Scottish Traders’ Wagons Volume Two: Traders E to M is the second in a three-volume series covering Scottish traders whose business names began with the letters E to M. It describes and illustrates the wagons owned or hired by more than six-hundred businesses, at over one-hundred locations ranging from Inverness to Dumfries and Berwick upon Tweed.
As well as more than one-hundred coal and ironmasters, there are entries for very nearly 400 individual coal and lime merchants. In addition to these traders, wagons on the traffic of brewers and distillers, brick and earthenware goods manufacturers, quarry owners, iron founders, flour millers and grain storage, oil and chemical manufacturers, paper makers, public works contractors, textile and jute manufacturers and municipal utilities all appear, adding another 100+ entries.
Some businesses were large – the Fife Coal Company ultimately expanded to comprise of a fleet of over 7,000 wagons. While generally small scale in their operation, some coal merchants were relatively large concerns too – the G&SWR approved just under 400 wagons of Logan Sons & Co. Ltd for traffic between Ayrshire collieries and Paisley stations; in 1898 R.Y. Pickering secured a 5-year contract to maintain 174 wagons currently on the traffic of Thomas Muir, Son & Patton of Dundee. Wagon hire was a significant feature. Many of the photographs in the Hurst, Nelson and Pickering collections depict wagons in liveries that only lasted a few years until they were repainted and re-lettered before going on hire to other businesses. These changes are documented and cross-referenced. The predominant body colour was ‘brown oxide’ (shown on the cover), followed by various shades of grey, examples have also been found of wagons painted Midland Railway engine red, as well as green, black and blue.
290 black & white photographs. Hardback. 304 pages.