Aitkenhead & Son, were also used by Honeyman, Keppie &
Mackintosh.
Douglas steadily prospered, as shown by his home addresses, finally
moving c. 1909 from a broad street of lower middle-class tenements to a
recently-built suburb of red sandstone villas set in their own gardens
at Newlands, overlooking the City. In memory of his birthplace north of
Dunkeld, he named his new house Countlich.
William Park Douglas, his son, was active in professional and trades
associations connected with pay and training, such as the Incorporated
Institute of British Decorators. He was still trading from the firm's
premises at 242 West George Street in 1941. |
Source
Sources for this article include:
Glasgow Herald, 1882; The Scotsman
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