This is the story of the occupants of 44 Marywood Square, the former 21 Princes Square. The terrace was built by Robert Weir in 1878-9 but the project led to financial ruin and Robert’s tragic suicide. The houses and debts passed to his father William, but the family never recovered, as detailed in a previous blog about the Weirs. The property was subsequently owned by one John Adam Anderson.
It was also a property where if your name wasn’t William, you weren’t getting in.
William Orr
The first tenant was William Orr in 1879. William & John Orr were the sons of William Orr, an estate labourer & later grain merchant from Dundonald, and his wife, Janet Foulds. The two brothers started in the decorating business, and after apprenticeships in Ayr formed Orr Brothers in Glasgow in the late 1850s. In 1866 William won a Queens Gold Medal for his design work at the Government School of Art (later the Glasgow School of Art), and the following year his brother also won .
In 1867 they were based at 41 Cumberland St, and in 1871 William was living in the tenement at 5 Regent Park Terrace on Pollokshaws Road (now known as 1 Regent Park Square). In 1872 The Glasgow Citizen reported how the Orr Brothers received praise during the Sunday service for the singular beauty of their painting during the repair of Pollokshaws Parish Church. In a subsequent editorial the St Andrews Gazette, presumably on a quiet news day, took great offence to this use of the pulpit for advertising purposes .
By 1877 the business was based at 173 St Vincent Street & 5 Ashton Place, where John also lived, while William had moved to 8 Rosslyn Terrace, Pollokshields (above the shops running north-west from Kenmure Street). Dominic D’Angelo has found a Greek Thomson design for interior decoration marked Orr Brothers, Rosslyn Terrace. It isn’t clear if this was a design for Rosslyn Terrace or for elsewhere, but it does suggest the Orrs were doing work for Thomson.
William moved to the new house at 21 Princes Square in 1879 and stayed there at least until 1883. Around 1882 he appears to have split from John and gone into business alone, advertising as William Orr & Co at 175 St Vincent Street, with a branch at 9 Campvale, Crossmyloof. Despite much advertising in the papers in 1887, he went bankrupt in December 1888 . Yet, oddly, within a couple of months he was back in business as William M Orr & Co, thanking his customers of 30 years for their support and continuing at Douglas Villa, Hamilton Place, Langside and Mrs Fowler’s, Campvale .
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