Fifteen Regent Park Square was built c 1865 by Daniel McNicol, as part of one of his three Georgian-style Strathbungo terraces. Originally number 27, it was renumbered in 1931 as 15. It is most famous for its links to Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
The terraces were initially owned by McNicol for rent, and the first recorded tenant of 15, in 1865, was Catherine Irvine, followed a year later by a John Watson.
James Harrington
In 1868-9 the house was occupied by JP Harrington, a wholesale Berlin wool and smallware merchant, of 26 Jamaica Street.
James Paxton Harrington was born in Coldstream in 1836, the son of a draper. In the 1861 census he was a haberdasher’s assistant living with his parents and four sisters in Cleland Street, Gorbals, but that December he married Mary Chapman and started a family of his own. He soon set up his own firm of JP Harrington, a wholesale haberdashery, selling Berlin wool and smallwares. Berlin wool work was a kind of decorative embroidery on canvas that was hugely popular in the 1850s-1880s, used for furniture covers, cushions, bags, or even clothing.
Example of Berlin work. A ladies purse from the 1840s. Source: LA County Museum of Art
The business must have flourished, as it moved from St Enoch Square via Jamaica Street to South Hanover Street off George Square, and he moved through a succession of addresses; Allanton Terrace in Queens Park, Regent Park Square, Beechmont in Lenzie, Craig-Rossie House in Langbank, and Ibroxhill.
His business was described in the 1875 PO directory as “manufacturer, importer, and warehouseman, Berlin wools, knitting yarns, foreign and English needle-work, traced embroideries, jewellery, leather and cabinet goods, beads, haberdashery, smallwares, wholesale only, shippers supplied on best terms.” Try singing it to the theme of Are You Being Served? Going up…
The business almost went up in flames when the Hanover Street warehouse roof caught fire in February 1886. The fire spread to adjacent premises as the firemen struggled to access the buildings, and £12,000 of damage was caused, mainly by the water used .
No matter, as the warehouse went up in flames again in October 1897, the fire starting this time in a restaurant in the atrium. £15,000 of damage was caused, much of it to Harrington’s stock that was either smoke- or fire-damaged, or soaked. In the following months the press carried adverts for sales all over Scotland organised by canny merchants who had acquired large lots of the fire-damaged stock at auction. The warehouse was fully insured, though the North British Daily Mail noted it had suffered four fires in the last ten years .
James’ wife Mary died in September 1886, six months after the first fire. In early 1887 James moved again for a final time, purchasing the Broadfield House & Estate, one of the old estates above Port Glasgow, from AF Stoddard of Stoddard Carpets & “The Slab Boys” fame. One wonders if an insurance payout had anything to do with the purchase.
He died there in 1917. He left £68,000 in his will, worth a few million in 2025. After his death it was sold to the Greek consul, and when the consul died in 1923 it became Broadfield Hospital, but it was demolished after World War 2 .
Broadfield House in 1893. Note the figures on the steps, presumably the elderly gent is James Harrington. Source: Inverclyde Heritage
The couple had ten children (five boys), but James outlived half of them. His last two sons only outlived him by a mere 5 years (James), and 22 days (John).
John Duff Macgregor
John Macgregor was the fifth Minister of Stockwell Street Free Church. The congregation had branched off from the East Campbell Street Old Lichts to rejoin the established church in 1840, and commenced a new church just off Stockwell Street on Howard Street, only to split again at the Great Disruption in 1843, taking their church with them to become Stockwell Street Free Church.
John Macgregor was born in Aberfeldy in 1839 and studied in Edinburgh. He was ordained at Peebles in 1864, and moved to Stockwell Church in 1869. His older brother was also a Free Church minister .
As wealthy members began to move out to the new suburbs such as Pollokshields, the time came for Rev. Macgregor to move the congregation. The church closed in 1886 and a new church was built in 1886-7 in Albert Road (now Drive), Pollokshields, designed by John Bennie Wilson, but still known as Stockwell. The old church was converted to a warehouse in 1886 by Robert Dalgleish (Canmore) and more recently to offices with the addition of another storey. The church still stands, opposite Slaters Menswear . It is now known as the Subirachs Building, as the client was a fan of Barcelona and Josep Maria Subirachs’ work. If you look closely it even features an inverted bust by Subirachs .
View of the abandoned Stockwell Street Free Church in 1999, looking worse for wear. Source: Canmore
The Stockwell Street Church today, converted to offices with modern penthouse flats above. Now named the Subirachs building, the scupture by Josep Maria Subirachs is set in the wall at the corner (adorned by the black wheelie bin!). Source: Streetview
In 1900 the Albert Road church became Pollokshields Albert Road United Free Church, and Rev. Macgregor served there until his death in 1909. Presumably when the United Free rejoined the Church of Scotland in 1929 it became a regular parish church, and in 1963 it merged with Pollokshields East (corner of Leslie St and Herriet St, later destroyed by fire) and became surplus to requirements. The church building was sold to the Archdiocese of Glasgow in 1965 and opened as the Roman Catholic Church of St Albert the Great two years later, a function it still serves to this day .
The Stockwell Street Free Church on Albert Drive, now St Albert The Great RC Church. Source: Streetview
Rev. Macgregor lived in Regent Park Square from around 1869 to 1877, while the church was still on Howard Street. He later had a variety of southside addresses including Rosebery Terrace (Leven Street), Aytoun Road, Albert Road and back to Leven Street. Rather oddly in 1893, at the age of 53, he married 25-year old Louise Seeley in her home village of Itteringham, Norfolk. The nature of his connection to Norfolk is currently a mystery. The couple had two daughters in Glasgow, but John died while visiting North Berwick in 1909 and his wife then returned to Norfolk with the children. Neither child married.
There is an 1887 photograph of Rev. Macgregor in the National Archives at Kew .
Peter Niven
In 1880 the Post Office Directory records one SH Waters, but no further details are available.
Peter Niven rented the property around 1882-86. He was born in Paisley around 1812 and appears to have a varied career, mostly in the field of mining. In July 1841 he married Margaret Macfarlane and they had eight children. At the time of marriage he was manager of Househill Works. He appears to have been a factor or land manager at Househill in Nitshill (later belonging to William Stevenson, and famously the home of Kate Cranston), and manager of the Victoria coal mine there. In the 1860s he was also manager of the Blackstone and Linwood pits for the Dunlop family, possibly the same Dunlops who owned Househill. In 1872 he was the manager of Clyde Ironworks, and in the 1880s, when he was living in Regent Park Square, he worked for the Cornsilloch Coal Co of St Enoch Square, who managed Cornsilloch Colliery just east of Larkhall. He was also a partner in the Barrhead Hydraulic Lime Company.
It is his time as manager of the Victoria Pit at Househill for which he is most likely to be remembered. The pit, owned by Coates of Paisley, was the deepest in Scotland at the time, the main shaft descending over 1000 feet. On Saturday 15th March 1851 around 3am a shift of 63 miners (55 men and 8 boys) went down the pit. At around 4.40am there was a huge explosion in the pit, so loud it was heard in Paisley. Debris continued to be thrown out of the pit shaft for two minutes.
Illustration of the Victoria Pit Explosion
A crowd of many thousands gathered at the site. Niven personally led the rescue efforts, ably assisted by miners from other collieries, notably those from Govanhill Colliery. The damage was so great it took two days to reach the mine workings. This was partly due to difficulty removing the cage which had been blown clean out of the pit but then fallen back down the shaft. The workers were surprised to hear faint voices below them, and eventually they reached two survivors, John Cochran and David Colville, “almost exhausted by want of food, terror, and bad air, but uninjured in person”. They had been trapped for 45 hours. The 61 deaths made this the worst Scottish mining disaster to that date. One man lost his three sons, and had to be restrained from throwing himself down the pit to look for them, while one woman lost both her husband and her four sons.
Memorial to the victims of the mining disaster near Nitshill Station. Source: Clydiee, Wikimedia Commons
The Bishops
Mr Niven rented the house from the Bishops, a family of ship chandlers whose premises were at 52 Clyde Place and who lived in Tradeston (though he may have been renting initially from the trustees of the late builder Daniel McNicol, who had disposed of his properties by 1885.
In 1891 William Bishop was himself living at the Regent Park Square property with his five children, having lost his wife at the begining of the year. William died there in 1895. At that time his son Thomas was still living with him, but he then moved out to Leven Street, and the property was either rented to the next residents, the McIntoshes, or sold on to another owner.
Stratten’s Guide of 1888 had this to say about the Bishops :
Thomas Bishop, Ship Chandler, Ship-furnishing Ironmonger, &c., 52, Clyde Place.—
This business was established in 1833, by Thomas Bishop, in Main Street, Gorbals. In 1839 the business was removed to Clyde Place where it has been carried on since and for the last twenty years by the founder’s two sons, John and William, under the original designation.
The premises consist of a double shop in front used as a saleroom, where is stored a good stock of ship chandlery and ironmongery. The department upstairs is also used as a warehouse. To the rear of this establishment is a good substantial workshop, contiguous to the original engine shop of Randolph Elder & Co. These workshops are built of stone, and comprise smiths’ shop, tinsmiths’ shops, and copper plate works. The buildings are the property of the firm. In the various departments over thirty employees are engaged. The firm of Thomas Bishop commands a large business among shipping people. All kinds of ship-work is executed — ship chandling, ship furnishing, tinsmith and blacksmith work, flag making, along with the making of ventilators and ranges, and the firm has long maintained a high position in the trade.
William McIntosh
William McIntosh was a clerk, and later an inspector, with the Glasgow Police, where he was involved in the administration of the force. He married Margaret Rennie and they had eleven children, first at 70 Parson Street then at 2 Firpark Terrace in Dennistoun. Several of the children died in childhood, and Margaret herself died in 1885.
The Glasgow Police Tug of War team in 1889, with their captain, William McIntosh, at the centre. Source: Glasgow City Archives
In 1892 William married again, to widow Christina Forrest, 42, nee McVicar, and later that year the couple, with their son Charles and his five sisters, moved to 2 (now 6) Regent Park Square for a year. Around this time William adopted the spelling Mackintosh, such as on his marriage certificate, although he continued to use McIntosh in the PO Directories.
By October 1893 they had moved again to rent Holmswood Cottage on Langside Avenue at the corner of Seyton Avenue (now Blairhall Avenue) but around Christmas 1895 they moved back to Strathbungo, to 27 (now 15) Regent Park Square, where William lived out his days. He retired in 1899 after 40 years with the force, and died in Strathbungo in 1908. His second wife Christina had previously died there in 1904 .
Charles Rennie Mackintosh
As any good Scottish historian knows, William was better known as the father of perhaps Scotland’s most famous architect and designer, Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Charles was born (a McIntosh) in Parson Street in 1868. He was 17 when his mother died, and studying architecture at Glasgow School of Art while serving an apprenticeship under John Hutchison. In 1889 he joined John Honeyman and Keppie as an architectural draughtsman. He is notably absent from the family in the 1891 census as he was travelling in Italy, having won the Alexander Thomson Travelling Studentship.
Charles Rennie Mackintosh photographed by Craig Annan in 1893, when he was living at 2 Regent Park Square. Source: National Portrait Gallery
When the family moved to 27 Regent Park Square in 1895, Charles had a room in the basement which he decorated with Japanese and Pre-Raphaelite prints, and a stencilled frieze of his own design . He much preferred his basement to the attic room he had had at Holmswood Cottage, although
…he immediately took a violent dislike to the built-up fireplace and despite the angry protestation of his father, set to work to dismantle it. To his delight he uncovered a simple cottage-type hob-grate with wrought-iron bars and a plain surround which, his sisters suggest, became the model for many of his subsequent designs. To the horror of the family, he next proceeded to cover the walls of the room with coarse brown wrapping-paper and completed the job with a stencilled frieze.
Charles occupied the basement for several years and used it as a studio workshop. In this room he executed much of his beaten metal work with his sisters doing most of the beating, and that, to the spiritual discomfort of their father, usually on the Sabbath.
During this period he started to make a name for himself, designing interiors for Miss Cranston’s tearooms, and commencing work on the Glasgow School of Art building (1897). In 1900 Charles married Margaret Macdonald and they moved to Blythswood. Charles’ eldest sister, Martha, who was unmarried, continued to rent the house in Regent Park Square until her death there in 1925.
The story of Charles Rennie Mackintosh is well documented elsewhere so I shall not repeat it here . There are plaques on both 6 and 15 Regent Park Square, placed by the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society.
15 Regent Park Square, with a plaque erected by the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society. Charles’ room was in the basement. Note on renumbering the street there was no No 13! Source: Streetview
McIntosh, Mackintosh or Macintosh?
Like his father Charles changed the spelling of his name to Mackintosh around 1892-3. The reason isn’t known, though some have speculated it was an affectation, while others suggest it was a formalisation of the spelling of Scottish surnames, which previously had been widely variable due to translation from Gaelic to English, and illiteracy. It is notable that there were over three times as many McIntoshes as Mackintoshes born in Glasgow in 1895, yet not a single McIntosh in the 1895 Glasgow Valuation Roll, suggesting it was the authorities who were standardising the spelling of names in the roll.
They weren’t the only ones to be embroiled in this confusion. A different Charles Macintosh invented a waterproof raincoat in 1824, but the coat acquired the name the Mackintosh with the extra K, seemingly in error. Incidentally a Queen Square resident invented a better rainproof coat, the waxed cotton jacket, but that’s another story.
Meanwhile John McIntosh was a Canadian farmer who cultivated the McIntosh Red apple. When Apple Computer wanted a name for their new machine, they named it after the McIntosh apple, but to avoid confusion with an existing company changed it to Macintosh, and the Apple Mac was born.
Barnet Soffer
Barnet was a Jewish Russian émigré whose family moved to the UK around 1890, and to Glasgow soon after, as part of the mass emigration in response to Russian pogroms. Although his father and family were also in Glasgow, he was living with his cousin and working as a poulterer in the 1901 census. He then married Dora Friedman and had three children. They may have planned to emigrate to North America, as their first two children were born in the USA in 1906 and in Montreal, Canada in 1909, but they subsequently returned to Glasgow. He was living in the Gorbals and working as a fishmonger in 1911. Barnet’s father died in Glasgow in 1916. Barnet moved to Regent Park Square in the 1920s, but died there in February 1926. He was only 52. The family then moved to Shields Road.
Ownership
Between 1895 and 1905 ownership passed from the Bishops to the trustees of Mrs Agnes McIntyre, who had died in 1896, and then to one Mrs Agnes McC Haughie. Mrs Haughie was in fact Agnes McCowat McFadden, the granddaughter of Agnes McIntyre (nee McCowat), and she presumably inherited the house from her. She worked as a postmaster’s assistant, and in 1903 married John Haughie, a post office employee. She continued to own and rent the house until her death in 1941, though she lived in Alexandra Park and then Springboig. There is no record of anyone of the family ever living in the Regent Park Square house, however.
Tenants included Dr J M Young in 1930 and electrical engineer George Ireland and his family in 1940.
Leave a Reply