Category: Trade (page 2 of 5)

John B Fenwick – Strathbungo Garage

First article in a series about Strathbungo’s motor garages.

Around 1915 John Booth Fenwick (1890-1958) first rented the backcourt at 724 Pollokshaws Road; a former bakery owned by the Gardner family and accessed through a pend from Pollokshaws Road. (The pend has long been blocked off and is now Otherside Records.) He set himself up as a motor car and cycle agent under the name of Strathbungo Garage. He shared the premises with a pawn shop and loan company, also owned by the Gardners.

This 1893 OS Map predates John Fenwick by 20 years. It shows the complexity of buildings in the backcourts of the Pollokshaws Road tenements, and the narrow Nithsdale Street entrance, later widened. The red outline marks the subsequent footprint of Fenwick’s. PHs = Allison Arms & Heraghty’s. Source: NLS Maps

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Strathbungo’s Commercial Motor Garages

In the days before cars were routinely kept on the road (and certainly before they were kept on double yellow lines, dropped kerbs and the pavement, but I digress…) the motorist needed somewhere to purchase, service, refuel and store their car, and so the commercial garage came to be.

Historic England has a fine history of the early days of Buildings and Infrastructure for the Motor Car.

The City & Suburban Electric Carriage Company at 6 Denman Street, central London, opened the first multi-storey car park in the UK (and probably the world) in May 1901. The garage had seven floors, 19,000 square feet, space for 100 vehicles and an electric elevator to move the vehicles between floors.

Botanic Gardens Garage in Vinicombe Street was one of the ealiest garages, and the oldest survivor in Glasgow, built between 1906 and 1911. The garage has a distinctive art deco facade, and had ramped access to the second floor. Following an attempt by Arnold Clark to have it demolished and replaced with modern flats in 2008, it has recently been restored as restaurants. Funny Arnold Clark should attempt such a thing…

View of facade taken in early 20th century, with large glass windows to the front.

Botanic Gardens Garage in Glasgow’s West End. Source: Twentieth Century Society

Strathbungo Garages

I was aware of a couple of Strathbungo motor businesses when I started this research. But I didn’t expect twenty. All those listed below were or are in modern Strathbungo, or within 150m. So how many can you pinpoint?

As I complete my research, I will add links to each. Articles cover several garages, so some links are duplicated.

In addition, the research has uncovered some covered tennis courts, an indoor bowling green, a photography laboratory, a catering business and the origins of Cartha Queens Park RFC.

5 Moray Place

Grocers

The first occupant of 5 Moray Place was also the first of three grocers to live there; Gavin Wilson was resident between 1862 and 1865. He was a hamcurer & provision merchant, of Wilson, Ferguson & Co at 62 Little Street in Calton.

He was born in 1822, the second of five children, to William Wilson & Mary Cleland in Mauchline, Ayrshire. He moved to Glasgow in the 1840s and joined the grocery trade. His sister Janet married Hugh Slimmon in 1846 and Gavin moved in and boarded with them and their family for many years. Slimmon was himself a wholesale grocer at 48 Hutcheson Street.

Gavin moved to Moray Place in 1862 but moved out again in 1865 and was back with the Slimmon family in the 1871 census. The Slimmon family ended up at Duneaton Villa, 15 Albert Drive, Pollokshields, as did Gavin, and he died there in 1915 .

My research originaly suggested he was unmarried, and didn’t like life alone in Moray Place, but the current owners (see comments) tell me the deeds record that the property was bought in the name of his wife, Annie Ferguson or Wilson, for £510. I can find no trace of Annie, but also no trace of a business partner called Ferguson either. He only briefly traded under that name before disappearing from the PO Directories around 1866; perhaps subsequently he just worked for the Slimmons. So I sense an intriguing tale, but can’t take it further at present.

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