At Turnbull & Scott we have always talked about our business starting in 1933. In fact, we still have gilling lathes that we knew predated our formation. Recently we decommissioned one to discover it was made in 1872 (pictured right).
This got us thinking about our longer history and our associations with other well-known engineering businesses all over the world.
We know that Turnbull & Scott were formed in 1933. Well, that’s not entirely true as the company was originally called Turnbull & Aitken, named after founders James Turnbull and Adam Aitken. Both men had previously worked for engineering company James Melrose & Sons, where other employees would later join Turnbull & Aitken from. The company was officially formed in 1933 thanks to the founders and other people who backed the inception of the business with their own money. One of these backers was a man called Charlie Scott.
Turnbull & Aitken therefore set up a large purpose-built engineering works in Hawick on Commercial Road, a bold step in a time of depression for the country. Later, amid controversial circumstances, Adam Aitken resigned from his position and financial backer Charlie Scott took over. This led to the name becoming the iconic Turnbull & Scott.
On 2/1/1954 the company was incorporated Turnbull, Aitken & Scott Limited. (pictured right). It is unclear as to why the decision to incorporate as a limited company was taken but just 18 months later on 13/6/1955 the company name changed to Turnbull & Scott (Engineers) Ltd.
We know Hunt & Moscrop, now part of the Voith Group, acquired Turnbull & Scott sometime before 1972. The Annual Report of Hunt & Moscrop for 1972 lists Turnbull & Scott as a General Engineering business alongside the other group of companies (pictured below).
These companies included Hunt & Moscrop, Hunt Moscrop Canada – who were active in Textiles and Paper, Hunt Heat Exchangers who made extended surface heat exchangers, Johnstone & Hunt who made shell & tube heat exchangers, Chemical & Thermal Engineering – who focused on chemical and process engineering and Whitehead & Pool Limited.
Hunt & Moscrop decided to buy Turnbull & Scott because Whitehead and Pool ltd (sewage and industrial effluent treatment) needed to be in Scotland to win contracts with the Scottish Water Board. By acquiring us, they had a pathway to Scotland. The mission of Hunt & Moscrop was to have a linked strategy to create the means to improve group efficiency and to provide a wider-based service to customers – within the areas of engineering associated with the Hunt & Moscrop name. The special skills and knowledge in the nine companies made Hunt & Moscrop one of Europe’s most versatile groups.
At Turnbull & Scott we kicked on from this acquisition by starting to promote finned tube and extended surface heat exchangers. In fact, we believe that through our connection with Hunt & Moscrop and the associated companies, this is when we became experts in finned tube and extended surface heat exchangers.
Interestingly this report lists the directors of Turnbull & Scott as Charles S Scott who our company is named after and John G Scott who joined the business on 6/8/
1954. Thanks to accounts from Ian Tinlin who joined the company in 1971 and served for 50 years, we know that John Scott was Charles’ son. The other director is John Wallace who would later come to own Turnbull & Scott.
John Wallace joined Turnbull & Scott from Cochran’s Boilers, Annan and he brought with him six or seven men and two vans as well. These additions to the workforce were responsible for installation throughout the country for Turnbull & Scott.
Former employees described John as a thoughtful man who had the full respect of the workforce. Frances, his wife, was a director and had responsibility for publicity and Quality Assurance manuals.
We also know that in the same year as John Wallace joined so too did one John Rafferty as a junior secretary. John would work for Turnbull & Scott until 2008 when he and his business partner Cliff Rowe sold to our present investors.
To understand Cliff Rowe’s history with Turnbull & Scott we must first delve into the wonderful journey of Mather & Platt through the years.
Mather & Platt is an engineering company founded in Newton Heath, Manchester, England in 1845.The textile finishing machinery side of the business of Mather & Platt is the oldest part of the firm. Rapid expansion of the Lancashire cotton industry in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century led to an extension of the cloth bleaching and colouring trades
In the thirty years after inception, engineers on the continent and in the U.S.A. succeeded in building a number of crude dynamos and it became apparent that the production of electricity from mechanical power was a workable proposition. There seems no doubt that during this period William Mather, who had visited the Great Exhibition in 1851 as a boy, foresaw the possibility that the exploitation of this invention could, with advantage, be undertaken by his firm.
At the Paris Electrical Exhibition of 1881, the first major electrical exhibition, which attracted scientists from all parts of the world, a number of dynamos were exhibited. One in particular, the machine built by Thomas A. Edison, stirred up great interest. In the following year William Mather arranged with Edison to manufacture his dynamo in this country.
Mather & Platt entered the field of electrical engineering as early as 1882 and the inventive ability of Thomas A. Edison and the scientific attainment of Dr. John and Dr. Edward Hopkinson were combined to produce the first electric generators which can rightly be said, in the true technical sense, to have been designed. These early Mather & Platt machines marked a definite advance in electrical engineering and many of the original Edison-Hopkinson dynamos were known to be running in various parts of the world at least forty - and probably many more - years later.
In 1883 - Mr. (later Sir) William Mather, while on a visit to the United States, secured the sole rights to market the Grinnell automatic sprinklers in all parts of the world except U.S.A. and Canada. With his friendship and association with John Wormald who had joined Dowson, Taylor & Co. from the insurance industry, Mather & Platt used this event to mark the beginning of yet another side of the firm's activities - one which was to leave a lasting legacy to the history of Fire Protection.
Mather & Platt created the Thermolier business which incorporated sprinkler systems, fire extinguishers, shutter doors and a space heater which bore the Thermolier name. Under John Wallace, Turnbull & Scott became a stockist of the Thermolier Space Heater.
Cliff Rowe was heading up the Thermolier division of Mather & Platt and at some stage in the early 1990s was instructed to dissolve the business as it was no longer core for Mather & Platt. We believe that at this point John Wallace had acquired Turnbull & Scott from Hunt & Moscrop and Turnbull & Scott were manufacturing the heat exchangers used in the Thermolier space heater.
Cliff was considering acquiring the entire Thermolier business from Mather & Platt but we believe that John Wallace encouraged him instead to just acquire the Thermolier space heater and join Turnbull & Scott, initially as the Sales Manager but eventually he and John Rafferty acquired the business from John Wallace.
