Stewart Spiers
| Industry | Manufacturing |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1840 |
| Headquarters | Ayr, and later Paisley Scotland |
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Key people
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His daughters:
Outside the family:
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| Products | Hand planes for woodworking |
His daughters:
Outside the family:
Stewart Spiers was a small but innovative firm of plane-makers in Scotland, founded first of all in Ayr in Ayrshire and continuing under the registered name of Stewart Speirs Ltd [sic] in Paisley, Renfrewshire, from c. 1933 until its demise in the mid to late 1930s. Like the Glasgow firm of Alexander Mathieson & Sons, Spiers benefited hugely from the thriving industries on the Firth of Clyde in the latter half of the nineteenth century.
Stewart followed his father William Spiers into the cabinet-making trade in Ayr, and when his father died in 1844 he apparently took over the workshop in River Street. He was later to claim 1840 as the year his plane-making firm began. How Stewart came to be a plane-maker was, according to the Ayrshire Post, purely by accident, however. He is said to have bought a rough casting in Edinburgh for 1/6, finished it at home and sold it to a local cabinet-maker for 18/-. This supposedly was the beginning of what soon became a successful operation in which he was selling his planes in Glasgow and Edinburgh and as far afield as North America, yet this was still little more than a sideline to his cabinet-making. Only much later did he become a full-time plane maker.
Beginning at River Street in his father's workshop, Stewart moved his work premises round the corner to 12 Garden Street in around 1850 and later, by 1858, had moved to premises at 11 River Street, where the firm stayed until around the time of Stewart's death in 1899, before its removal to 2–4 River Terrace at the end of Auld Brig.
Unlike Alexander Mathieson & Sons, the firm of Spiers remained small. The 1851 Census notes Stewart as a master cabinet-maker employing two men and two apprentices; the 1871 Census records that he had one man and two boys working for him.
Notwithstanding the story of the first plane he sold being a cast one, almost without exception the firm's early planes were dovetailed, many with screwed sides and many with the lever cap and screw system for holding the cutter. The Garden Street leaflet published in the 1850s shows a wide array of infill planes available: panel, rebate (single and double iron), mitre (with snecked iron), smoothing and joining planes, some with wedged cutters and others with lever and cap. Later in the century bull-nose rebates planes were developed by Spiers, and shoulder, chariot and thumb planes were also added to the range. Gun-metal was introduced for making plane sides and lever caps.
In the 1890s Stewart's daughter Isabella assumed responsibility and ran the business until her untimely death in 1901. The firm continued under the name of Stewart Spiers with Stewart's surviving three daughters forming a partnership with the businessman Norman Eadie. Of the three daughters only Jane Stewart Spiers was still living in Ayr at the time. She took on the mantle of responsibility with active support from Eadie. Her sister Maria Carstairs Spiers reportedly returned to Ayr to help steer the firm through the war years.
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Wikipedia