Barry, Henry & Cook Limited – Its origins and history

 

How this project started

When I first went to live in Aberdeen in 1966, there was a major foundry and engineering company on West North Street, behind Marischal College, my place of work, which I could not help noticing because of its size.  This was the main premises of Barry Henry and Cook Ltd.  I sometimes wondered, idly, who were the presumed three gentlemen whose names survived to adorn the works, and the frequent advertisements in the local newspapers for its services.  The North Sea oil boom, starting in the 1970s, seemed to increase the signs of manufacturing at the site, as one drove along West North Street but then, almost without my realising that it had happened, the name disappeared, and then the premises, the site being redeveloped to host a supermarket.

In retirement I have frequently been engrossed by the history of my adopted city, its prominent sons, and its native companies.  My interest in a new topic has usually been aroused by an inadvertent discovery during the course of research of an unrelated project.  In the case of Barry Henry and Cook Ltd, my curiosity was re-awakened by the realisation that I had come across the relevant Cook family while delving into the history of Aboyne, a prominent village in the Dee Valley where some of my ancestors lived and worked during the 19^th century.  Charles Cook (1811 – 1868) had been the successful lessee of the Huntly Arms hotel, Aboyne in the two decades before his death.  His son, Charles (1836 – 1918) proved to be the first member of the family to become associated with the engineering works in West North Street.  My curiosity aroused, I set off on a journey of discovery.

This is the story of the origins and history of the firm which eventually became Barry Henry & Cook Limited.  It proved to be more complicated and controversial than I had anticipated.

 

Introduction

The ability to fabricate useful objects from metals has been central to the advancement of human societies since the Bronze Age (about 3,000BC - 1,200BC, depending on geographical region).  Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin, typically in the range 70% - 90% copper.  These two metals have melting temperatures of 1085 degC and 232 degC respectively.  Alloyed together they produced a metal hard enough for the manufacture of tools and weapons.  Pewter, another alloy of tin with lead, was also in use at this time.  Generally, it had a composition of about 70% tin and 30% lead The Bronze Age was succeeded by the Iron Age (starting about 1,200BC in Anatolia but rather later, about 400BC, in Northern Europe).  Iron requires a much higher temperature than copper to become molten, about 1,538 degC, which required some advances in furnace technology to be achieved.  Iron used for fabrication is generally subdivided into two types, the first being cast-iron which is a carbon-iron alloy (2+% carbon and 1+% silicon).  It has a relatively low melting temperature and, as the name suggests, can be used to cast shapes impressed into a mould.  It is strong in compression but brittle and relatively weak in tension.  On the other hand, wrought iron has a low carbon content but has slag inclusions.  It is tough and malleable.  Tin plate was, and is, a process employed in Britain from the mid-17^th century whereby iron was covered with a thin sheet or coating of tin to inhibit rusting.    

The importance of metal working to the development and functioning of societies is reflected in the adoption of occupational surnames.  In England and Scotland, the most common of all surnames was Smith (and variants such as Smyth).  The Great Britain Census of 1881 contained more than 420,000 people who bore the name Smith and constituted 1.4% of the population.  “Smith” has an Anglo-Saxon origin and means one who works metal.  “Smite”, meaning to strike something, has the same origin and describes one of the main actions of a smith or blacksmith in forming objects by striking heated, malleable metal with a hammer.  So, a series of processes is needed to produce workable metal objects, the production of metals from ores, the melting of metals and the casting of rough shapes, and the working of castings to produce finished objects.  A foundry is a factory where metal objects are cast.  Interestingly, this spelling only became general in Aberdeen after about 1834.  Before that time the spelling generally used was “foundery”.  The modern spelling will generally be used here.

It was claimed by the Cook family that the origins of the Barry Henry & Cook company can be traced back to 1790.  Indeed, that assertion was made on the exterior of its premises in West North Street, Aberdeen, “Founded 1790”.  Researching historical events, from the middle of the 18^th century onwards in and around Aberdeen, is greatly aided by the publication of the Aberdeen Journal, which dates back to 1748.  By searching this historic organ of the press, it has been possible to illuminate some of the early attempts to establish factories and foundries involved with metal working in the Granite City.  So, how does the Barry Henry & Cook claim stack up?

 

Footdee foundery, Aberdeen

One of the earliest records of a metal foundry in the Granite City, which has been discovered in the pages of the Aberdeen Journal, dates from late May 1754, when the building appears to have been “lately erected” and was located on land (also described as the “Links”) at Footdee “let in tack by the Town Council” to John Cooper.  The type of metal in use at that time was not identified but, following Cooper’s death two years later, his heirs offered for sale by roup the “hail Boxes Patterns and other utensils belonging to the said Foundery”.  Subsequently, the premises were operated by Alexander Cushnie, a merchant in Aberdeen, probably in partnership with Peter Cushnie, presumed to be a relative.  In 1763, but perhaps earlier, the foundry was melting iron.  The Cushnie family appear also to have traded, from at least 1755, in a wide variety of metal hardware imported from the rest of Great Britain, where the Industrial Revolution was getting underway.  The co-partnery agreement between the Cushnies expired in 1763, when they were “inclined to sell off houses, utensils and stock in trade”.  This change of ownership of the iron foundery at Footdee was an opportunity for Alexander Robertson, formerly an apprentice with the Cushnies, to start his own business in 1765 “at his shop near the former foundery”.  It appears not to have flourished, as no further record of its existence has been uncovered.  The Footdee iron foundry then appears to have been operated by John Forbes, another Aberdeen merchant, but not for long.  In September 1766, the “Houses and Biggings lately employed as an iron foundery” at Footdee were offered for sale by roup.  There appear to have been no ready bidders as the property was offered for sale again by the creditors of John Forbes.  Once more, no sale was made, and a further year elapsed before the availability of the property was advertised for a third time with an upset price of £150.  No record of a disposal has been found and, after 1769, most iron foundery activity in Aberdeen was located elsewhere, in the area between Gallowgate and the Lochside nearer to the centre of the town.

 

Gallowgate/Lochside foundries            

William Forbes was trading as a coppersmith in Aberdeen from at least 1750, though the location of his works is unclear.  This metalworker died in 1762 but his business was continued by his wife, Janet, and his son, also William.  They described their business as “All kinds of copper foundery, tin-plate work, pewter” and they also offered to buy “old brass, copper, pewter and lead”.  The Forbeses, at this time, appear not to have been ironfounders.  Another Forbes, George, who was a baillie (magistrate) in Aberdeen as well as a coppersmith, died in 1791.  It is likely that he was continuing the coppersmithing business of Janet and William.  In April 1792, all his “copper brass and iron, stock of goods” were offered for sale by his wife from her house in the Gallowgate.  No link has so far been established between this coppersmithing Forbes family and the ironfounder John Forbes in Footdee, though the common surname makes this a possibility.

In December 1802, a firm called Aberdein and MacHattie, whose premises were in the Gallowgate, placed an advertisement (repeated) in the Aberdeen Journal enumerating their offer of hardware goods.  “Beg leave to acquaint their friends and the public that they have just got to hand an elegant assortment of grates fenders and fire irons which they can recommend as equal if not superior to any ever offered for sale in this place.  They have on hand a complete assortment of articles in the furnishing line to which they have paid particular attention and can with confidence recommend Swedish, Russia and British iron and in general almost every article in the ironmongery line.”  This ironware seems, from the language used, to have been imported.  But then the firm made clear that it was also a manufacturer.  “They continue to manufacture goods in the brass, copper, tinplate and blacksmith line, also nails of all kinds”.  From the location and nature of the trade, it seems likely that Aberdein and McHattie had taken over the business, or at least the premises of the Forbes family.  The iron founding deficiency in the firm was addressed in 1806.  “Aberdein and Machattie, Gallowgate Aberdeen.  In addition to the manufacture of articles in Copper, Brass and Tinplate and Blacksmith lines, they have formed a connection with a cast iron foundery in this place by which they are enabled to furnish articles in that line, wholesale on the very lowest terms”.   That cast-iron foundry was newly-built, owned by William Watson and Co, and was located at Gallowgate-head.  In announcing the completion of its new manufactory, William Watson and Co also made clear that they sought to employ an apprentice in the foundery.  Soon after, Aberdeen and MacHattie also advertised for an apprentice but in the manufacture of articles in brass.

 

Enter Mr John Barry (1779 – 1822)

Aberdeen and Machattie returned to the pages of the Aberdeen Journal in June 1809 with an important announcement.  Not only had they made “Considerable improvements and additions in the furnishing line, particularly grates, fenders and fire irons, smoke and wind-up jacks &c a great variety of which they have of the newest and most approved patterns (some entirely new)…” but they had also engaged Mr John Barry, an experienced blacksmith, locksmith, ironfounder and bell hanger from London, as their manager in place of Mr Low who had left their employment.  Mr Barry “…for some time past had the superintendence of one of the first shops in the Blacksmith finishing line in that city” (ie London) and he would be supervising the fitting of Aberdeen and MacHattie’s new range of products.  In 1811, John Barry, “blacksmith in Aberdeen” received “a free burgess of said burgh of his own craft with all the liberties and privileges”.

The relationship between Aberdein and MacHattie, on the one hand, and Watson, Morrison & Co, on the other did not survive for long. In June 1810, the Watson, Morrison partnership was dissolved by mutual consent and this iron foundry was taken over by a new partnership of Aberdein and MacHattie, George and William Pirie, ironmongers and Robert Catto, merchant, operating under a new trading name, The Aberdeen Foundery Company.  One of the first actions of the new owners was to add an extensive blacksmith’s shop.  They also advertised for a foundry apprentice.  This new partnership subsisted until late 1814 when Aberdein and MacHattie bought out the other partners to take sole ownership of the Aberdeen Foundery Company.  Aberdeen and MacHattie’s new venture as sole owners of the company did not long survive.  By mid-1816, the firm’s estate had been sequestered, presumably due to bankruptcy, and its stock of goods sold off at “reduced prices”.   

Almost nothing is known about John Barry before he arrived in Aberdeen in 1809.  He was born in, or about, 1779 but the place of his birth and his parentage have not been uncovered.  Soon after his employment in the Granite City began, John Barry acquired a wife, Margaret Brown.  Her surname is somewhat uncertain because some documents render her family name as “Brownie”.  This seems questionable.  “Brown” was the 4^th most frequent surname in 1881, while only 101 persons in the whole of Great Britian possessed the diminutive version, though 67 of them lived in Aberdeenshire. It may be that a flourish at the end of handwritten “Brown” subsequently got transcribed with the terminal addition of “ie”.  In July 1811, the Barrys had their first child and by 1821 they had five children in total. 

In late 1814, John Barry left Aberdein and MacHattie to set up on his own account, trading beginning on 1^st April 1815, in both foundry work and blacksmithing.  The location of his work premises was “corner of Innes Street fronting the Loch”.  He also made clear that this would be his sole employment.    The name under which John Barry traded between 1814 and 1822 is not known, but he continued operating from Innes Street for the whole period.  By the time of his early death in 1822, it is clear that John Barry had become successful, and he was still in charge of his own firm.  On his death, his widow, Margaret announced to the public that she would be continuing the business.  She also changed the name of her late husband’s firm to “Barry and Henderson, Iron Founders”, with premises at 12 Innes Street (between Loch Street and the Gallowgate).  The new company seemed to be solely an iron foundry, with no involvement in brass founding.  Mrs Barry appears to have been a determined person and an advertisement originating from her is interesting.  “Barry and Henderson.  The public are respectfully informed that the business lately carried out by the deceased Mr John Barry, iron founder here will be continued under the firm of Barry & Henderson who trust that by attention to orders both in the execution and price they will merit a share of public favour which was so largely experienced by the late Mr Barry.  It is particularly requested that those who stood indebted to Mr Barry will immediately settle their accounts and pay the same to Mrs Barry his sole executrix; if not these debts will be put under the charge of a Law Agent for recovery.  Aberdeen July 30, 1822”.

In a paper that he produced in retirement, Victor Cook, the last Cook family principal of the company which evolved into Barry Henry & Cook Ltd, claimed that the company originated in 1790 when it was formed by John Barry and William Henderson senior, a soap manufacturer.  This claim is entirely without any factual support from contemporary documents and, in any case, looks highly improbable from two further facts, John Barry’s likely year of birth, 1779 (he would have been about 11 in 1790) and the evidence that he was recruited from London by Aberdein & MacHattie in 1809.  Indeed, Victor Cook admitted that no company papers have survived from before about 1841.

 

The brief involvement of Peter Henderson

This change of name of the iron foundry immediately focuses attention on Mr Henderson, who was so intimately involved in the firm’s affairs that his name was incorporated in its title.  The name of Barry & Henderson was in use between 1822 and 1826, with premises at 12 Innes Street until at least 1825.  In 1826, the co-partnery between Mrs Margaret Berry and Mr Peter Henderson was dissolved by mutual consent, due to Peter Henderson’s bankruptcy.  A search of the Scottish Post Office directories for Aberdeen identified a Peter Henderson who was an iron founder and was listed between 1824 and 1828.  In early 1827, a dwelling house “… presently occupied by Mr Peter Henderson consisting of four rooms in the first storey three rooms in the second storey, sunk kitchen, cellar, mangle, washing house and boiler.  There is a bleaching green and pump well on the premises and an excellent supply of water”, was offered for let, with enquiries to be directed to Mrs Barry at 100 George Street, or to her agents.  Peter Henderson was indebted to Margaret Barry at this time.  His financial problems seemed to continue the following year when “Premises in Charles Street lately occupied by Mr P Henderson as an iron foundery with the whole buildings and fixtures thereon for sale with reduced upset price”, was advertised.

 

The ephemeral Barry & Co

In 1826, the firm formerly known as Barry and Henderson was renamed “Barry & Co” and there was a move to new works located at 60 Loch Street.  Mrs Margaret Barry died in 1828 and the inventory of her moveable estate confirms that she and Peter Henderson had been sole partners in the firm of Barry and Henderson, that Peter Henderson had been declared bankrupt and that he had an outstanding debt to her.  Margaret Barry’s daughters then inherited the foundry business but may not have had the experience necessary to continue managing it. 

 

George Henry (1784 – 1867), Hugh Gordon & Co, The Copper Company and Barry Henry & Co

Peter Henderson’s removal from the scene through insolvency, and Margaret Barry’s decease required the creation of a new partnership in 1828 to manage the firm.  While the Barry name was retained in the firm’s title, presumably because Margaret Barry’s daughters either owned the firm or at least held a stake in it, Peter Henderson’s was dumped.  He was replaced by George Henry.  Who was the new entrant to the firm in 1828.  George Henry had been born in 1784 in Aberdeen and initially learned the trade of weaving.  Later, probably in the early 1820s, he joined the firm of Hugh Gordon & Co, more commonly known as the Copper Company, and was frequently described as a merchant.  He appears not to have had any foundry skills, so it is likely that his involvement with Barry Henry & Co was not technical.

The first mention of the Copper Company in the pages of the Aberdeen Journal was in 1785.  This firm possessed a warehouse in Gallowgate.  There was a pend running under the warehouse which gave access to the Copper Company’s close containing several dwelling houses.  The name “Messrs Hugh Gordon & Co”, located at the “Foot of the Gallowgate”, initially appeared in print in 1801, when the firm advertised a new iron kitchen “roasting and boiling apparatus”.  In 1820 Hugh Gordon & Co opened a new warehouse and encouraged customers to view its contents, including a recently arrived shipment of ironmongery and a “large stock of copper and tin goods which together with their blacksmith and brass foundery work are manufactured by themselves.  Bell hanging done”.  Thus, this firm, while trading in all kinds of metal objects, was also a specialist brass manufacturer.  The range of their manufactures in 1821 was “brassfoundery work, copper tinplate and ironwork”.

The earliest entry for George Henry in the Scottish Post Office directories for Aberdeen was in 1824.  “George Henry (Hugh Gordon & Co) H (home) 1, Gallowgate”.  This association with Hugh Gordon & Co continued without a break until 1866, a year before George Henry’s death.  In his early days with the firm, he acted as its traveller, though he eventually assumed the position of senior partner.  Like many successful businessmen in Aberdeen through the decades, he found himself (or perhaps he sought the role?) becoming progressively more involved in civic, commercial, political and charitable affairs outwith the confines of his firm.  He became a manager of the Guildry Company in 1829 and at the 1832 General Election he was a prominent supporter of James Hadden who was elected the Tory MP for the Granite City.  George Henry was a regular donor to, and supporter of, local charitable causes, such as the Aberdeen General Dispensary, Vaccine and In-lying Institute, the Aberdeen House of Industry and Refuge, the Victoria Model Lodging House, the Education Society, the Blind Asylum, the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary and the Savings Bank of Aberdeen. Other companies sought his involvement in their commercial affairs, and he became a director of several businesses, such as the Aberdeen Fire and Life Assurance Annuity & Revisionary Company and The Banking Company in Aberdeen.  George Henry was first elected to the Town Council in 1822 and between that year and 1833, he filled every position on that body to the level of Dean of Guild.  He then had to stand down due to the passing of the Great Reform Act of 1832 but was re-elected in 1838 and served for eight years as a baillie (magistrate), including two as senior baillie.  In September 1848 he was introduced to Queen Victoria and her Consort, Prince Albert, when they debarked at Aberdeen harbour on their way to Balmoral for the first time.  In 1850 George Henry was elected Lord Provost of Aberdeen and served in this role until 1853.  Although his formal relationship with Hugh Gordon & Co was retained almost to the end of his life, his heavy involvement in outside matters required his informal retiral from management.  In his place, his nephew, George Henry Gray assumed the role of manager.  Mr Gray appears to have been named as a tribute to his prominent uncle, who never married.  George Henry died in 1867, a wealthy man (his personal estate was valued at more than £16,000) who had led both a successful commercial life and fulfilled prominent roles in public service.  Sadly, George Henry Gray had only survived for a month after his uncle’s death when he expired due to delirium tremens.

It is interesting that in all the accounts of George Henry’s life published in the local press, there is not even a single mention of his role in the firm of Barry Henry & Co, despite his name having been given a place in its title which endured, and despite the commercial success of that firm during his life.  The inventory of his personal estate sheds light on his role with this firm.  At the time of George Henry’s death, there was an outstanding loan of £3,000 from him to that company.  He was also identified as a shareholder, though what proportion of the company he owned is unclear.  Thus, it appears that his role in Barry, Henry & Co was purely a financial proprietorial one.  So, who were the other owners and who was the manager of Barry Henry & Co in the years following 1828?

George Henry about 1850

 

William Henderson junior (1815 - 1895)

The full list of owners Barry Henry & Co in 1828 has not been uncovered, but it was a partnership which came to an end in 1834, as advertised in the Aberdeen Journal.  “Excellent opening for Iron and brass-founders, plumbers, blacksmiths or engine-makers.  In consequence of the contract of co-partnery of Barry, Henry & company being about to expire and several of the partners being desirous to retire from all active business, an excellent opening presents itself for carrying on a long-established and lucrative business.  The present company will give over at Whitsunday, to a purchaser or new company, the whole stock and utensils, by valuation, with the good-will of the business, and their present book debts, on reasonable terms.  Liberal encouragement will be given, by the proprietor of the properties within which the business is carried on, by giving a lease for any period, and at a reasonable rent; and the proprietors will also, if wished, take shares in the proposed new company, for continuing the business.  The establishment of the foundery, which was originally carried on by the late Mr John Barry, is the oldest in town, and has for many years past turned out a lucrative concern”.  The manager of the firm in this interval is not certainly known but may have been a Mr George Brown who filled some responsible role at the foundry but did not appear in the Scottish Post Office directories for Aberdeen with a company affiliation.

In 1834 a significant person, William Henderson junior, became involved with Barry Henry & Co, but in a role initially described as “clerk”.  He was born in 1815, the son of Wiliam Henderson senior, a soap manufacturer whose home was at 55 Loch Street and, after attending Aberdeen Grammar School, he served an apprenticeship with Mr John Barry, becoming familiar with all aspects of his iron foundry.  The Henderson family home was close to the premises of Barry Henry & Co at 60 Loch Street.  It is unclear if the two William Hendersons had a family relationship with Peter Henderson who had been a partner in the firm between 1822 and 1828.  However, the engagement of William Henderson junior in the firm appears to have been meaningful right from the start because, even in 1834, he had a personal entry in the Scottish Post Office directory for Aberdeen with the company association.  That accolade would not have been extended to any, or all, company clerks who were mere employees.  In the succeeding years William Henderson junior quickly came to play a prominent role in the affairs of Barry Henry & Co.  From 1835, the “clerk” tag was dropped and in 1837 he was described as “Manager to Barry Henry & Co.”  By 1838, his home address had changed to Raeden House, a grand dwelling built in the mid-18^th century, though sadly now (2024) demolished. In 1842, his home address changed again to 28 Skene Terrace, an imposing granite edifice opposite the Central Library.  At the 1851 Census, William junior was described as an ironfounder and in the 1853 Post Office directory he was identified as “managing partner” at Barry Henry & Co.  According to Victor Cook but without citing a source, about 1855 William Henderson became the sole partner in the firm, on the retirement of George Henry.  It seems certain that William Henderson junior must have occupied this role at least from the death of George Henry in 1867. 

Clearly, the Henderson family were not without money and the appearance of William junior in Barry Henry & Co in 1834 and his rapid rise to the top of its management likely resulted from a family share in the ownership of the business, alongside George Henry until 1867, when he died.  The testament (dated 1846) and codicils of George Henry are very interesting in that they reveal that he left a legacy of 19 gns to “William Henderson, Clerk in the Warehouse of Barry Henry and Company”.  At the time this will was written, William Henderson was already the manager of Barry Henry & Co.  So, could this “William Henderson” have been a son, or other relative, of the firm’s manager, who was learning the ropes?

 

The business of Barry Henry & Co – ironfounding and fertilisers 

The predecessor of Barry Henry & Co, Barry & Co, had existed between 1826, when the previous partnership ended, and 1828 when the new title was adopted.  The business of the firm was described as “iron founders” and a significant part of its activities related to the manufacture and repair of machinery for farms and water mills, which continued under the new managerial regime from 1828 but, in addition, a new and unexpected activity was added to the firm’s portfolio, the manufacture of, and trade in, artificial manures.  In September 1828, the following announcement was made in the local press.  “Barry, Henry & Company iron founders have a spare steam engine and are in the course of attaching it to new machinery for bruising bones for manure”.  It appears that the management of Barry Henry & Co was simply being commercially opportunistic when a new business prospect was perceived, even if it was not obviously within their area of competence.  However, Barry Henry & Co had strong connections with the agricultural community in the locality, arising from their manufacture of farm machinery and mill wheels, etc, so they were in a strong position to see this new trade as it appeared over the commercial horizon.  Subsequently, transporting their fertilisers to the agricultural areas of Aberdeenshire was aided by the use of the Aberdeenshire canal, whose main town wharf was at Mounthooly, not far from Loch Street.  This waterway extended to Port Elphinstone close to Inverurie, 15 miles from Aberdeen.  The firm also occasionally shipped bone manure by sea to Newburgh at the mouth of the river Ythan, 14 miles north of Aberdeen.

The reason for the emergence of this new business line related to the North-East of Scotland as a major cattle-producing area.  Until the 1820s the only way to get cattle from the North-East to markets further south was to drive them over long distances before the onset of winter, with loss of weight and condition along the way and the need subsequently to fatten them close to their destination.  However, the widespread introduction of turnips as a cattle feed crop in the 1820s allowed animals to remain in Aberdeenshire and adjacent counties over winter, being fed in cattle courts on turnips.  The yield of turnips could be much improved by the liberal addition to the fields of phosphate-rich fertilisers.  These came from two sources, cattle bones, sourced both locally and imported from Northern Europe, and crushed into a powder in or near Aberdeen and, later, guano (accumulated sea bird droppings), mostly imported from islands off Peru and South Africa. 

In April 1829, Barry and Henry received its first two consignments of imported bones by sea from Hamburg, totalling 82 tons.  In the same month, they also exported 49 castings for a flour mill, five boxes of cast iron, one box of hardware and one vice to St John’s, New Brunswick, Canada.  These imports of bones mostly from the Baltic ports, were the first of many over the next 2½ decades, though the pattern of shipments was rather haphazard, none in a few years and up to 700 tons/year in the 1860s.  Consignments stopped in 1867, presumably due to a change in policy resulting from the change in management that took place in that year, and the firm then sold off its bone mill, though at first there were no takers, probably because it had been heavily used.  Also, there were other suppliers in Aberdeen, such as the Aberdeen Lime Company, which dealt in much larger tonnages than Barry Henry & Co.  The firm occasionally took in supplies of guano transported by ship from the Chincha Islands, Peru, Ichaboe Island off the coast of present-day Namibia, the Khuriya Muriya Islands off the coast of present-day Oman, and Saldanha Bay, north of Cape Town, to sell on to local farmers.  Briefly during the mid-1860s Barry Henry & Co also supplied chemical fertilisers such as sulphate of ammonia and superphosphate.  By 1875, it is estimated that in excess of 25,000 tons of phosphate fertilisers were being applied annually to farms in Aberdeenshire and between 1829 and 1866 at least 4,740 tons of bones were imported by the firm.  However, Barry Henry & Co were clearly not big players in the Aberdeen fertiliser trade.  In the 1868 volume of the Aberdeen Post Office directory, Barry Henry & Co were still styling themselves as “ironfounders and manufacturers of bone manure” but in the following edition there was no reference to bone manure.

On the ironfounding and engineering side of the business, a good indication of what the firm's recent activities had been, can be gleaned from the description of the equipment and materials available when Barry Henry & Co was put up for sale in 1834.  “The utensils are of the most substantial and useful description – consisting of an excellent Blast fanners, a powerful Bone Mill, a large Turning Lathe, Boring machines, Grindstones, Polishing blocks &c, &c, all driven by a handsome steam engine of 10 horse power; an excellent assortment of foundry utensils, viz two Cupolas, a powerful crane, Ladles, Boxes, Stove Carriages and furniture, Cove Bars and Plates &c &c; a great variety of useful patterns, Blacksmiths’ tools and those of every description necessary for carrying on the several departments of the foundery and bone manufactory.  The stock of pig and bar iron, bones, blacking, moulding sand and every other requisite material is complete and well selected; and the manufactured goods consist of a well-arranged assortment of those articles which are in daily demand in the ordinary routine of an extensive and varied business.  The premises are adapted for carrying on, as at present, the business of the foundery and bone manufactory, or those of a plumber and brass-founder, or a blacksmith and engine-maker, or other business, possessed of a small capital, the present affords an opening rarely to be met with”.  Clearly there was a lot of boring and milling of their castings going on at this foundry.

In its advertising Barry Henry & Co did not emphasise its engineering capabilities in the period of control by William Henderson and George Henry, preferring just to call itself an ironfounder.  But glimpses of this side of the business occasionally appeared in the pages of the Aberdeen Journal and seemed to increase in prominence with time located at 60 Loch Street.  In 1848 the following brief description was tacked on to the end of a guano advertisement, almost as an afterthought.  “Metal for threshing mills, and ploughs, bruising rollers, boilers and all sorts of metal castings”.  There were other hints that the company was trading in second hand, presumably refurbished, machinery which may have been taken in when a replacement item was supplied.  For example, in 1856, the firm advertised “For sale a small steam engine and an old steam boiler”.  The following year a further advertisement offered “8hp high pressure horizontal steam engine with boiler &c complete”.  Some idea of the scale of Barry & Henry’s operations can also be informed by the numbers of staff that they employed.  At the 1861 Census, William Henderson was described as “iron foundery and manager employing 27 men and 11 boys”.  By 1865, it was clear that the firm was not only manufacturing and repairing steam engines but also designing them too.  “for sale (own make) steam engines of 3, 4, and 6 hp suitable for thrashing mills”.  By 1877, Barry Henry & company’s self-description became “ironfounders, engineers, etc” and the sole partner William Henderson now labelled himself as an “engineer”. 

Decorative ironmongery also featured frequently in the output of Barry Henry & Co after 1866.  The prominent Aberdeen statue of Queen Victoria, which presently sits at Queens Cross, was originally installed near the junction of St Nicholas Street and Union Street in the middle of the city, where “Railing and lamps” were supplied by the firm.  Similar output was supplied to local bodies, such as to the Town Council, to furnish new railings for a wooded embankment and the railings along Union Terrace for the improvement of Union Terrace gardens.  The architects of new buildings, such as the new Free Churches in Banchory, at Causewayend in Aberdeen, Marywell Street and Rosemount schools and the Commercial Bank in Union Street, often looked to Barry Henry & Co to supply railings and other ironwork.

Queen Victoria's statue with Barry Henry & Co iron railings

From the end of 1884, the local newspapers started to give an annual summary of the state of business in Aberdeen and the importance of Barry Henry & Co at that time can be gauged from the firm being awarded a specific commentary on its trading position.  Most of its business had been local and consisted of the provision of castings for engineering and mill work.  One specific contract had been to provide about 30 tons of castings for the new pumping engine under construction at Cults as part of the city’s new water extraction scheme from the river Dee.

 

Premises       

Although the deepest origins of Barry Henry & Cook Company Limited will later be the subject of a semantic debate, it is an arguable proposition that the firm of Aberdein and MacHattie was one progenitor of the firm, and especially after it employed Mr John Barry in mid-1809.  This company appears always to have been located in the Gallowgate, Aberdeen.  John Barry’s own firm (name presently unknown) was started in Innes Street premises in 1814.  Barry and Henderson, its successor to the iron foundry occupied 12 Innes Street (possibly the same location) between 1822 and about 1826, when its successor, Barry & Co moved to 60 Loch Street.  Loch Street runs a sinuous course which originally followed the eastern boundary of Aberdeen Loch.  However, by the mid-1820s this artificial water body had become highly polluted and was in the process of drying up.  There was another growing industrial business on Loch Street at this time, the Ogston candle-making firm.  (See “The remarkable Ogstons of Aberdeen: flax, candles and soap” on this blogsite).  Between 1824 and 1832, the Ogstons’ company office was located at 53 Loch Street and over the following decades the firm progressively consumed the land and buildings adjacent to its initial location during a period of inexorable growth.  Barry Henry & Co remained at 60 Loch Street at least until 1840.  The firm remained in this street subsequently, but the precise address has not been discovered.  However, from at least 1854 the business had been removed to 102 and 104 Loch Street and occupied these two addresses until 1872.  From 1873 until 1876 only no.102 was in use by the firm. At this point a move was made from Loch Street to 122 West North Street where William Henderson had secured a large tract of land, extending to about two acres.  This move was made due to the increasing difficulty of developing at the Lochside.  Inevitably, their voracious Loch Street neighbour bought their old premises.  According to Victor Cook, the annual output of the foundry after the removal to the West North Street would have been about 800 tons annually.  Barry Henry & Co remained at the West North Street location for the rest of its existence, though the street number curiously changed in 1880 to 122½.

 

The Carter family, Dickson Hogarth & Co and the West North Street site

Barry Henry & Co’s new location on West North Street had been used for some time as a metalworking site, possibly from as early as 1794, according to an article in the Aberdeen Journal of 27^th December 1890.  The Carter family, specifically David (1780 – 1837), a blacksmith, John, born about 1811 (probably a son), and David b 1815 in Aberdeenshire (definitely a son) ran a metalworking business at 72 North Street, Aberdeen from at least 1824.  Father and sons were variously described as “machine maker”, “general blacksmith” and “millwright”.  Between 1827 and 1837, when he died, David Carter senior also operated a wool-carding and spinning mill at the same address in North Street.  After his demise, David Carter senior was buried at St Clements Church, Footdee.  Following the extinction of their father, John and David Carter junior continued with the business, now adding “boilermaker” to their list of skills.  In 1841, the address of the business changed to 107 North Street and the firm continued as before until 1846, when the Carters were bought out by Aberdeen firm, Dickson Hogarth & Company.

This company had previously been involved in a quite different area of business.  They were fishcurers with works in College Street, though even before the purchase of the premises in North Street, they appear to have been thinking of moving into metal working.  In1844, the firm had purchased the patent to a design for the “Windguard” smoke curer, a device to attach to chimneys to prevent smoke blowing back into the protected premises.  After the acquisition of the site previously possessed by the Carters, which was called the North Street Iron Works, Dickson Hogarth & Co then described themselves as follows.  “…cast metal and brass founders, machinists, plumbers, gas fitters and brass finishers”.  They had recently completed a new building on their College Street site, and this may well have been used for metalworking of some kind.  Dickson Hogarth & Co now advertised for work in the following area, “…general cast metal and brass castings, mill machinery, plumber work, gas furnishings and fittings, of every description.  In addition to the extensive assortment of patterns belonging to the North Street Iron Works, Messrs DH & Co’s stock embraces every variety adapted for general mill work, house-building, shipping and agricultural purposes”.  The intent of the firm was clearly serious as they had plans drawn up for a new building on the North Street site by the prominent Aberdeen architectural practice of McKenzie & Matthews. 

By 1848, Dickson Hogarth & Co had added “iron founders” to their self-description, though it is likely that this capability had been present on the North Street site for some years, since the Carters had been involved in millwright work, which required iron castings.  However, this bold move into metalworking was ephemeral.  In 1850 the North Street site was put on the market.  “For sale by private bargain that commodious and compact iron foundry in North Street Aberdeen belonging to Dickson Hogarth & Company together with the whole tools and machinery necessary for carrying on the business which are of the best description and in excellent condition, as also to be let or sold that part of their premises in College Street complete with the tools necessary for carrying on the plumber brass-founding and finishing trades likewise the goodwill of their business in these branches.  Entry can be had immediately so that operations may be commenced at any time.  Inventories will be seen, and full particulars learned on application to William Hogarth 74 College Street”.

By October 1850, no acceptable private bargain had been made and a more detailed description of the North Street Iron Works then appeared, with a date for public sale.  “To engineers, iron and brass founders, plumbers, gas-fitters, blacksmiths, ironmongers and others.  Important sale at North Street Iron Works, Aberdeen.  The whole of the valuable and extensive stock of working machinery, engines and tools, the property of Messrs Dickson Hogarth & Co, together with the entire stock of made work in the various departments of their business will be exposed to public sale on Monday 4^th November next and following days”.  This advertisement was accompanied by a detailed inventory of the goods being offered.  The sale did not seem to proceed well as in June 1851, there was still a substantial number of items, especially such heavy machines as cranes, cupolas and shafting, which remained unsold.

In an article published in 1890 on the takeover of Barry Henry & Co by Charles Cook in 1889 (see below), the following statement was made.  “The firm of Barry, Henry, & Co., limited, were the pioneers of engineering and iron moulding in the north of Scotland, the concern having been established so long ago as 1794 by Mr Carter, and continued up to the fifties of the present century by Messrs Hogarth & Co., afterwards passing into the hands of Messrs Barry, Henry, & Co".  It is possible, but it has not been independently supported, that the metalworking site on West North Street was started by the Carters in 1794.  The Carters certainly held the site until 1846 but not “up to the fifties”.  Purchase of the site was by Dickson Hogarth & Co, not by “Messrs Hogarth & Co”.  That the site was then purchased from Dickson and Hogarth by Barry Henry & Co, too, has not been independently verified.  It looks as though the 1890 article was written by someone at the Aberdeen Journal who was composing from memory.  The article seems to be approximately true and if this is a fair characterisation of the statement, the implication is that sometime about 1851, Barry Henry & Co bought Dickson Hogarth & Co’s site on West North Street, which later and by the early 1870s, became the sole locus of their operations in Aberdeen.  From the long process for disposing of the equipment on site, it looks likely that it was not bought as a going concern.

Plan of the West North Street site

Meanwhile, Dickson Hogarth & Co’s original business continued after the disposal of the West North Street premises.  At the 1851 Great Exhibition held in Hyde Park in London, they exhibited a range of their preserved foods.  By 1856, the firm was even exporting an exotic range of tinned soups and other delicacies to British India.

  

The Barry Henry workforce and management

The actions and activities of the shopfloor workers in the firm were invisible during the first half of the 19^th century but then glimpses of their involvement in collective activities both inside and outside the firm started to emerge.  One expression of collective action was the solicitation of donations to good causes.  The earliest such initiative that has been detected was a submission of 16/6d to the fund for Erecting Public Baths in Aberdeen in 1845.  During the American Civil War of 1861 – 1865 the southern ports from which cotton was exported were blockaded leading to a severe shortage of raw cotton to feed the cotton industry in Lancashire.  As a result, many workers in that sector lost their jobs and great hardship was the result.  This led to supportive actions by working people in other parts of Great Britain, particularly by the donation of money.  In February 1863, the workforce at Barry Henry & Co submitted 4/9d to the Working Men’s Relief Fund.  In 1885 there was another donation of 9/6d by the employees in the fitting shop to the Central Fund for the Relief of the Unemployed.  By 1883, collections among the workmen and boys at Barry Henry & Co to the funds of Aberdeen Royal Infirmary were taking place, amounting to about 9/6d per month.  This was understandable, as the hospital was maintained by donations.

Industrial action started to raise its head during the 1860s in the industrial areas of Britain, and Barry Henry & Co’s works were not immune to this new movement.  In April 1866 there was agitation for increased wages, including withdrawal of labour and intimidation of fellow employees who remained at work.  Two moulders, John Frost and Alex McGavan threatened violence against their foreman, William Parker, including severe injury or even death, if he did not join the strike.  They were summoned to appear at Aberdeen Police Court, though only McGavan turned up.  He was fined 40/- or 30 days in prison and bound over to keep the peace in the sum of £10.

In May 1879, the six major firms in the Aberdeen iron trade, whose number included Barry Henry & Co, acting both collectively and provocatively, sought to increase the hours of work of their labouring staff from 51 to 54 hours per week, without any financial compensation for the three additional hours.  Many of the workers impacted by this move were members of the Moulders’ Association of Scotland and met to oppose the move but took no immediate action pending guidance from the association.  By early June, feelings were running high enough for the moulders at Barry Henry & Co and one other employer, W McKinnon & Co, to withdraw their labour.  A few days later it was reported that the iron moulders at Blaikie Brothers were also on strike.  But at some sites in the city the workers caved in to the demands of the employers and the protests appeared to be on the point of collapse.  At Barry Henry & Co, a deputation met with management, but no offer of a pay increase resulted. However, the feeling of grievance did not disappear and in April of the following year after further attempts to negotiate the payment of an additional 1/9d per week, the moulders at three works, including Barry Henry & Co struck, leading to a lockout by other town employers, even those whose workers were not on strike.  About 200 workers were denied work.  But the action of the moulders could not be sustained, and the strike collapsed in the face of employer solidarity.  They had argued that trade was dull and that the rate of pay of moulders in Aberdeen was already higher that the rate paid to similar workers in Dundee.  It was not until 1919 that the standard working week in engineering was reduced from 54 hours to 47 hours.

The relationship between managers and workmen was not always marked by antagonism and resentment.  Starting at the end of 1883, an annual social gathering was held for all members of the company, which gave the management a chance to deliver hopeful messages about the state of trade and the prospects for the coming year, but also allowed the staff, their wives and girlfriends to let down their hair at the dance which followed the managerial pep-talk.  Sometimes a summer picnic was also held for the employees when the staff and their families would travel by train to destinations such as Stonehaven or Banchory for the day and enjoy eating, games and sometimes also dancing.

Companies too started to band together to act in their common interest.  In 1854 the Aberdeen Trade Protection Society was formed, which later grew into the Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce.  In 1870, two senior members of Barry Henry & Co were directors of this society.  Also, the company was not averse to taking legal action against its own employees, for example apprentices who did not adhere to their contract of apprenticeship.

Shortly after moving their premises to West North Street, in 1876 Barry Henry & Co found themselves in a dispute with their neighbours, the Imperial Granite Works, who complained of smoke issuing from an engine belonging to the ironfounder, which blew on to their site.  The dispute was not settled informally which led to Imperial taking legal action and a summons was served on Barry Henry & Co.  At this point, William Henderson, by then the sole partner in the ironfounder, sought a compromise.  He undertook to suppress the nuisance and to pay Imperial’s costs.

Another dispute, this time with a blacksmith customer concerning the terms of a contract, blew up in 1878.  Barry Henry & Co had built a new steam engine for Ellis junior & Company but after some months the client complained that the performance of the engine was not consistent with the terms of the contract, and they sued the ironfounder for the sum of £46-10s.  However, Sheriff Dove Wilson, a prominent figure on the Aberdeen legal scene, found for the defendants on the grounds that Ellis had waited too long before complaining and during that period used the engine frequently.

Given that the nature of Barry Henry & Co’s trade involved the extensive use of furnaces and molten metal, surprisingly it was only occasionally that major incidents at the works were reported in the press.  The earliest known fire affecting the firm occurred in October 1841, when the Aberdeen Journal printed a report of the conflagration.  “On Friday about ten o’clock, it was discovered that fire had broken out in the pattern shop of Messrs Barry, Henry & Co’s foundry, Loch Street.  For some time the fire had a very alarming appearance, but the engines having been brought, the fire was confined to the building in which it originated.  A party of the 71^st regiment was promptly on the spot, and did good service in keeping order and in assisting the working of the fire engines.  The premises, we understand, are fully insured”.  In November 1887 there was a serious explosion which fortunately took place on a Saturday afternoon after the workers had left for the day.  It was supposedly caused by the accumulation of explosive gas issuing from the coal being used to fire a stove for drying moulds and there was much damage to the buildings close to the site of the blast.

Not all the iron used in the Barry Henry works was derived from imported pig iron.  The firm also bought old iron objects and stored them in a bing (heap) on site until needed.  Sometimes, items sold to the company had been obtained by theft, such as two metal brackets weighing 15lbs each acquired in 1889.  They later proved to have been stolen from Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.

At the end of 1889, William Henderson formally retired from work and sold the firm to Charles Cook (1836 – 1918).  William had been manager of the business since 1837, when he was only 22 years old and in 1867 at the age of 52, he assumed the role of sole partner.  In truth, by the end of his regime, he had been in charge for too long for the good of the company as it was not performing to its maximum potential, nor was it taking initiatives as new opportunities arose.  It was reported that William Henderson was a rather retiring person, and he took little part in civic life, unlike some other business leaders in the Granite City.  Perhaps this is the reason why he never reinserted the Henderson name into the title of the company, that he was not a man who sought self-promotion and public recognition?  Such a name change would certainly have been merited after his role in directing the firm over a period of 53 years.

 

The origin of the Cook family

To understand how Charles Cook (1836 – 1918) was in a position to buy Barry Henry & Co in 1889, it is necessary to go back in Cook family history to his paternal grandfather, also Charles (1784 – 1848), who was at one time the landlord of the Star Hotel, Arbroath, in Angus (also called Forfarshire) about 50 miles south of Aberdeen.  He and his wife Margaret had a family of six between 1805 and 1816 of whom three boys, John, b 1805, Alexander, b 1807 and Charles, b 1811 are particularly relevant to this account.

Although the first stagecoaches had been introduced as early as the 13^th century and four-wheeled, horse-drawn carriages were introduced by the Shore Porters Society in Aberdeen in 1750, it was the early decades of the 19^th century before the stagecoach network was fully developed, following the Turnpike Act of 1800.  By this time, roads between major towns and cities had become adequate, in terms of journey time and comfort, for travel by horse-drawn coaches over tens to hundreds of miles.  The first coach from Aberdeen to Edinburgh was initiated in 1777 but took 32 hours with an overnight stop in Perth.  To sustain a network of coach routes, it was necessary for inns to become posting establishments with substantial stables and horse populations, in addition to their local offerings for horse transport and hiring, since each stage was only of 10 to 15 miles before a change of horses became necessary.  In 1826 Aberdeen was first served by a stagecoach service to Edinburgh, the “Union” coach, which could complete the journey in a single day.  It travelled down through Arbroath, crossed the river Tay by ferry at Dundee and the Forth estuary at Queensferry.

Aberdeen Journal stagecoach logo 1826

But, in 1826, the Cook family suffered a major financial set-back when Charles Cook (1784 – 1848), “coach owner and vintner”, was declared bankrupt, though the reason for this calamity has not been uncovered.  Landlord Charles Cook seems to have been comfortably solvent prior to this event since, at the public disposal of his assets to satisfy his creditors, it was revealed that he had owned “All and whole those middle and back tenements of land and haill houses thereof with stables lofts and garden ground behind the same lying on the east side of the Murray Street of Montrose and presently possessed by Mrs Fraser vintner, David Coutts baker and others; being part of the sequestered estate of Charles Cook vintner in Arbroath.  The Ship Inn which is part of these premises is well frequented by travellers and others; and the whole property is rented at upwards of £100 yearly”.  

The Cook family then had to find alternative sources of income.  Their skills and experience lay in managing inns, their stables and horse hiring.  That is what the three sons, John (21), Alex (19) and Charles (15), had grown up with every day in life.  It is not surprising that they should then seek employment opportunities dealing with horses.

 

The “Union” and “Defiance” stagecoaches

In 1826 a coaching service variously titled the “Union” or “Royal Union” coach was initiated on 5^th March.  It started from Aberdeen at 11.30pm and reached Dundee at 9.00am before crossing the Tay and travelling on to Edinburgh across Fife, arriving at the Scottish capital at 4.30pm.  The total journey time was 17 hours.  This service ran until at least 1839.

Captain Robert Barclay of Ury, Stonehaven was a landed gentleman who became famous for his athletic performances as a pedestrian at a time when long distance walking, at speed, was a sport which aroused widespread public interest.  His life story is told elsewhere on this blog site, see Robert Barclay Allardice, “Captain Barclay”, (1779 – 1854), a life of spectacular pedestrian success, punctuated by excess, chaos and mediocrity in other aspects of his life.  Captain Barclay was also a skilled coachman and in 1809 he drove the mail coach from London to Dundee, taking the box on every stage of the 400-mile journey, which was a major feat of endurance, ten times the distance a typical driver would undertake without being relieved.  Robert Barclay and his friend Hugh Watson, both cattle breeders discussed introducing an alternative offering on the route between Aberdeen and Edinburgh about 1827.  They put together a syndicate to finance this new service, called the “Defiance”.  It concentrated on both comfort and speed and took a different route to the “Union” coach, travelling through Strathmore to Perth, thus cutting out one ferry crossing.  The lightweight coaches could carry 15 passengers, with two drivers and a guard.  The “Defiance” coach typically departed Aberdeen at 6.00am and regularly completed the journey in 14 hours and two minutes at an average speed of 14.3 mph.

The ”Defiance” first ran on 1 July 1829 with Robert Barclay on the box of the coach travelling south from Aberdeen, a duty he occasionally repeated over the following two decades.  This service was very popular with gentlemen and aristocrats living along the route, though it was never very profitable due to high repair and other costs associated with a fast, lightweight coach service.  But the opening of the “Defiance” route, together with the already existing “Union” coach, was clearly seen by John, Alex and Charles Cook as an opportunity to make some money from their equestrian skills.  The three lads, not necessarily at the same time, moved to Aberdeen in the late 1820s.  While three of his sons headed north from Arbroath, Charles Cook senior may have moved in the opposite direction, towards Perth.  In November of 1829, D Seaton, landlord of the Salutation Inn and Hotel, in the Perthshire capital advertised his establishment at which the “Defiance” called and supported his credentials with the announcement that “A first rate man Cook has been engaged”.

The railway reached Perth in 1848, Dundee in 1849 and Aberdeen in 1850 and the ever-encroaching  railway network caused the Aberdeen - Edinburgh route of the “Defiance” to be truncated to Aberdeen – Perth in July 1840, though local protests then led to the full route being reinstated.  In March 1845 the route was altered so that the coach passed through Dundee on its way north.  A further shortening of the route followed in October 1847, with the journey being limited to the road between Aberdeen and Coupar Angus.  A few months later there was a further curtailment to Aberdeen – Montrose, yet this restricted operation still required a cohort of 30 horses to pull the coaches.  But the writing had long been on the wall for the demise of the “Defiance” coach.  In 1849 it had completed 20 years of service, still occasionally driven by Captain Barclay, including on its very last passage which occurred on Wednesday, 1 August 1849.  Thus passed an era of fine, pre-railway travel up and down the east coast of Scotland.  The Stonehaven Journal summarised the “Defiance” concept following its withdrawal.  “Defiance had everything of the best quality in mechanical fittings, superior teams of horses and a class of coachmen and guards of whom such men as David Troup, John Louden and the Cooks are the living exemplars”.

 

The Cook boys in Aberdeen

The eldest of the Cook sons was John and he may have moved to Aberdeen as early as 1824.  He first appeared in the Scottish Post Office directory for Aberdeen in 1827, when he was described as “guard of the Union Coach”.  This designation was retained for the following six years.  In 1835 he was described as “guard and proprietor” of the “Union” coach but still continued as a guard at least for the following two years.  In 1837, John Cook appears to have employed his equestrian skills in other directions when the John Cook Riding Academy opened at 256 Union Street.  A further attempt at diversification came in 1840 with the institution of the John Cook Horse Bazaar.  In 1838, John, like his brother Alexander moved his place of work to acting as a guard on the “Defiance” coach.  This role continued until 1844.  That year was to be his last with the famous coach service but, before leaving, he was involved in accepting tenders for the supply of “Defiance” coaches on the Aberdeen – Edinburgh route for three years from 1 January 1845.  In mid-December 1844 a testimonial dinner attended by about 50 of his friends was given to John Cook, at which it was noted that he had been involved with coaching in Aberdeen for the past 20 years.  John Cook left to become a tenant farmer on a property near Stirling.  Reference was also made at the testimonial dinner to the roles played by his brothers.  “A special bumper was devoted to the health and prosperity of his two brothers Charles and Aleck who were equally deserving of public approbation and would have a right to look for it when they retired from their present responsible situations”.

Alexander, the second oldest Cook son, first appeared in the Post Office directory for Aberdeen in 1834.  His role, too, at this time was guard on the “Union” coach.  This designation was retained until 1837.  The following year, Alexander jumped ship to become a guard on the “Defiance” coach, a role he continued until 1849 and the demise of the “Defiance”, though he was still listed as a coach guard in the Post Office directory in the following year.  Although Alexander Cook had not acted in the role of coachman, he was clearly competent as a jockey.  He owned a “fine old mare” called “The Shadow” which had won over 60 races, including the Aberdeen Handicap at the Aberdeen Banff and Kincardineshire races held in 1846.  Both Alex and Charles had horses entered in the Aberdeen Banff and Kincardineshire Coaching Stakes held the following year and open to “horses bona fide the property of coach proprietors residing in either of the above counties and to have been regularly worked in a Stage or Mail Coach for at least 6 months during 1847; to be ridden by their owners, coachmen, or guards; heats; one mile; the winner to be sold for 20sov.”.

Although the third Cook boy, Charles did not appear in the Post Office directory until 1835 as coachman of the “Union” coach, he must have been living in Aberdeen for some time because he married Mary Fife there in May 1834.  Charles continued in the role of coachman on the “Union” coach until 1838, when he took up the same role on the “Defiance” coach, continuing until late 1847.

 

Charles Cook (1811 – 1868) and the Huntly Arms hotel

George Gordon, the 9^th Marquis of Huntly (1761 – 1853), whose seat was at Aboyne Castle, had a long career in the Army before being appointed ADC to King William IV between 1830 and 1837, when William died, and then ADC to Queen Victoria until his death in 1853.  George Gordon was a regular user of the “Defiance” coach, including the period 1838 – 1847 when Charles Cook (1811 – 1868) was frequently the coachman.  Lord Huntly got to know Cook well and was clearly impressed by his character.  At the time, the Huntly Arms Inn, located near the entrance to Aboyne Castle and part of George Gordon’s estate, required a new tenant and he saw Charles Cook as the ideal man to fill this role.  Charles accepted the offer and proved to be a highly successful landlord of the Huntly Arms for 20 years until 1868.

Huntly Arms hotel, Aboyne

The Deeside Railway was developed in stages after the line from the south reached Ferryhill, Aberdeen in 1850.  It continued to Banchory in September 1853, Aboyne in December 1859 and Ballater in 1866.  When Charles Cook (1811 – 1868) entered the Huntly Arms in 1848, it had extensive stables and a large posting business.  The progressive development of the Deeside Railway brought both threats and opportunities for his business, which changed with each extension of the railway line.  This was also a time when tourism along the Dee valley received a substantial boost from Queen Victoria’s extensive visits to Balmoral from 1848 onwards, which gave the astute Charles Cook more opportunities to make money.  Between 1859 and 1866, when Aboyne was the terminus of the Deeside line, Queen Victoria would disembark at Aboyne station, located behind the Huntly Arms to take one of Charles Cook’s coaches, usually driven by him, the remaining 18 miles to Balmoral.  A typical example of Charles’ adaptation to the progressive extension of the Dee valley line came in 1854 when the railway terminated at Banchory.  He had coaches running along the Dee valley between Banchory and Ballater and connecting with trains arriving at and leaving from Banchory between 7.40am and 7.00pm during the summer months.  He also ran the “Marquis of Huntly” coach between Aboyne and Banchory all year, and a separate unrestricted coach between Banchory and Ballater.  In 1855, Charles Cook (1811 – 1868) restarted the coach service, now called the “Victoria”, linking Banchory station, where he had a coach office, with Ballater, ten miles from Balmoral, which was already a tourist magnet.  During July this coach further extended its route beyond Ballater to Braemar.  Charles Cook was clearly aware of the need for what would now be called “customer care” as “The conductor of the coaches will be at the Aberdeen and Deeside railway stations to receive and attend to passengers and parcels”.  It is also a significant indicator of Charles Cook’s business acumen that he invested in the Deeside Extension Railway which built the link between Banchory and Aboyne and he kept adapting and publicising his coaching services throughout the period of development of the Deeside railway.

Charles Cook (1811 – 1868) was not a one-trick pony, and he proved to be an astute businessman in other activities.   He appears to have been the person who changed the name of his new establishment from “Inn” to “Hotel” and he would readily grasp any new opportunity with the potential for turning an extra penny.  In addition to the hotel and posting businesses, he also took leases to the Haugh farm of some 111 acres of arable land, to some of Lord Huntly’s fishings on the Dee, an outstanding salmon river, and to the refreshment room at Aboyne station.  At the 1861 Census of Scotland there were four guests in residence at the Huntly Arms, including Cosmo Gordon, a relative of Lord Aboyne.  Cosmo Gordon described himself as a “fisher and gunner”, indicating his personal reasons for visiting Deeside.  A further business opportunity came Charles’ way in 1867 when the Aboyne Highland Games were inaugurated and held on the Green in front of the hotel, and he could cater there for the food and drink needs of the several hundred attendees.  Serious money must have been coming Charles Cook’s way because in 1853 a substantial extension to the hotel was begun.  The following year, he proudly announced the completion of the project to the public.  “Charles Cook intimates to the nobility, gentry and public that the repairs and additions to the inn have been completed.  Part of accommodation can be taken as private lodgings.  Accommodation suitable for ladies, gentlemen and families as on the Continent.  Situation attractive to tourists who frequent this hotel.  Fishing on the Dee by permission of Mr Cook.  A most extensive and varied assortment of coaches, carriages, breaks, gigs and dogcarts is also kept at this establishment.  Links to Banchory station”.

One of Charles Cook (1811 – 1868)’s first actions after his entry to the hotel was to offer for sale excess furniture and “a large quantity of potatoes”.  Also, as was the style of those times on Deeside, an opening dinner to welcome Charles Cook was held at the Huntly Arms in August 1848, at a cost of 3/6d per head and with Captain Barclay, appropriately, taking the chair.  The Aberdeen Herald reported that, “The gallant Captain in proposing the toast of the evening referred in the most laudatory terms to the character of Mr Cook which he had the best means of testing from his long connection with the “Defiance” Coach”.

Another characteristic of mid-19^th century Aboyne was the Freemasons’ lodge, which received strong support from the tradespeople of the area but also from Aboyne Castle.  Not only did Charles Cook (1811 – 1848) join this society, but he was soon nominated as its secretary.  The involvement of Charles Cook with the Freemasons was significant from a business point of view, as their meetings were almost always followed by dinner at the Huntly Arms.  Indeed, a wide range of meetings in mid-Deeside gathered and then dined, almost exclusively, at Mr Cook’s esteemed establishment.

Another growing area of business on Deeside with which Charles Cook (1811 – 1868) sought to become involved was the increasing habit of wealthy Aberdonians to take a summer let of a house or cottage on Deeside for family leisure and to be seen at important events, such as the various Highland games meetings.  These had a more prominent social role at the time that an athletic or cultural one.  Charles started to act as agent for people having such accommodation on offer from as early as 1852.  Charles Cook was also aware of the importance of being seen in the community to do good works.  In that year, he had been awarded £1 damages against an errant servant and he donated this sum to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, the gift being reported in the Aberdeen Journal.  Another example of his generosity of spirit came in 1860 when a large group of youngsters who were members of the Cromar, Tarland and Aboyne Band of Hope were stranded in Aboyne after a meeting.  This organisation had been formed in 1855 to warn children about the dangers of strong drink.  At the end of their conclave some of the attendees found that they would have to walk home to Tarland from Aboyne as no transport was available.  Charles Cook took pity on the group and packed as many of them as he could into his “Laird of Newe” coach and transported them northwards.  Apart from growing and selling animals and crops raised on the Haugh farm, horse-fancier, Charles Cook kept a stallion “Trojan” at stud there.  He “will serve a limited number of mares this season (1854) at the hotel farm.  1gn each mare, groom’s fee 2’6d”.

In October 1868, Charles Cook senior (1811 – 1868) retired as the tenant of the Huntly Arms hotel, Aboyne, due to ill-health.  In the meantime, management of the property was delegated to Charles’ wife and two of his sons, Charles junior and Thomas and the balance of Charles senior’s lease was offered for let.  Thomas Cook (1837 – 1885) appeared to take responsibility for the Haugh farm in this interim period.  The description of the Huntly Arms hotel in the advertisement publicising its availability is important in that it describes accurately the extent of the property’s facilities at that time.  “Two Public Rooms, Taprooms, Five Parlours, and Twenty Bedrooms, Ample Cellarage, Kitchen, and Servants’ Accommodation, and the Posting accommodation is very complete and all in good order”.  Also, a displenish sale revealed the extent of the posting and coaching operation at the hotel.  “… 25 useful horses, single and double harness, riding saddles, one omnibus to carry 14, one stage coach to carry 20, one open carriage, three barouches, one wagonette, one large brake, one 4-wheeled dog cart, one 2-wheeled dog cart, one spring cart and a large omnibus to carry 40”.  Without doubt, Charles Cook senior had been an inspired choice for landlord of the Huntly Arms by the 9^th Marquis of Huntly, and Charles himself had been seriously enriched through his unremitting pursuit of commercial success in this position.

Charles Cook (1811 – 1868) died at the Huntly Arms hotel at the end of November 1868, the cause being cancer of the kidney from which he had suffered for “years”.  The death was certified by Alexander Keith, the Aboyne GP and was recorded by the village registrar, Andrew Gray, a distant relative of the present author.  It was necessary for Charles junior and Thomas Cook to apply for the transfer of their late father’s liquor licenses to themselves, and their submission is interesting in giving a full statement of the licensed premises which had been under their father’s care - Station, Aboyne (refreshment rooms); Aboyne (inn and hotel); Ballater (inn and hotel).  

 

Charles Cook (1836 – 1918), the hotel trade and farming

As previously noted, Charles Cook (1811 - 1868) married Mary Fife in 1834.  Mary played a prominent role in running the domestic side of the Huntly Arms.  This couple had a family of five between 1836 and 1844, the eldest son, almost inevitably, being baptised “Charles”.  By 1855, when he was 19, Charles junior (1836 - 1918) had become an office-bearer (Junior Warden) in the Aboyne Freemasons.  He was shaping up to follow his father’s strategy and tactics in promoting his own business career.  In 1861, Charles senior planned to open a new private hotel, to be called “Cook’s Private Hotel”, in Ballater, the town which would become the final terminus of the Deeside line in 1866.  This new hotel was also intended to have a substantial posting operation attached to it, offering “Close and open carriages, brakes, dogcarts, gigs and all other vehicles suitable for excursion and other parties …”.  It appears that the project was never implemented because Mr Ross, who had been the tenant at the Monaltrie Arms Inn at Ballater retired and sold up his hotel possessions in 1861.  The extent of Mr Ross’ operation in Ballater became clear from the comprehensive inventory of items offered for sale, horses, coaches and other vehicles, harness, etc, cattle, sheep, pigs, blacksmithing and farming tools and equipment, and household furniture.  It appears that there was a small farm attached to the hotel.

Charles Cook senior (1811 – 1868) took this opportunity to establish a presence in the up-market hotel trade of Ballater.  He immediately changed the name to the Invercauld Arms hotel and was announced as the new tenant of this hostelry, another grand residential pile, built in the 1830s, on Deeside but this time on the Invercauld estate.  Although this new business was held in the name of Charles Cook senior, who remained tenant of the Huntly Arms, it was managed by his son Charles junior (1836 – 1918).  In July 1861, the following advertisement appeared in the Aberdeen Journal.  “The Friends of Mr CHARLES COOK, Junior, Ballater, propose to DINE at the Invercauld Arms there, on Friday the 16th proximo, Four p.m. Tickets, including Wine, 7s 6d. To be had at the Royal Hotel, Aberdeen; the Burnett Arms, Banchory; the Huntly Arms, Aboyne; Mr Haynes, Ballater; and at the Invercauld and Fife Arms, Braemar. A. Robertson, M.D., in the Chair. Ballater, 23d July 1861”.  “A Robertson MD” was the Queen’s commissioner on the Balmoral estate.  He was assisted by the factors on both the Aboyne and Invercauld estates, who acted as croupiers.  There were many significant attendees, but two are worthy of particular note.  William McCombie of Tillyfour, the famous breeder of Aberdeen Angus cattle and his French pupil of cattle breeding and feeding, M. Blanchy, travelled over from Donside for the event, the Frenchman even being honoured with a toast. This was not an evening for the insignificant or impoverished and it indicated just how far the Cooks had risen in prominence in Deeside society since their entry to the Huntly Arms in 1848.

Following the dinner, there was a long succession of speeches and toasts, the most significant of which came from Dr Andrew Robertson in the chair.  It is reproduced here because it was both perceptive and prophetic.  “Gentlemen, as you all know, we have met to-night here, the friends of Mr Charles Cook, jun. (applause) and I think, considering the notice that was given of the meeting - simply, that Mr Cook’s friends would meet here for dinner, he, as well as his nearest relatives and others, may be highly gratified and proud of the company with which he is now surrounded. His friends must not only be numerous, but glancing round, I am satisfied they are highly respectable, and may be of great use to him as a landlord. Mr Cook is a young man just entering upon life; and we have met for the purpose of offering to him the expression of our best wishes for his success in the new sphere on which he has entered, with happiness in his family. (applause) Every man of business will admit that it is a great matter for a young man to get a good beginning; and in this, I think, Mr Cook has the prestige of future success. He has before him the example and the good name of an honest, upright, intelligent, and most obliging man, his father. (loud cheers) And if I were called on to point out one whose example he should follow, I would say, Look to your father. (renewed applause) Mr Charles Cook has a kind manner, an agreeable disposition, and like his father he never steps beyond his position; and I know no one of whom it may more truly be said that he has been the author of his own fortune than of Mr Cook of Aboyne. (applause) So, I repeat, I say to our young friend - Look to your father, follow his advice, walk in his footsteps, and you will do well.” (applause) Our young friend has lately taken to himself a wife, who, I need hardly say, will be of great assistance to him in his capacity of landlord. (applause) Now, gentlemen, I purposely avoid a long panegyric on Mr Cook; but I can in truth say that I believe him to be worthy of the support of those friends around him, and if he continue in the course he has hitherto followed, I have not a doubt but he will be successful. I ask you to drink Health and Success to the young Landlord of the Invercauld Arms.”  The Aberdeen Journal called the event an “auspicious opening given to the Invercauld Arms”.

Dr Andrew Robertson’s advice was followed, and his predictions proved, as will be seen, to be accurate, but in an area of business, engineering, that would have been difficult to foresee in 1861.

In January 1860, Charles Cook (1836 – 1918) had married Elspet Nicol the daughter of farmer Thomas Nicol of Dalwhing farm, Aboyne.  Over the next 14 years they had a family of 11 children of whom five were boys, mostly given familiar Cook names, Charles (1862), Thomas Nicol (1864), John Nicol (1866), Alexander (1966) and Robert Sellar (1870), with allusions to the wife’s family.  But who was Robert Sellar?  Was he a member of the family of George Sellar of Huntly a major manufacturer of ploughs and other agricultural implements?  All the children were born at the Ballater hotel, except first child, Jessie Emslie who first saw the light of day at the Huntly Arms in Aboyne.

Charles Cook’s early years at the Invercauld Arms in Ballater did not always run smoothly.  In April 1863, His coachman William Lumsden lost control of his horses which were spooked while travelling on the South Deeside Road.  The omnibus went off the road and tumbled down a bank, turning over twice.  Remarkably, the horses were not seriously injured.  The fate of William Lumsden was terminal.  He suffered a fractured skull and several broken ribs when the vehicle landed on top of him.  But Charles did not let this accident impede his progress.  He quickly became an active member of the community in Ballater, trading cattle and, in 1865, being elected convener of the annual meeting of the inhabitants of the Borough of Ballater.  Like his father, he started to act as an agent for people in the district who wanted to let their houses over the summer months to wealthy visitors.  In 1869, during the cattle plague epidemic, Charles was directly involved with the countermeasures conducted by William McCombie of Tillyfour, Alford, to defeat this devastating disease. 

Invercauld Arms hotel, Ballater

On the retiral and subsequent death of his father in late 1868, Charles and his next brother, Thomas (1837 – 1885), took control of the Cook family assets, with the younger brother remaining in Aboyne and Charles tending to affairs in Ballater.  The 11^th Marquis of Huntly then appointed Francis Sandison as the new tenant of the Aboyne hotel with the Haugh farm in 1870, and both Charles junior and Thomas branched out in a new direction, presumably helped by money inherited from their father’s estate.

The farm of Asloun, near Alford on Donside had been in the possession of Mr George Forbes until 1872 but then became available for let.  It went to Thomas William Cook (1837 – 1885) who had been temporarily managing the Haugh farm at Aboyne until it was let to Mr Francis Sandison.  There is a saying in Aberdeenshire that one acre on Donside is worth two acres on Deeside, ie the productivity of the land in the Don valley, especially around Alford, is very good.  Thomas quickly fitted into the life of the Alford farming community and his agricultural operations were immediately successful, purchasing shorthorns and winning prizes at the local show with his swedes.  He became a member of the Royal Northern Agricultural Society in 1873.  The same year, at the age of 36 he got married.

William McCombie of Tillyfour (1805 – 1880) had been running an extensive farming operation in the Alford area of Donside, with three farms at its height, Tillyfour, Bridgend and Dorsell.  The freehold of Tillyfour had been owned by his brother Rev Charles McCombie, who died in 1876.  William then acquired the freehold from his brother’s estate.  The other two farms were the property of his cousin, William McCombie (1802) of Easter Skene.  Although all three farms were in the Laird of Tillyfour’s occupation in 1870, Dorsell must have been relinquished by William McCombie (1805) by 1876, because the farm was taken over by Charles Cook (1836 – 1918) in that year.  Dorsell lies adjacent to Asloun, where his brother Thomas had been farming since 1873. 

William McCombie (1805) the famous breeder and feeder of polled cattle was a man of great ability and distinction in other areas of life as will be found in his biography on this blog site, “William McCombie (1805 – 1880), “creator of a peculiarly excellent sort of bullocks””.  One such aspect of his existence as a farmer was his enlightened treatment of farm servants and his investment of trust in long-serving employees to take on responsible roles, such as that of farm manager.  At Dorsell, which extended to 300 acres, the farm manager for some years before 1876 had been William Turner.  When Charles Cook (1836 – 1918) became the occupier of Dorsell farm he kept on William Turner as his farm overseer too.  Dorsell was a mixed farm, producing both cattle and crops.  William McCombie, with the help of William Turner, was a champion producer of cattle, but also an extensive winner of prizes for his production of cereals and turnips.  After the advent of Charles Cook, William Turner continued in control of the day-to-day management of the farm and the prizes kept coming, too.  It was a smart move by Charles Cook to acquire a farm which had been part of William McCombie’s cattle and crop operations, since he had brought the land there to a high level of productivity, and also to keep on William McCombie’s trusted farm manager.  Like his brother, Charles also appeared to appreciate that farms on Donside had excellent arable land.  At the Royal Northern Agricultural Society’s spring show held in February 1876, “Mr Charles Cook, who succeeded Mr McCombie, M.P., in the occupation of Dorsell, Alford, took first prizes for barley, oats, bere, potato oats, Scotch barley, English barley, and Kildrummy oats, showing that he means to keep up the fame of the farm”.  Similarly with the supply of cattle to the annual pre-Christmas show at Smithfield, London, “Mr McCombie Tillyfour sent 24 beasts, average value £40.  Mr Cook, Dorsell, sent 30 beasts average value £38”.  Charles’ brother and neighbour also dispatched cattle to the same destination.  When the Tillyfour herd of polled cattle was dispersed in 1880, following the death of William McCombie, some of his animals were bought by Charles Cook for Dorsell farm.

Charles Cook (1836 – 1918) was still the landlord of the Invercauld Arms at Ballater in 1876.  However, in June 1879 he planned to build a new farmhouse at Dorsell, which seemed to presage a move from Ballater to Donside with his substantial family.  That change came in April 1880 when the Invercauld Arms, Ballater, “the business of which has so long and successfully been conducted by the retiring proprietor Mr Charles Cook”, together with “the prosperous horse-hiring and posting department” were let to Mr Alexander Macgregor, the proprietor of the identically named Invercauld Arms, Braemar.  By July 1880, a call went out for tenders for additions and repairs to the office at Dorsell farm.  Like his brother, Thomas, before him, Charles Cook quickly became a prominent member of the farming community in the Vale of Alford, but also was involved more widely in Donside society.

Before he finally departed from the Invercauld Arms, Ballater, Charles Cook (1836 – 1918) had to deal with an unpleasant altercation with a client.  Royal warrant holder, Robert Watson Lyall of Aberdeen sued Charles Cook for the sum of £1,000 for injuries he received in June 1879 when he hired a four-wheel dogcart and driver from Mr Cook to travel to Balmoral Castle to deliver a picture by Sir Noel Paton to Queen Victoria.  Having completed this task, Lyall then negotiated with the driver to go on to Braemar but at the start of the return journey, the horse swerved suddenly tipping over the dogcart and throwing out Lyall and his companion, who were seriously injured.  Cook initially denied all responsibility, though the dispute was eventually settled out of court in the sum of £200 and each side paying its own expenses.

Charles Cook (1836 – 1918) started to become involved in public and charitable roles.  This expansion of his interests would have been difficult to achieve from a base in central Aberdeenshire.  In 1881 he was convenor of the Alford district committee of the County of Aberdeen Local Authority.  Towards the end of 1882, Charles Cook acquired a house in Aberdeen, purchasing the rather up-market property of 17 Golden Square.  By 1889 he had moved on to the even more impressive Carden House, Carden Place, and had commissioned architects, Messrs Jenkins and Marr, to design some alterations to the latter property.  

Having a competent farm manager to look after Dorsell farm for him meant that Charles Cook (1836 – 1918) could turn his attention to other business matters.  In 1880 he was a partner in the Aberdeen Lime Company and was elected to the Board of Management for the coming year.  In 1881, he used 16 tons of artificial manures on Dorsell farm, which may well have come from the Aberdeen Lime Company, one of that city’s largest suppliers of such aids to plant growth.  By 1886 he had become chairman of the company.  Charles Cook also had an interest in the North of Scotland Canadian Company.  In 1882 he became chairman of the Provisional Committee of the newly established Aberdeen Cattle and Farm Produce Association (Limited) and subsequently became its first President.  The same year the company applied for planning permission to build a new slaughterhouse at Kittybrewster, Aberdeen.  By 1887, Charles Cook had become a director in Aberdeen of the Scottish Provident Institution.  Two years later he was also a director of the Grampian Steamship Company Ltd and of the Aberdeen Tramway Company.  Charles Cook had become a leading member of the business community in Aberdeen, but his next move must have been a surprise to many in the Granite City for a man whose main commercial interests had been in hotels, farming and the hiring of horses and horse-drawn vehicles.

 

Charles Cook (1836 – 1918) buys Barry Henry & Company     

To recapitulate, in 1889, when he retired, William Hutchinson had been in charge at Barry Henry & Co for 53 years and had reached the age of 74.  It is not surprising that Charles Cook, then aged 53, should have spotted a prime acquisition opportunity, but his move to buy this longstanding Aberdeen firm was unlikely to have been a spur of the moment action.  To understand Charles senior’s probable motivation, it is instructive to look at his large family and to consider the directions in life that the male members were taking.

The eldest son of Charles Cook (1836 - 1918) was Charles (1862 - 1903). After being educated at the school in Girnoc, near Ballater, where he was a boarder with the schoolmaster, and then at the Channonry School in Old Aberdeen, Charles junior undertook an apprenticeship as an engine fitter at Hall Russell & Company, Aberdeen Iron Works, York Place, Aberdeen.  Hall Russell was one of the largest shipbuilders in Aberdeen at the time.  Charles Cook (1862 - 1903) completed his apprenticeship in 1883 and then went to sea as a marine engineer with the Adam Steamship Company.  By 1885 he had become a chief engineer and during the following five years he sailed in that capacity in foreign trade, mainly in the Far East with a Chinese company.  On the acquisition of Barry Henry & Co by his father, Charles returned to the UK, joined the board of Barry Henry & Company and was sent to the London office of the company as the resident director.

Thomas Nicol Cook (1864 - 1924), Charles Cook (1836 – 1918)’s second son, did not seek a career in engineering but took over Dorsell farm, near Alford, from his father.

John Nicol Cook (1866) was educated at Aberdeen Grammar School and then at Robert Gordon’s College in that city.  John Nicol undertook an engineering apprenticeship with Messrs Charles H Walker & Co Ltd in the Buenos Aires harbour works between March 1888 and September 1893.  The following year he bought the foundry and engineering works of Messrs Mobra & Co in Parana, Argentina but sold up in 1899 to return to England the following year to resume employment with CH Walker & Co Ltd.  While he was a resident in the Argentine Republic, John Nicol Cook also seems to have dabbled in farming.  In June 1903, on the death of his eldest brother, Charles, he was sent to London as the resident director of Barry Henry & Co Ltd’s London Office at 64 Mark Lane, London EC.

The fourth of the five sons of Charles Cook (1836 – 1918)) was Alexander (1866 - 1878).  He tragically died at the age of almost 12 years from meningitis.

Robert Sellar Cook (1870 - 1921) also undertook an engineering apprenticeship with Hall Russell, which included experience in the Engine Drawing Office.  Subsequently he too served as a marine engineer aboard ship.  On his return to his native city, he worked at the Great North of Scotland Railway works at Kittybrewster before joining Barry Henry & Company in or before 1895 as a director. 

Thus, at least two and possibly three of the surviving Cook boys were already set on an engineering career at the time of the purchase of Barry Henry & Company and this seems likely to have been the chief motivating factor for Charles Cook (1836), the provision of a commercial vehicle in which his sons could form their careers and thrive.  The divergent, farming career of Thomas emphasised the concern of the father to see that all his assets were placed in the hands of the most appropriately qualified of his offspring.

The advent of the Cook take-over of Barry Henry & Company in 1889 was not limited to a change of ownership and directorate.  The first and most fundamental change was the conversion of the partnership which had previously existed into a limited liability company, opening it to fractional ownership and to the investment of outside capital, though for most of its life a majority of the shares were held by Cook family members.  As early as March 1890, 116 shares of £10 each were being advertised for sale in the Aberdeen Journal.  At the time they were returning a dividend of about 10% per annum.  Thus Barry Henry & Company Limited, Aberdeen Iron Foundry and Engineering Works, was born.  A further change in legal status occurred in 1908 when, in order to comply with the terms of the Companies (Consolidation) Act, 1908, Barry Henry & Co Ltd was registered as a private company.

The second major innovation by Charles Cook (1836 - 1918) was to recruit four senior employees from an engineering competitor in Aberdeen, Frank Milne, John Paul, John Pirie and Robert Davidson.  All four became directors and shareholders at their new employer.  Frank Milne’s technical skills have not been discovered but in 1890 he was described as a manager of his new employer.  John Paul was head of the millwright and pattern-making department and an expert on water-driven threshing and meal mills.  He later added a qualification as a valuator (a person who estimates the value of objects) to his skill set.  At least from 1910, the company offered valuation as one of its services.  He was 51 when he joined Barry Henry & Company and was a supporter of the Liberal Party.  John Pirie had been Chief Founder at the Albion Iron Works before his move to Barry Henry & Company, at which time he was 44.  He became the foreman moulder and was of a quiet and retiring nature.  Robert Davidson was 35 when he was recruited by Charles Cook.  He was a mechanical engineer and engine fitter and became foreman of the conveyor and pulley department.  According to Victor Cook, “he kept the interests of the company close to his heart” and also “had an inventive mind”.  These men were all middle-aged and highly experienced in a variety of disciplines and with established reputations.  Charles Cook was clearly aware of the need to invest in human capital as well as premises and equipment.  Perhaps he had taken this approach from his managerial arrangements at Dorsell farm, where he kept on a highly experienced farm manager?

Mr John Pirie

At the end of 1889, there was another sign of the new broom sweeping clean.  A notice was placed in the Aberdeen Free Press informing former customers of Barry Henry & Co that if they wanted to retain patterns for moulds previously executed at the firm, they should collect them, otherwise the firm would no longer take responsibility for them.  After fifty years of the previous regime, it is likely that the place was cluttered with patterns, possibly unidentified and certainly for many of them unlikely ever to be employed again.

Plans were also laid for the construction of new premises and Jenkins and Marr were engaged to execute the designs for both the buildings and the drainage works.  Further it was planned to populate the premises in West North Street with the most modern equipment.  To alleviate an interim deficiency, Barry Henry & Company sought to hire a 6hp or 8hp portable engine and boiler. The capital investment in the whole programme must have been enormous.  It was revealed that the new block of offices and workshops on the east side of West North Street alone would cost about £20,000.  The town council sanctioned the plans in October 1890.  There appears to have been a strategic purchase of land at the end of 1891 which extended the site owned by Bary Henry & Co Ltd from their then present works all the way to King Street “on which when necessity requires, they can make further additions”.  A second strategic purchase of land took place in 1895 when Barry, Henry, & Co acquired from the late Mr Dickson's trustees the property in West North Street adjoining their works, for £1,050.

The minutes of the first meeting of the board of directors took place on 3 March 1890, with the following directors present.  Charles Cook, Frank Milne, John Paul, John Pirie, Alexander Guild, with David Wood, secretary.  Applicants for the purchase of shares in the company were also listed.  David Wood, 172 Crown Street - 20 shares.  Charles Aberdein, 48 Powis Place - 20 shares.  Joseph Coutts, 4 Hannover Street - 10 shares.  William Tyre, 14 Merkland Road - 20 shares.  Robert Davidson, 23 ½ George Street - 10 shares.  Alexander Guild, 17 Summerfield Road - 80 shares.  John Emslie, 17 Summerfield Road - 15 shares.  David C Anderson, 20 James Street - 10 shares.  John Paul, 12 Jasmine Place - 80 shares.  John Pirie, 104 Irvine Place - 80 shares.  James Meston, 75 Union Street - 20 shares.  Walter A Reid, 75 Union Street - 20 shares.  Andrew Davidson, 75 Union Street - 10 shares.  Charles Cook, 17 Golden Square - 435 shares.  Frank Milne, 82 Irvine Place - 90 shares.  Total 1,000.

There was an immediate uptick in recruitment following the change of ownership of Barry Henry & Co.  In 1890 and 1891, the company sought to recruit “Patternmakers wanted immediately”, with applications being directed to John Paul.  Further recruits sought were, “improvers to the Engineering, also, “apprentice blacksmith; one from country and sometime at trade preferred”, “blacksmiths; also, tool fitters for Engineers’ tools and Hammermen accustomed to steam hammer”, “engineers, fitters and turners wanted”, “good millwrights wanted for erecting work in England: wages 9d per hour”, “good general blacksmith wanted”, “patternmakers and improvers”, and “a man with good experience in working overhead foundry crane”.  Several of these advertisements were repeated.  The preference for country lads was based on the belief that they were more robust and muscular than their fellows living in the towns and cities.  By the end of 1890, between 150 and 200 staff were employed by Barry Henry & Company.  At the end of the following year there was evidence of a shortage of skilled engineers and metalworkers in that sector across Aberdeen.

The first balance sheet for Barry Henry & Co Ltd was produced on 3^rd March 1891.  It showed that capital subscribed to the company amounted to £9,100, Money borrowed against the security of property totalled £3,500 and short-term bank loans were recorded at £5,625.  Investments made came to £5,889 on buildings and £8,740 on plant.  In 1909, after about two decades of operations, all borrowings had been repaid.

A reporter from the Aberdeen Journal toured the refurbished Barry Henry & Co Ltd works for an end of year report on the state of the Aberdeen economy in 1890.  To say this person was impressed would be an understatement, as the following extract demonstrates. 

“The new company have entirely remodelled the works, and have, in addition, erected one of the best engineering shops in Scotland. On entering the place, the visitor finds himself first in the inquiry office, where an official is in attendance to give directions, book orders, and generally attend to the wants of customers. So soon as an order is completed, the work is passed along to a platform in front of the inquiry office, and the detail of the order is handed into the despatch clerk, who immediately sends off the goods to their destination. By this system the clerk is at once able, by looking over the orders for despatch, to inform customers if their work is finished”.

“Upstairs are the drawing offices, counting house, and manager's room. &c., all handsomely furnished and panelled in grooved pitch pine. From here is commanded a splendid view of the engineering department and pattern shop”.

“Passing into the engine shop the first thing that impresses one is its spaciousness. It measures 25 feet from floor to ceiling and is 250 feet long by 80 feet wide. This shop is in two spans, set on massive cast-iron pillars of a unique design made to carry the main shafting…. It is fitted up with two overhead cranes, one being driven by a three-quarter inch rope running at a speed of 3000 feet per minute and commanding the whole of the machines and forges in the place. This crane has a span of about 40 feet. The other crane is entirely for the fitting department, and both are so arranged that work can be passed from one crane to the other without touching the floors. The machines are all placed alongside the columns which carry the main shafts, arid the part of the floor on which they are set is concreted - this being deemed an admirable arrangement, in respect that the space round the machines can with little trouble be kept clear of turnings and borings. All these machines are of the most modern type. Several are of American make and are capable of turning out 200 to 300 feet of shafting per day of 9 ½ hours, as well as belt and rope pulleys, gearing, shaft bearings, and such like articles in the same proportion. One of the firm's specialties is mortice gearing of large diameters. A mortice wheel can be bored, turned, and the teeth cut at one "chucking".  This in itself effects a great saving in production and ensures a true and perfect wheel. Another special feature is a wheel cutting machine, which is understood to be the largest machine of its kind extant, the driving wheel being 7 feet in diameter and the capacity for cutting reaching to 15 feet diameter bevelled wheels, as well as " spurs," being cut with equal facility. To illustrate how rope-drives can be utilised, it may be mentioned that this machine is driven from a horizontal shaft on the second floor, the rope passing over guide pulleys to the ground floor and driving an intermediate shaft at right angles to the main shaft. All the main shafting here is propelled by hemp ropes, the looseness of these from the fact that tension is reduced to it minimum, demonstrating their superiority over belt drives. The motive power is supplied by an engine of 60 horsepower, supplied with steam from a Lancashire boiler, the water for the boiler being supplied by the exhaust injection”.

“Nearly at the extreme end of the shop a large staff of blacksmiths are employed.  A noteworthy feature in the smithy is the manufacture of pitch chains, several men being kept constantly employed on this class of work. These chains are the patent of the New Conveyor Company Limited, Metal Exchange, London, who have just completed perhaps the Iargest automatic stoking plant in England for the Kensal Green Gasworks and for the carrying out of this undertaking Messrs Barry, Henry, & Co. have supplied most of the material. It is proposed to lay along the centre of the shop a line of rails to secure the expeditious removal of goods”.

“On emerging from the engineering department, the foundry yard is reached.  Here all moulding, boxes, pig iron, coke etc, are stored, while a powerful overhead travelling crane commands the whole area of the ground.  In a building adjoining the foundry are placed machines for loam mixing etc, necessary for the production of cast ironwork, the machines being driven by a 20-horsepower engine.  Underneath this erection is a well 30 ft deep by 10 ft diameter and to ensure a dry floor in the foundry pipes are laid into this well at a considerable depth thus permitting of large castings being produced without risk of “wasters” from damp moulds.  The water is pumped by steam into a large tank and is thus available for foundry purposes.  No fewer than three cupolas are in operation for the melting of iron, one for chilled castings another for medium castings and a third for heavy work.  The three cupolas combined are capable of melting 12 tons of iron per hour.  The foundry itself comprises about 600 square yards and is fitted up with two overhead cranes one of which being worked by steam power possesses a lifting capacity of 20 tons.  Several small jib cranes fixed along the wall are found handy for light work.  In the foundry also are wheel and plate moulding machines of the most approved type – the wheel machines may be used for mouldings up to 25 ft diameter – and all these appliances, combined with a large and efficient staff of workmen, enable the company to turn out castings of all kinds with, to quote a familiar phrase “economy and despatch”.  By means of numerous power-driven ventilators the atmosphere is kept comparatively free of smoke”.

“The pattern and millwright department occupies the second floor in the same building as the engine shop and is laid out with the machinery of the most approved kind for sawing, planing and turning the material used in the making of patterns.  There are also machines at work for making teeth for the wheel-moulding machinery, while other machines are employed cutting and shaping teeth preparatory to cogging mortice wheels”. 

“The two floors above the pattern shop are stored with all kinds of patterns, while in another department is an immense stock of wrought iron, pulleys, bolts, steel keys, belting and fixings and requirements of all kinds of mill machinery.  One other special feature in the millwright department is the manufacture of waterwheels and threshing machinery in which the firm have a large connection”.

An impressive factory had been created by employing the capital of Charles Cook (1836 – 1918) and the skills and experience of the new directors of Barry Henry & Co Ltd.  The next stage in the plans of Charles Cook involved the representation of his company in London, then a major manufacturing city and the centre of the British Empire.  This development depended crucially upon an association developed with engineer, Mr Gilbert Little.

Letterhead featuring the West North Street site, after 1921

 

Gilbert Little (1855 – 1912)

Gilbert Little was born in Dreghorn, Ayreshire in 1855, son of Archibald Little, a coal miner.  As a young man, Gilbert probably saw the Ayreshire coalfield as his natural calling and decided that he would train to be a mining engineer, becoming the youngest ever to gain the mining engineer’s certificate.  He also passed a shorthand qualification.  However, a younger brother suffered a fatal accident as a mining student and Gilbert then abandoned mining engineering for mechanical engineering.  He acquired familiarity with coal-breaking machinery when he worked at the Fullarton Engineering Company, before moving to Messrs William Denny & Bros, engineers and shipbuilders at Dumbarton on the Clyde, which was his place of employment for five years.  Gilbert was an active supporter of the Liberal Party and in 1879 he won a competition for an essay on “The qualifications of an MP”.  The local parliamentary representative was J. Dick Peddie, a Liberal, and he was so impressed by Little’s essay that he recruited him in 1881 to work in London as his private secretary.  In addition to practical and inventive skills, Gilbert Little’s literary bent was applied to other subjects. At the end of 1881 he had a publication in preparation dealing with “Technical education, Credit, Land, Tanking (Banking?), Co-operation, Strikes, Trades Unions, Free Trade, the Poor Laws and other subjects bearing on political economy and industrial progress”.  Gilbert Little seems to have been a workaholic and, in addition to about eight hours per day devoted to parliamentary tasks, he also became editor of an engineering magazine, where he claimed he worked another eight-hour shift.  Gilbert became manager of Mr J Harrison Carter’s engineering and millwright company by 1884 and subsequently greatly increased its business.  Many contracts were concerned with conveyors and elevators for bulk handling of a variety of materials.  Over a period of five years, over 100 installations were delivered in all parts of the world to handle phosphate, rock, cement-clinker, coal, ores, seeds, sugar, grain and coke.  In 1891, Gilbert Little established his own company, the New Conveyor Company with a partner, Mr Gardiner of Rait and Gardiner, to produce “transmission of material” appliances.  Gilbert Little was the author or co-author of many patents dealing with bulk handing machinery.  It was also at this time that Barry Henry & Co Ltd established a London office and recruited Gilbert Little as the managing director to head that operation.  This dual appointment for Gilbert Little led to a mutually beneficial cooperation between The New Conveyor Company and Barry Henry & Co Ltd in the delivery of major contracts. 

This was a time when there was extensive and growing use of coal gas for domestic heating and lighting, and for industrial processes.  Bigger plants were being created to meet this need, especially in the major cities.  For example, the new gasworks at Becton on the north bank of the Thames in East London was the largest in the world when it was finished, carbonising two million tons of coal annually.  In 1893, the Aberdeen Journal reported that “During the last six months Messrs Barry, Henry, & Co., Limited, engineers and founders, have completed and erected extensive orders for machinery for new forms of retort houses at the Corporation Gasworks at Reading, Gateshead, Middlesbrough, Burnley, Leigh and Bedford; and orders for similar plant have just been secured by their managing director, Mr Gilbert Little, for the Corporation Gasworks, Huddersfield”.  Many other contracts followed both in the British Isles and overseas.  What was not made clear was that many of the equipment designs were based on patents owned by Gilbert Little and the property of the New Conveyor Company, though Barry Henry & Co Ltd was responsible for designing power transmission equipment.  The Aberdeen Evening Express did subsequently put the contracts in their true context.  Gilbert Little was also managing director of a third company, Little and Graham Ltd, which specialised in efficient carbonisation, to generate the maximum energy from coal combustion, another important aspect of gasworks design.

The Liberal political stance of Gilbert Little carried over into his commercial life.  Although coal breaking machinery and conveyor systems destroyed manual jobs, he saw them as labour-saving devices which released men from hard physical toil.  He was an advocate of the 48-hour working week (6 x 8hrs) in engineering works because accidents were fewer, and workers were more diligent and willing to work if they did not have to start their labours at 6.00am without having eaten.  He was not supported by many other employers.  Gilbert was also an adherent of the concept of workers sharing in the profits of their place of work, but later admitted that he had been unable to devise a scheme which would be seen as fair to all parties.  His compromise idea was to reward foremen with a profit share but to reward labour by the introduction of piecework, to advance the diligent while penalising the lazy.  Another enlightened tenet of his industrial philosophy was the encouragement of workers to suggest improvements in business efficiency and financially to compensate the authors of ideas which were introduced and proved to be economically beneficial.  This was a concept that he had learned while working in the shipyard at Dumbarton.  Gilbert Little was not a particular friend of the trades unions. When equipping his new works in Smethwick in 1897, he was unable to secure much new equipment from British engineering companies, due to strikes, forcing him to source his needs from Germany, where he found the quality of products to be just as good and 20% cheaper than their British equivalents.  He used this experience to warn workers and their representatives of the dangers of taking strike action.   

Gilbert Little did occasionally visit the North-East of Scotland.  He was a guest at the Braemar Gathering in 1894 and on one occasion he attended the annual social meeting of Barry Henry & Co Ltd.  The relationship between Gilbert Little and Barry Henry & Co Ltd seemed to end about 1897 when Gilbert moved the New Conveyor Company to Birmingham.  Later the firm moved again, to Bradford in Yorkshire, and Gilbert Little died there in 1912, aged 57.

Advertisement for the New Conveyor Company Ltd

 

Barry Henry & Co Ltd’s business dealings after the take-over

The Aberdeen Journal’s summary of the business transacted by Barry Henry & Co Ltd in 1893 gave a good impression of the capabilities of the company to cast and mill very large iron objects.  “Messrs Barry, Henry, & Co. have increased their output by about one-half, and, as showing the extent of the business carried on by this firm, it may be mentioned that in the course of the twelve months they have turned out close upon 1000 tons of castings, the articles ranging in weight from a few pounds to fourteen tons. The job which weighed fourteen tons was a large wheel for rolling glass. Its dimensions were 14 feet by 5 feet, and it was stated at the time of its transit by the railway company to be one of the largest pieces of machinery which had passed over their lines”.  The positive business mood continued in the following annual summary.  “Barry, Henry, & Co., Limited, have had an especially prosperous year, and although, as usual at the close of a season, trade is somewhat dull, an extra number of men have been employed during the summer. Several large orders have been executed, including conveying and elevating plant for Huddersfield Gas Works, large coal handling and cleaning plant for several English collieries, in addition to the usual orders for the firm's specialties for use both at home and abroad”.   Throughout the rest of the 1890s business continued in the same direction, though there was a reduction in work from abroad during the Second Boer War of 1899 – 1902.  The business summary for 1901 was as follows.  “Barry Henry & Co Ltd have been as busy during the year as in the previous year.  They have provided a lot of machinery for electricity and gas plants.  Coal discharging and elevating plant for Fulham electric lighting station.  Large coal breaking and elevating plant for Halifax Gasworks.  Coke breaking, elevating and screening plant for Newcastle gasworks.  Coal elevating and ashes conveying plant for the Corporation of Edinburgh.  Provision of new machinery to the North of Scotland Milling Company, Ltd, Royal Mills, Palmerston Road”.

The expansion of the West North Street site

After the acquisition of this site in 1889, it was subject to almost continuous further development.  The adjacent premises of Dixons, a carting contractor, were acquired in 1895 and converted into an erecting shop.  Between 1923 and 1973 several specific were undertaken.  The adjacent premises of Messrs Watson, metal merchants was acquired.  Further, the garage owned by Messrs Taggart in St Clair Street was exchanged for alternative premises in Kittybrewster.  The nearby site belonging to Bon-Accord Pneumatic Tools was also purchased.  Another site in St Clair Street was taken over to provide parking for staff cars and houses in Darlington Place were demolished to create a packing and dispatch yard.  New bays were added to the engineering shops and the welding shop was extended, as were the design and contract drawing offices.  This was a remarkable achievement for three generations of the Cook family.   

The death of Charles Cook (1862 – 1903)

It has been suggested above that a major motivation for the acquisition of Barry Henry & Company by Charles Cook (1836 - 1918) in 1889 was to provide a vehicle for his three surviving engineering sons, Charles (1862 - 1903), John Nicol (1866 - 1929) and Robert Sellar (1870 - 1921), to develop their commercial skills and interests.  In 1893, the eldest son, Charles, was sent to work in the London office of the company under the tutelage of Gilbert Little, which would have been a valuable introduction to many aspects of the engineering business, from invention and design to the acquisition of new contracts.  This would have been a valuable posting for a few years before Gilbert Liitle’s exit from the capitol.  Tragically, Charles Cook died suddenly at the age of 39 on 14 June 1903 at his home in Crouch End, allegedly due to the bursting of a blood vessel in his heart.  Charles senior accompanied his eldest son’s body on its train journey back to Scotland.  Charles was buried at Allenvale Cemetery in Aberdeen, “attended by a large and representative assemblage of mourners”.  The inventory of his moveable estate was valued at £9660 gross.  This early demise of Charles junior threw much more responsibility for the future of the company onto the shoulders of his three surviving brothers.  John Nicol Cook then took over as resident director of Barry Henry & Co Ltd in the Mark Lane office, where he remained until 1921.  In that year his remuneration was £130 plus a commission of sales of 5%.  He was admitted to the directorate of the company in 1904.  In 1907 Robert Sellar Cook was appointed Joint Managing Director of Barry Henry & Company, with Robert Jackson, though Robert Sellar was the more dominant of the two.  Robert Jackson, who also acted as company secretary, retired in 1917. Thus, a situation started to develop where there were only two possible engineering successors to the role of chairman when Charles Cook senior demitted the role.

 

Business between the end of the Boer War and the outbreak of WW1 

Business for Barry Henry & Co Ltd continued along similar and traditional lines between 1903 and the outbreak of WW1 in July 1914.  The main demands from customers were for rope and belt pulleys, gearing, shafts and fixings, and engines on the one hand, and conveyor and elevator systems for a wide variety of materials, such as coal, coke and ash, on the other.  New requirements included demand for equipment from the Lancashire cotton industry, meal milling, tin mines and the booming rubber industry, and paper-making.  They even designed the cowcatchers for Aberdeen’s new electric trams.  The geographical areas over which most trade was generated were, of course, for many local requirements, particularly for mill equipment; colliery and gas plant and equipment across England; and foreign orders from Malaya, India, and South and East Africa.

Coal bagging plant, after 1921

Communal activities at Barry Henry Co Ltd

Although not entirely a novelty introduced by the Cook regime, it is clear that communal activities involving the Barry Henry & Co Ltd workforce increased markedly after 1889.  This development was probably intended to build esprit de corps and to counter the feelings of “us and them” which often accompanied agitation by the workers and their trades unions. Annual summer picnics were held in and after 1892, though they had sometimes been mounted previously.  In June of that year, 300 staff and their families travelled to Culter by train for a leisure outing.  Such events were usually marked by the conduct of sports for the younger members and terminated with dancing for the adults.  Sometimes summer outings took the form of fancy dress cycle outings to a destination such as Echt, Stonehaven or Banchory, accompanied by races for prizes donated by the management and the judging of the cyclists’ costumes.  Works-based cricket and football teams also emerged and often played the staff of other engineering firms in the town, or other departments at Barry Henry & Co Ltd.  An annual cricket match against McKinnon’s engineers became a regular summer fixture.

As well as the annual picnic, the management of Barry Henry & Co also promoted a winter get-together in a venue such as the Albert Hall, St Katherine’s Hall, or the Bon-Accord Hotel in Aberdeen.  Some senior members of the Cook family and the management would always be present at these winter occasions and the opportunity would be taken to give the staff a pep-talk on the achievements of the past year and the prospects for the coming one.  Once the formal part of the evening was over there would sometimes be a musical programme, but the event always ended with a dance, clearly the most popular aspect of the occasion.  Long-serving, retiring members of staff would be given a collective send-off, marked by a recitation of the main points of their service and accompanied by a presentation of a leaving gift.  In 1899 such an event was held to mark the retirement of Mr William Smith at the age of 70, who had been a blacksmith with the firm “since it was established”, though, obviously, that could not have been 1833!     

Charitable collections made amongst the workers at Barry Henry & Co Ltd started to feature in the pages of the local newspapers more prominently after 1893. Such causes included the Fund for the Unemployed in Aberdeen and the Fund for those left behind during the time of the Second Boer War.  However, the most regular donations were made to the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, which, in those pre-NHS days, was financed entirely by voluntary contributions.  Perhaps the importance of this institution was clearly apparent to the employees in the engineering works of Barry Henry & Co Ltd, where accidents, some serious, would have been commonplace.

 

Legal disputes, accidents and incidents

While Barry Henry & Co Ltd were assiduous in protecting their own intellectual property rights, through seeking the issue of patents for its own inventions, it was not always so considerate regarding the IPRs of others.  Following the recruitment of senior staff from its competitor, Harpers Ltd, in 1889 (some have described this act as “poaching” but that seems a little harsh), there may have been a legacy of resentment on the part of Harpers which was reinforced by Barry & Henry’s designs for books and catalogues illustrating its products, which seemed to mimic Harpers’ own publications.  Harpers sought an interdict restraining Barry Henry & Co Ltd from selling a book or catalogue of power transmission appliances.  Although the West North Street firm sought to defend its actions by listing the alternative sources of its published information, interdict was granted to Harpers, with the expenses of its legal action awarded to the pursuer.  This success was followed by Harpers threatening to sue for damages, which Barry Henry & Co Ltd sensibly settled out of court in the sum of £1,000.      

There was another legal stooshie in 1893, when a labourer, Charles Milne, who was employed in Barry Henry & Co Ltd’s foundry, was injured, suffering a broken leg and some trauma to his other lower limb.  Milne claimed that the accident was caused by a chain hanging from an overhead crane being too long.  It caught a heavy moulding box and turned it over on the pursuer.  The defendant’s rather weak riposte was that Milne should have been on the lookout for his own safety.  Sensibly, the firm backed off on this occasion, too, and settled out of court in the sum of £20 but with no admission of liability.   In 1895, Barry Henry & Co Ltd found themselves hauled up in the Aberdeen Sheriff Court on a charge of the contravention of the Factories and Workshops Act for allowing apprentices to work impermissibly long hours.  The firm escaped with a £3 fine and 13/- expenses on this occasion. 

Accidents were not uncommon at the West North Street site.  In 1894, a rope supporting an iron shaft suspended from a crane broke.  The heavy object landed on the hand of an apprentice, severing three fingers of his left hand at the second joint.  Less seriously, in 1898 a young engineer suffered a broken collar bone when a box fell on him.  Not only did Barry Henry & Co design and manufacture equipment, it also supervised the installation of new kit at the customer’s site.  In 1897 the firm was overseeing the construction of the new Glenlivet Distillery at Rothes, when a beam fell crushing two labourers.    

Fires at industrial premises, especially those burning coal, were commonplace in the late 19^th century, as will be seen from the account on this blog site of the growth of Ogston & Tenant’s soap factory at the Lochside.  Barry Henry & Co Ltd’s foundry would have been thought to be a particularly risky operation with furnaces to melt iron and cupolas containing molten metal being tipped to pour into moulds.  Fires did occur from time to time at the West North Street site, but none could be described as very serious.  Perhaps the most damaging conflagration occurred in 1902 when a fire in a store led to the building being entirely burned down.  The Aberdeen Fire Brigade was hampered in its response due to the stop cocks on the mains being frozen (it was February and Aberdeen winters in those days could be very cold) so that a water supply could not be accessed.  However, the loss was estimated at only £50.

From 1895, industrial action by staff at the West North Street works became more frequent, though the employees were not always successful in achieving their aims.  In September of that year, both journeymen and apprentices struck over management proposals to change the hours of work during the winter months.  However, within a few days the men and boys were back on site having accepted the management changes.  The following year another strike occurred, this time involving the engineers.  However, when a return to work had been negotiated, the firm refused to re-employ one individual, whom it appeared to look upon as a troublemaker.  This caused a general downing of tools, until the firm relented and re-employed all the strikers, without exception.  Generally, across Britain in 1897 there was rumbling discontent and frequent protests at the refusal of the employers to institute a 48-hour working week in engineering companies.  The employers retaliated by laying off staff, which happened at Barry Henry & Co Ltd.  As a result, all the engineers immediately walked out.  In spite of receiving some strike pay to support the series of actions on the issue of the 8-hour day, the aim was not achieved and by the following February 25% of the engineers had returned to work.  There were also strikes by apprentices at Barry Henry & Co in 1911 and in the following year.  The 1912 strike led to serious rioting and mobs of strikers roaming the streets of Aberdeen.  They visited the foundry in West North Street in an attempt to force Barry Henry & Co Ltd’s apprentices to come out in sympathy, but they refused.

 

World War 1  

The outbreak of WW1 had an immediate impact on Barry Henry & Co Ltd’s operations.  A large number of their staff were already members of the volunteer forces, and they were soon called up, leading to a dearth of both labour and skills.  Later, the transformation to a war economy led to much capacity being redirected to military needs such as the manufacture of shell cases, though traditional demands, especially from the locality, continued.  A year after the start of the conflict, Parliament passed the Munitions of War Act 1915 which severely regulated both the companies and their staff supplying the Ministry of Munitions.  During the war, Robert Sellar Cook acted as chairman of the Aberdeen Munitions Committee, which was charged with maximising the output of shell cases from Aberdeen.  Some men were exempted from active service because of the need for their skills in factories and some jobs previously the preserve of men, were fulfilled by women.  Trades union agreements were suspended and replaced by Ministry-determined wage rates.  These arrangements did not please many trades union officials, but they had to do the best they could for their members in the circumstances.  Disputes were referred to arbitration at a tribunal and one such case arose from Barry Henry & Co’s conduct during 1916, when seven men, represented by an official from the Gas and General Workers’ Union, claimed that they were being under-paid both for the standard rate for the job and the rate of overtime pay.  The company contested the claim and the evidence presented revealed that interpreting the regulations in the context of the Aberdeen engineering industry was both complex and confusing.  But no decision was reached, the tribunal chairman admitting that the tribunal did not think it constituted the proper body before which the case should have been brought.  Even in 1918, almost to the date of the Armistice, Barry Henry & Co Ltd were still advertising for staff to work on munitions and other Government work.  The Armistice, which came into force at 11.00am on 11 November 1918, led to an almost immediate wave of redundancies.  The Aberdeen Evening Express reported that on 28 November, 500 staff had been discharged in Aberdeen alone, including from Barry Henry & Co Ltd.  Skilled men were almost immediately found alternative employment, but it was a different story for female munitions workers, some returning to Aberdeen from employment in the South.  Most of the unemployed presenting themselves at the Aberdeen Employment Exchange at that time were women.

 

The death of Charles Cook (1836 – 1918)

Only three weeks before the signing of the armistice which ended WW1, Barry Henry & Co Ltd and the wider Cook family suffered a significant and transformative event when Charles Cook senior, still the chairman of the company, died at his home, Carden House, in Aberdeen.  He was 82.  The record of Charles Cook’s death in the company minutes of 20^th September 1918 illustrates both the profound shock felt by members of the company and the recognition of his contribution to its commercial success.  “The Directors under a cloud of deep sorrow record the great loss the company has sustained in the passing away of our respected and esteemed Chairman” … “Thus a well spent life is ended” … “The continuous growth and success of the Company’s business is largely attributable to Mr Cook’s influence and sound advice.  He exhibited great courage in all things pertaining to the firm’s welfare”. The cause of death was peritonitis of two days’ standing, an untreatable condition in those pre-antibiotic days.  Charles Cook was the business genius who knew how to make money, whether it be through managing an upmarket hotel on Deeside, overseeing the conduct of a large arable farm on Donside, investing in and acting as director of public companies, or buying an under-performing engineering firm and turning it into one of the most modern and efficient such ventures in the North-East of Scotland, with extensive sales throughout Britain and significant parts of the Empire.  He had been responsible for the strategy which brought about this revival after the purchase of the company in 1889, turning it into a limited liability company, recruiting senior staff, expanding and re-equipping the West North Street site, forming an alliance with Gilbert Little and his New Conveyor Company and establishing a sales office in London, the capitol of the British Empire.  A quantitative indicator of the success of this giant of the Aberdeen commercial scene was the value, at death, of his movable estate, £54,709.  

Charles Cook senior had been a religious man, acting as an elder of the West Kirk for many years.  His funeral, held at that venue on 22 September 1918, was conducted by the Reverend Professor Cowan, son-in-law of Sir Alexander Ogston, the famous surgeon, and Professor of Divinity at Aberdeen University.  There was a numerous and distinguished attendance at the church and afterwards at the Allenvale cemetery, including Charles Cook’s sons and sons-in-law, Lord Aberdeen, the Lord Provost of Aberdeen and 300 employees of Barry Henry & Co Ltd.  This was a fitting tribute to a man who had played such a prominent role in the success of both the company and the town.

The near-future direction and success of Barry Henry & Co Ltd would now be decided by Charles Cook senior’s surviving sons, Thomas Nicol Cook, a farmer, then a tenant at Waterside farm, Newburgh, John Nicol Cook, an engineer who was in charge of the London office of the company and who had been playing that role for 15 years, and Robert Sellar Cook, acting as managing director of the firm in Aberdeen, and their sons.  Now that the commanding personality of Charles senior had left the scene, would his successors manage to emulate his drive, cohesive influence and clear commercial vision?

 

Economic conditions after WW1 and the expansion of Barry Henry & Co Ltd to include motor vehicles

Following the end of WW1, a number of factors conspired to bring about an economic recession.  The return of large numbers of servicemen and the difficulty of integrating them into an economy struggling to move from a war footing to a peacetime arrangement, and the Spanish ‘flu pandemic of 1918 – 1919, which killed about 50 million people worldwide, were the main culprits.  The recession of 1920 – 1921 was accompanied by high levels of unemployment and industrial unrest.  These difficult circumstances led the new managers of Barry Henry & Co Ltd to search for alternative services to fill the void created by the recessionary conditions in the immediate post WW1 period.  The initiative which was pursued was to introduce the maintenance and repair of motor vehicles, petrol, oil or steam powered, including cars, tractors and lorries, and also the sale of new and second-hand motorcars and, occasionally, motorbikes.  In 1919 the firm opened a new department on the West North Street site, but fronting King Street, which catered for motor vehicle work.  These new services were advertised widely and repeatedly.  Personal motorised transport was a relatively new concept and only within reach of the wealthiest in society.  The motor manufacturing industry was in the early stages of development and there were many small players operating in this new market. 

Barry Henry &Co Ltd Motor Department, King Street

The vehicles offered for sale, second hand, by Barry Henry & Co Ltd in the years following the end of WW1 illustrates this point, for example, “For sale BSA Combination (ie motorbike and sidecar).  In perfect condition”.   “For sale Seabrook RMC Motor Car 16hp 2-seater”.  However, it was not long before Barry Henry & Co Ltd had negotiated deals to act as exclusive suppliers of new vehicles for a number of companies in the north-eastern counties of Scotland and sometimes an even wider geographical region, for example, in 1919, “Messrs Barry Henry and Company Limited have been appointed sole distributing agents for the new FG Light Car for the counties of Aberdeen, Kincardine, Forfar, Perth, Nairn, Elgin, Inverness, Ross and Cromarty, Sutherland, Caithness and the Isle of Skye and sole distributing agents for the well-known Briton Motor Car for Aberdeen, Banff, Nairn and Elgin.  While the showroom was at 241 King Street, the repair workshops were accessed from West North Street.  The company also started to take stands at the major motor shows, such as the one held at Olympia in London and the Scottish Motor Show mounted in Glasgow, to promote sales.  But the development of this new line of commercial activity did not immediately bring success.  At the end of 1920, the company could only claim that the motor division had had a “satisfactory” year but hoped for an improvement in the following 12 months.  The company now referred to itself as “Automobile and General Engineers, 241 King Street”.

During 1920, Barry Henry & Co Ltd carried out refurbishments to adapt their premises to civilian engineering commerce and business started to recover in the sectors in which they had excelled pre-war.  Orders started to return for elevating and conveying machinery in gas and chemical works, collieries, cement works and factories.  There was also demand for haulage and slipway gears.  Further, the firm evaluated the requirements of all local industries to ensure that they could meet any local market demand.  Commendably, the firm also committed to employing men disabled in the recent war.  But the post-war economy was dogged by both the lack of availability and the high cost of the materials needed for production.  The struggle to keep the workforce productively employed continued during 1922, though there were signs of improving confidence during 1923.

 

The company’s new name

Although the company of Barry Henry & Co Ltd had been owned by members of the Cook family since 1889, the family surname did not feature in the title of the firm until January 1921, when it appears that it was changed to “Barry Henry & Cook Co Ltd”, fairly reflecting the role of the Cooks, and especially Charles Cook (1836 – 1918) and Robert Sellar Cook (1879 – 1921) in driving the development of this business since its acquisition.  It is likely to have been an initiative of the latter of these two, who was the managing director at the time of the change.

 

The death of Robert Sellar Cook (1870 – 1921)

In the middle of these efforts for the company to re-establish its dominant pre-war position, the Grim Reaper paid another punishing visit to the Cook clan.  On 9^th July 1921, Robert Sellar Cook, chairman and managing director of the company, died, intestate, in the private nursing home located at 5 Albyn Place, Aberdeen, only five years after the demise of his father.  He had contracted appendicitis and, despite two operations to eradicate the gangrenous intestinal infection, he expired.  Like Charles Cook senior, Robert Sellar Cook had been an elder of, and generous donor to, the West Kirk, a Justice of the Peace, a Freemason and a director of several local companies in Aberdeen.  More importantly, he had been intimately involved in the management of the company and took much of the credit for its recovery after WW1.  The sad and punishing event was formally recorded in the company minutes of 13^th July 1921.  “We meet under deep sorrow today and have to record the very great loss the Company has sustained by the death of our respected chairman, Mr Robert Sellar Cook … after a serious operation”.

 

Robert Sellar Cook married Victoria Gordon, daughter of Donald Gordon of Bovagli farm on the Abergeldie estate, Crathie, in 1896.  Donald Gordon was both a successful farmer and an intuitive businessman in other spheres, trading in timber and supplying mutton and lamb to the Balmoral estate.  He was one of the Highlanders whose portrait was famously painted by Kenneth Macleay on the instructions of Queen Victoria.  Robert Sellar Cook and his wife Victoria had a family of three, Robert Charles Victor, born in 1897, Norman Gordon who arrived two years later, and James Gordon who was delivered in 1911.  In the summer of 1916, at the height of WW1 when his father was distracted by the war effort, James Gordon Cook, then aged five, succumbed to meningitis.  Thus, on the death of Robert Sellar Cook in 1921, his two surviving adult sons, Robert Charles Victor (usually called Victor) and Norman Gordon, then aged 21 and 19 respectively, expected to take on major responsibilities for the future of Barry Henry & Co Ltd at a much earlier age that they would have anticipated.  The two lads were immediately faced with a major disruption arising from manoeuvrings by others within the management of the company, which led to a dramatic legal action, and which largely decided the composition of the company’s management for the rest of its independent existence.

Mrs Victoria Cook (nee Gordon)

Robert Charles Victor Cook (1897 – 1990)

In 1915, Victor Cook was apprenticed as a turner to Urquhart Lindsay & Co Ltd, a Dundee engineer, for much of that year before returning to Aberdeen where he was employed as a turner in the family firm in West North Street.  During 1918 his place of work was changed to the company drawing office and the following year, while working for Barry Henry & Co Ltd, he also spent time in formal education at Robert Gordon’s Technical College, Aberdeen (now the Robert Gordon University).  In September 1919, Victor Cook began a degree course at the Royal Technical College, Glasgow (now the University of Strathclyde), until his father’s ill health two years later forced his return to his native city.  Back in Aberdeen, Victor continued academic study at the local university, while also working in the family firm. In July 1921 he gained a first-class merit certificate in the Geology practical class, coming second in the order of merit with a mark of 90%.  However, his father’s death in July 1921 seems to have terminated academic study for Victor, who appeared to have been the more academic of the two brothers.  At the age of 24, company and family responsibilities now intervened.

Mr Victor Cook
 

Norman Gordon Cook (1899 – 1927)

Norman Cook also took a now familiar route from education into work for the family firm.  He started an engineering apprenticeship with the engine maker, CF Wilson of Aberdeen in January 1915 before transferring the following year to the local shipyard of John Lewis & Sons Ltd, because in that location he would get a greater variety of engineering experience as opposed to the repetitive munitions work at CF Wilson.  In May 1918, Norman Cook joined the RAF and served at its seaplane base at the Loch of Strathbeg, south of Peterhead.  After demobilisation, in April 1919 he rejoined Barry Henry & Co Ltd in their drawing office and completed his apprenticeship in January 1920.  Norman then worked for the construction gangs, which the company employed to erect equipment at the business sites of their customers for a few months before transferring again to CF Wilson to extend his experience.  Like his elder brother, he had been exposed to a wide variety of engineering practices as a preparation for a management role in the family firm, which surely lay ahead.  At the age of 22, that responsibility suddenly loomed large with the demise of his father.

Mr Norman Cook

 

Gardiner Mitchell (1882 – 1948)

Before launching into the complex business of a serious fall-out between members of the Cook family after the death of Robert Sellar Cook in June 1921, it is first necessary to introduce another, non-family member of Barry Henry & Co Ltd, Mr Gardiner Mitchell.  The Mitchells were an Aberdeenshire family but with relatives in West Hartlepool, in County Durham, where Gardiner was born in 1882, though the family soon moved back to Aberdeen to live at 57 Queen Street, which runs between Broad Street and West North Street.  Gardiner’s father, Alexander, was a stoker in a gasworks, almost certainly the Aberdeen Corporation gasworks at Sandilands and his son was educated locally at King Street School before starting an apprenticeship in mechanical engineering in 1897 with Barry Henry & Co Ltd, West North Street.  Coming from a modest background, this course probably represented the best route to advancement in life that was available to him.  While undertaking his apprenticeship, Gardiner Mitchell studied a variety of subjects at evening classes held at Robert Gordon’s Technical College, where his academic performance in mathematical and engineering subjects was excellent.  Further evening classes were attended at St Paul’s School where he studied commercial arithmetic, English and shorthand. Gardiner’s apprenticeship was completed in April 1902 and had covered turning, fitting and patternmaking.  In 1901 he began to work as a teacher to evening class students at Robert Gordon’s Technical College and later for the Aberdeen School Board, which extended to 1917.  At the 1901 Census he was described as a sewing machine mechanic, working for the Singer Manufacturing Company, Aberdeen.  Two years later he claimed he was made head of the mechanical department at Singer. Gardiner Mitchell changed his place of employment in 1904 to the Smith Premier Typewriter Company based in Aberdeen.  After a year he moved back to Barry Henry & Co Ltd, working as a draughtsman and remaining with the company until 1923.  Starting about 1910, Gardiner Mitchell was sent out by the firm from time to time as a traveller to seek business.  From about 1913, Mitchell taught evening class students at Aberdeen Grammar School and regularly gave a lecture to such learners gathered from across Aberdeen to the number of about 150.  Topics included "Modern machine tools and air compressors", "Welding by various processes" and "The transporting of materials”.

The young draughtsman’s progress at Barry Henry & Co Ltd was sufficiently good for him to apply for and be granted graduate membership of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers in 1907.  As part of his application, he gave a succinct description of his work.  “In our office there is the Chief Draughtsman (Mr Gibson). two Assistants and one Apprentice.  Each Assistant is allocated a portion of work for which he is responsible, subject to the Chief's supervision.  The special sections that I have had to deal with consist of Designing, Elevating and Conveying plants for coal, ore and grain, also for barges and mechanical stokers.  Lifts: Electric, Rope and Belt Driven, and Hand Power.  Steam Hoists.  Electric Haulage and Winding Plants for Mines etc".  Two years later, in 1909, he was granted full membership of the Institute, the recognised professional body for mechanical engineers in the UK.  In this year he was also appointed as chief draughtsman at Barry Henry & Co Ltd  

Gardiner Mitchell soon demonstrated that he was socially active and quickly became well-connected in the city of Aberdeen.  He was a member of the Aberdeen Abstainers’ Cycling Club and served as secretary for several years before becoming its president.  He joined the Aberdeen Association of Civil Engineers and the Aberdeen Mechanical Society, becoming its president in 1916.  He regularly attended their meetings at which he was an occasional lecturer, such as one offering on "Aeronautical engines" in 1916.  Gardiner also lectured to other bodies around the city.  Mitchell was a Freemason, often a source of business contacts, and an organisation which was especially strong in Scotland.  The Rotary Club was another business association to which he was affiliated, as was the Aberdeen Business Club.  Gardiner was also a religious man and a member of the United Free Church.  In 1920, Gardiner Mitchell was admitted as a burgess of guild by Aberdeen Town Council.  Increasingly, he turned his attention to topics which were business-related rather than technical engineering matters, such as the creation of the Aberdeen Foremen’s Club in 1921.  In 1922 he lectured on “Creation an asset”.

Gardiner Mitchell was appointed assistant manager of the firm in 1914 and on 1^st December 1917 he was elevated to the status of manager and secretary at a salary of £300pa.  At the time of the death of the chairman, Charles Cook senior, in 1918, his son Robert Sellar Cook was the managing director of the firm.  He then took on the role of chairman too.  The other two sons of Charles Cook senior were not actively involved in the business of the works in Aberdeen, Thomas being a farmer and John filling the role of representative in the London office, where he had been for many years and from which he was apparently reluctant to move.  Gardiner Mitchell had worked closely with Robert Sellar Cook for some time and appeared to be expecting some further promotion.  What Mitchell really craved was to become a shareholder and be admitted to the directorate of the company. 

Such a move appeared not to be on the mind of Robert Sellar Cook.  Alexander Reid, a consulting engineer based in London later related a conversation he had with the company chairman in 1920.  Mr Cook told Reid that he now intended to ease off the work of the company to which Reid replied, “I suppose you will be making your assistant Gardiner Mitchell a director”.  Cook emphatically denied this.    “Never.  My sons will be directors” and added that Mitchell was of no particular consequence for the company.  Victor Cook later confirmed that he and his brother Norman had been told of his intentions by their father long before his death and also of his desire to divide his shares between the two of them.  Thus, there appeared to have been two considerations on Robert Sellar Cook’s mind, firstly the desire to see the control of the company pass to his two sons, Victor and Norman, but also the conviction that Gardiner Mitchell was not qualified for the role he coveted.  While Gardiner Mitchell had done well educationally and socially, in spite of having humble origins, it could not be denied that he lacked both higher technical training in engineering and practical experience of the technical work in the factory.  It may be that Robert Sellar Cook saw this deficit as an impediment to Mitchell’s further advancement in the company, where he was still contracted with three months’ notice on either side, rather than enjoying an extended contract of employment.

R Gordon Nicol, a senior engineer with Aberdeen Harbour Board, who had been one of Gardiner Mitchell’s sponsors in his application for membership of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers, related a conversation with Mitchell from about February 1921.  Gardiner Mitchell confided in Nicol that he aspired to acquire an interest in the company and Gordon Nicol’s advice to him was that he should put his desires frankly to the company chairman.  Gardiner Mitchell would later claim that he did have such a conversation with Robert Sellar Cook, telling him that he wanted to become a shareholder and that if he could not advance, he would have to leave the company.  Cook appeared to prevaricate, saying, “Do nothing rash; I will give you an answer about the end of the year” (1921).  On the assumption that these conversations were accurately reported, it would not be surprising if Gardiner Mitchell had started to harbour some feelings of resentment against the company chairman, given that Mitchell had worked hard in the interests of the company since 1907 and could reasonably expect to be rewarded for his performance.  The suspicion of resentment against the chairman on the part of Gardiner Mitchell seemed to be confirmed by a conversation that Andrew Lewis, head of John Lewis & Sons, ship builders and repairers, reported having with Mitchell shortly after the death of Robert Sellar Cook in the summer of 1921.  Lewis said, “I am sorry you have lost poor Mr Cook” and Mitchell is alleged to have replied, “It is high damned time too”.  For Gardiner Mitchell, “the end of the year” and the chairman’s answer on share ownership never came, causing further frustration that his potential route to advancement had disappeared.

 

Shareholdings in Barry Henry & Cook Co Ltd in 1921 

At the moment that Robert Sellar Cook died, the board of Barry Henry & Co Ltd was composed of Thomas Cook, who assumed the chairmanship, and his brother John Cook.  Both were highly dependent upon the services of Gardiner Mitchell to manage the West North Street site, the manufacturing base of the company, a role which Thomas Cook was not qualified to undertake as he “knew nothing practical about engineering”, and John Cook did not wish to assume, preferring to remain in London.  However, while they absolutely controlled the board for the present, they did not own or control the majority of the voting shares in the company and any actions they might undertake in the interim would be subject to the voting intentions of other shareholders at the next AGM, which was not due for almost a year.

Robert Sellar Cook died on Saturday 9 July 1921 at 10.00am after having been ill for some time with appendicitis, which became gangrenous with peritonitis.  He had had two operations in an attempt to eradicate the infection in his intestines.  His death was not unexpected.  The issued share capital of Barry Henry & Co Ltd at that time was £25,000 made up of 250 shares of £10 each, though only £7 had been called up.  The 1173 shares which had been owned by Robert Sellar Cook, had passed to his executors, Mrs Victoria Cook, Victor Cook and Norman Cook.   The then present board members Thomas Cook and John Cook held 375 and 779 shares respectively and Mrs EN Cook, the wife of John, held 14 shares.  Outside the family, there were other shareholders with small numbers of shares, Mr Nicol owned 39 shares and Mr Coutts, a former employee of the company who retained his shareholding when he emigrated, had 34.  Finally, 86 shares were owned between three former employees Robert Davidson (20), John Paul (10) and Robert Jackson (56), though the last of the three had died in 1917 and his wife had inherited his tranche.  With this mix of shareholders, one of whom (Coutts) lived in California, no individual shareholder could have known what the views of all the other shareholders would be on any issue affecting the company but that did not prevent Gardiner Mitchell from taking speedy, indeed, unseemly action to acquire the shares held by the Davidson, Paul and Jackson families.

 

Gardiner Mitchell urgently seeks to buy shares in Barry Henry & Co Ltd

Gardiner Mitchell claimed he learned of the death of Robert Sellar Cook when he had a chance meeting with John Paul in King Street, presumably on Saturday 9^th July, the day of Cook’s demise.  He also alleged that Mr Paul had volunteered at their meeting to sell Mitchell his shares, though why that offer should have arisen without the prompting of Gardiner Mitchell is unclear.  What then followed on Sunday 10^th July was that Mitchell met with Thomas and John Cook over lunchtime in an Aberdeen hotel and the same afternoon Gardiner Mitchell set out by motorcar to visit the homes of the three former Barry Henry & Co employees who held small numbers of shares.  He was successful, or partly successful with all three, gaining commitments to sell 76 shares.  Another curiosity of this venture was that the transfer documents that Mitchell presented to the share owners were dated 9^th July, the date of RS Cook’s death, not the following day, which is when the transactions actually took place.

By some means, Victor Cook was quickly informed that Gardiner Mitchell had approached Mrs Jackson and sought to acquire her shareholding in Barry Henry & Co Ltd.  He immediately thought that this was a suspicious move, coming so soon after the death of his father and on Monday 11^th July he visited Walter Reid a chartered accountant who was both the auditor of the company and the brother-in-law of the late RS Cook, having married his sister, Jessie, and informed Reid of the unexpected development.  Walter, a bright but rather volatile man, acting both as auditor and family friend, immediately suspected that Mitchell was trying to acquire shares to hold the balance of power in the company.  This notion was confirmed for him when he discovered that John Paul and Robert Davidson had also been approached.  But Walter Reid, being the company’s auditor had a good grasp of its history and affairs.  Although the three former employees had acquired shares, Robert Sellar Cook had held a right of pre-emption over them, that is first refusal to buy them back, should they be offered for sale.  At least two of the former employees had forgotten that this obligation existed.  The wife and sons of RS Cook would exercise their right to re-acquire the shares, so they could not be validly transferred to Gardiner Mitchell.  Had he been successful, Mitchell, acting with Thomas Cook, John Cook and Mrs John Cook would have owned 1254 shares, more than the 1251 needed for voting supremacy.  Mitchell had secured a commitment to sell for only 76 of the 86 shares, which would not have been enough for absolute control.  Was there a plot to seize control of the company by its then present works manager/ company secretary and directors?  They denied that this was so, and Mitchell claimed he was only fulfilling his desire to own shares in the company.

Walter Reid reported that at a meeting he arranged with Mitchell on 13 July, he was direct in his condemnation of Mitchell’s actions.  “We made it very clear to Mr Mitchell that he had done a very wrong thing, and I charged him with intent to deprive of their shares men who were loyal workmen.  I charged him with being the author of a very daring plot and he promised to desist at once”.  Mitchell in his own defence claimed that death broke all bargains and he believed that there was no impediment to him acquiring the shares.  Reid asked Mitchell to transfer the shares he thought he had bought to Mrs Cook but he initially refused. Mitchell was also asked if he had been an emissary of Thomas and John Cook.  The alleged reply was “Well, I would hardly admit that, but I had their permission”.  Both director brothers later confirmed they knew what Mitchell was doing but that they had no interest in the shares or in gaining control of the company.  The immediate outcome was that had Mitchell, Thomas Cook and John Cook (with Mrs John Cook) chosen to act together they would have commanded a powerful voting block but not an absolute voting majority.  The shares were returned to Mrs Cook at a further meeting between Walter Reid and Gardiner Mitchell on 14^th July. 

Subsequently, Gardiner Mitchell travelled to London and told John Cook on 18^th July that he had been unsuccessful in obtaining shares in the company, and that if he did not get a shareholding, he would have to leave the company.  This statement by Mitchell seemed to alarm Cook as he immediately sent to his bank for a certificate for nine shares in Barry Henry & Co Ltd for transfer to Mitchell at a price of £8 6s per share, in an apparent act of appeasement.  John Cook seemed to be anxious to keep Gardiner Mitchell in the company.  Owning the shares would also allow Mitchell to become a director.

 

A new strategy by Gardiner Mitchell and the Cook brothers

As company secretary, Gardiner Mitchell had access to the firm’s books, and he started reading up the history of share issuance from board minutes.  He made some interesting discoveries.  Firstly, the 2,500 shares already issued had only had called up £7 of the £10 value, perhaps because the company was cash-rich and did not need additional capital.  The board resolved to call up the remaining £3 per share, though why this was done is obscure since the company did not have a need for additional financial clout at the time.  Secondly, there remained 500 unissued shares authorised by a resolution of 16^th September 1903, but such the issue of such additional shares had to be in the interests of the company.  Making this discovery seems to have been a “eureka” moment for Gardiner Mitchell, because the issue of some or all of these shares to him would fulfil his desire for a stake in the company and also establish the potential for an absolute voting block within Barry Henry & Co Ltd.

A board meeting was held on 13^th July, just four days after the demise of Robert Sellar Cook and one day after his funeral, at which point the two Cook brothers thought that Gardiner Mitchell had acquired shares from the non-family shareholders, though this transfer of shares was not recorded in the company minutes.  Other strange things happened at that meeting.  A loan of £6,000 to the chairman, Thomas Cook, was approved and immediately made.  This loan was used by Thomas Cook to buy Dorsell farm at Alford, of which he had previously been the tenant, at a price of £5,500.  However, the transaction did not subsequently appear in the company’s balance sheet but was passed through the sales ledger, an act which looked suspiciously like an attempt to disguise its execution.  None of the three admitted to authorising this manoeuvre.  A resolution was also passed to increase the remuneration of both Cook brothers and Gardiner Mitchell.  These changes increased the direct operating costs of the company by about £1,000pa.

At some point Gardiner Mitchell must have informed the Cook brothers about his discovery of the power to issue part or all of the 500 unissued shares, provided that such an act was in the interests of the company.  The usual reason for issuing new shares is to raise capital for some specific, company-related purpose but there was no plan for such a development at Barry Henry & Co Ltd.  The board decided to take legal advice on the matter and approached their Aberdeen solicitors, Blacklaw and Nicol, who, in turn, consulted Davidson and Syme WS in Edinburgh.  The action plan of the brothers was made clear in the letter to Davidson and Syme, dated 29^th July 1921.  “The managing director died recently, leaving two sons, who, it is believed, are expected to take their father’s place in the company.  The two uncles were quite content that their deceased brother should have the practical control of the company and a majority of the voting power, leaving outsiders out of account, but that they have no confidence in the successors, and they are determined if they can, to obtain and to keep the control – that is to say, to have a majority of the total shares. … They would also wish to give a substantial holding in the company to a managing employee whom they desire to retain and probably to appoint as a director”. Put simply, it was claimed that Victor and Norman were young, inexperienced and not then up to the job.  The then present works manager was vital to the success of the company but had to be incentivised to stay and that required him to gain a substantial shareholding in the company.

The board of Barry Henry & Co Ltd (ie the two Cook brothers) went ahead and issued 200 new shares to Gardiner Mitchell in a resolution of 4^th August 1921.  This increased the total issued shares in the company to 2700.  A controlling holding then became 1,351 shares, ie 50% + 1.  The Cook brothers and Gardiner Mitchell now, collectively, held 1,354 shares, a majority of 8 shares over all other shareholders combined.  Remarkably, the Cook brothers later claimed that the number of 200 was mere coincidence with a controlling majority, as it was not intended to achieve that end but to retain the services of Gardiner Mitchell.  Why 200 shares were needed to buy off Mitchell at this time when nine shares had previously been sufficient was not explained.  Further there had been no discussion between them of the agenda ahead of the meeting, though damning evidence was later given by a clerkess in the company that she had been instructed to post sealed letters to the two brothers at this time by Gardiner Mitchell, in plain envelopes on which she had previously typed the addresses.  The terms of Gardiner Mitchell’s new contract with the firm were £500pa and a seven-year contract in addition to the acquisition of 200 shares at par.

 

Victor and Norman Cook join Barry Henry & Cook Ltd

Despite the unhappiness that he must have still been feeling with the behaviour of his two uncles and their fellow director Gardiner Mitchell, Victor Cook joined Barry Henry & Cook Co Ltd on 4 September 1921, the stated aim of his employment being to give him “a thorough training in the business”, which was recorded in the board minutes, with the ultimate objective being his admission to the board of directors.  In a conversation that Victor had with his Uncle John prior to his entry to the firm, John Cook said that Victor would be made company secretary and would receive a salary of £250pa.  The supervision of Victor’s training was ostensibly delegated to Mr Gardiner Mitchell, though he, in turn, passed on the responsibility to his sidekick, David Mitchell (not a relative), the senior clerk in the firm’s office.  Gardiner Mitchell immediately reduced Victor Cook’s promised rate of pay by £50pa.  This was only the start of some rough treatment that Victor was to receive at the hands of the two Mitchells.

Initially, Victor Cook shared a private office with Gardiner Mitchell but after a week, a partition was erected dividing off the space occupied by Victor from that retained by Gardiner Mitchell, the result being that Victor could no longer learn from Mitchell by overhearing his conversations with people both inside and outwith the company.  An attempt was also made by the board to coerce Victor into supporting the issue of 200 shares to Gardiner Mitchell at the next AGM of the company.  According to evidence provided by employees withing the firm’s office, much of the work given to Victor was of a trivial nature, such as copying store tickets, work which had previously been done by a junior clerkess.  The same employees also related that they were given instructions to limit the books that Victor was allowed to see, for example he was not to see the cash book.  Further they were told that if an incoming telephone call was for Victor, they had to tell Gardiner Mitchell who the caller was before he would sanction Victor being informed.  Remarkably, Victor Cook seems to have been able to maintain his composure, despite this demeaning treatment by the two Mitchells.  Immediately after his father’s death, Norman Cook was excluded from the works by Gardiner Mitchell but, at some stage, Norman Cook also entered the firm with a view to being trained in its business.  He too was undermined by the spreading of negative rumours about his work attitude.

 

The 1922 Board Meeting of Barry Henry & Cook Ltd

The excesses of the new directorate only became clear at the next AGM of Barry Henry & Cook Co Ltd which was held on 30^th June 1922.  The tactics of the directors were soon revealed when Victor Cook moved a motion that he and his brother, Norman, should be admitted to the board.  There was a show of hands which appeared to approve the proposal, but the chairman, Thomas Cook, then intervened to order a poll at which Gardiner Mitchell pledged his 200 shares against the resolution, which was consequently lost.  There were further motions dealing with the adoption of the directors’ report, the remuneration of individual board members, and the admission of Gardiner Mitchell to the directorate.  All proposals were apparently rejected on a show of hands but approved when a poll was demanded by the chairman.  This must have been a very dispiriting time for Mrs Victoria Cook and her sons, Victor and Norman, as their worst fears about the intentions of the board of “their” company were laid bare.  Victoria Cook questioned the legality of Gardiner Mitchell’s vote, but she was powerless at that point to have her view tested.  For the moment, the family of the late Robert Sellar Cook and their supporters had lost their ability to influence the conduct of the board members and the direction of travel of the company through the issue of the 200 shares to Gardiner Mitchell, and his apparent alliance with his fellow directors, the brothers Cook.  Mitchell acquired the shares at the arguably generous price of £1,400, ie the par value of £7 a share.

 

The legal action against the board of Barry Henry & Cook Ltd                              

Largely on the initiative of Victor Cook, he, his mother Victoria, his brother Norman and two minor shareholders, George Nicol and Joseph Coutts, took legal action against Barry Henry & Cook Ltd and Thomas Cook, John Cook and Gardiner Mitchell as individuals, seeking to have the resolution of 4^th August 1921, whereby 200 shares were issued by the board to Mitchell, declared ultra vires (literally “beyond the powers”) and illegal.  After a preliminary hearing in Aberdeen, the case began before Lord Morison at the Court of Session in Edinburgh on 3^rd July 1923.  Between them the pursuers owned 1162 shares, more than half the issued shares at the time of the death of Robert Sellar Cook in July 1921.  The defenders, Thomas Cook and John Cook, owned or controlled the balance of the issued shares at that time, 1154.  If the pursuers achieved their aim, they would thus regain control of the company.

Lord Morison was clear, on the basis of case law, and the KCs representing the pursuers and the defenders both agreed with him, the authority established by the 1903 resolution of the board of Barry Henry & Co Ltd was a fiduciary power, ie one which obliges the person or body exercising a power to do so only in the real interests of the owner of an asset, but that if the exercise of the power had been principally, or solely, for the establishment or maintenance of control of the company for the benefit of the board and the directors’ friends, then the exercise of that power had been illegal and fraudulent.  Using evidence presented by their chosen witnesses, the prosecution and the defence sought to establish or refute a number of important alternative explanations for events impinging on this fundamental question.  But the evidence was a melange of established facts, alleged facts and opinions, and this mix of offerings contained many internal conflicts. Was Gardiner Mitchell well qualified for the position of managing director of this engineering company, or was he a lightweight who could easily be replaced?  Was Mitchell truly essential to the future prosperity of the company or could a better qualified employee be sourced on less generous terms?  Were his new contractual conditions appropriate for his position or was he being rewarded over-generously and for an ulterior motive?  Was the training organised for Victor Cook by Gardiner Mitchell and David Mitchell deliberately made boring and trivial with a view to driving him out of the company, or was it a necessity to gain an understanding the whole of the firm’s business activities?  Was there collusion between Thomas Cook, John Cook and Gardiner Mitchell, or did they act independently and disinterestedly in the question of securing shares from existing minority holders of equity?  Did they agree to vote as a bloc rather than exercise their choices independently?  Was Gardiner Mitchell motivated solely by a desire to own shares in the company as a reward for many years of diligent service or did he seek a position where he held the balance of voting power within the company?  Did Walter Reid create division between the shareholders by making an emotional and direct accusation of plotting to seize control of the firm against Gardiner Mitchell, John and Thomas Cook?  Why did Thomas and John Cook seek to raise additional capital for the company when it did not need additional investment?

While Lord Morison stated that the decision as to which fundamental, alternative account applied to the share issue, it would be determined by the facts of the case.  However, he also gave some of his own opinions on the trustworthiness of some of the witnesses appearing before the court.  Firstly, he said that the use of company money after the defenders thought they had established control and the treatment of Victor and Norman Cook by Gardiner Mitchell “left an unpleasant feeling” with him.  Secondly, Lord Morison “did not believe the claim” by the defenders that there had been no discussion of the agenda before the board meeting of 4^th August 1921.  Thirdly, Lord Morison said he accepted as “honest statements” the evidence of the pursuers’ witnesses, though he criticised Walter Reid for the use of “rather extravagant language”.  Fourthly, in a most damning admission, the judge said that he did not accept the evidence of Gardiner Mitchell “without corroboration” and the unseemly haste with which he acted to acquire shares the day after RS Cook’s death was ”significant in its timing”.  But the evidence of collusion was compelling and demonstrated clearly in the letter from Messrs Blacklaw and Nicol to Messrs Davidson and Syme WS.  “The managing director died recently, leaving two sons, who, it is believed, are expected to take their father’s place in the company.  The two uncles were quite content that their deceased brother should have the practical control of the company and a majority of the voting power, leaving outsiders out of account, but that they have no confidence in the successors, and they are determined if they can, to obtain and to keep the control – that is to say, to have a majority of the total shares. …”.  (author’s emphasis).

 

Victor, Norman and Mrs Victoria Cook regain control of the company

When Lord Morison’s judgement was delivered, his conclusion can have been of little surprise to followers of the case but, even so, it must have brought immense relief to Victor and Norman Cook and to their mother Victoria.  Gardiner Mitchell, Thomas and John Cook, had conspired to seize control of Barry Henry & Cook Co Ltd by the issue of 200 shares to Mitchell, which was not in the interest of the company and therefore ultra vires and illegal and the actions of the defenders were reduced.  He also found the defenders jointly and severally liable for expenses.  Victor, Noman and their mother, Victoria, could now start unpicking the damage caused by the previous board of the company by sacking Gardiner Mitchell and voting Thomas and John Cook off the board, inserting themselves into the directorate, which was achieved in 1923, and concentrating on furthering the interests of their engineering company.  Norman took charge of operations in the London office, while Victor looked after the works on West North Street.  Much would depend on the character of Victor, now aged 26, the more able of the two brothers and his late father’s preferred successor, though Norman too was a competent engineer.  Gardiner Mitchell, Thomas and John Cook remained as shareholders but their holdings were subsequently acquired by the members of the new board of directors, according to Victor Cook at a premium over the £7 paid up nominal value.

 

Economic recovery during the 1920s

The mid-1920s were difficult times for engineering companies.  The years 1923 and 1924 saw depression conditions which affected Barry Henry and Cook Ltd, like other engineering firms in the North-East and the following year Britain rejoined the gold standard which had the effect of making the pound too strong for the country to compete in foreign markets.  Nineteen twenty six was marked by the General Strike, which started on 3^rd May and lasted for nine days, caused in part by falling wages, but the protests then largely collapsed.  At the annual Barry Henry & Cook social gathering held in the Imperial hotel, Aberdeen, in early 1924, Victor Cook presided.  Though he could not boast about the firm’s economic success over the past 12 months, he sensibly praised his staff for their efforts during a difficult recession.  He was grateful “that there were so many working with him loyally and whole-heartedly in the interests of the firm” and did not omit to praise the employees who had organised the programme for the evening.  The following year, the firm was again the recipient of a significant contract, to the value of £1048 from the Aberdeen Streets and Roads Department, extending through 1926.  This was a bad year generally for the engineering industry in the North-East, the worst since the end of WW1 but Barry Henry & Cook Ltd managed to work normally throughout the 12-month period.  By 1928, economic conditions were improving significantly and at the end of the year, Barry Henry & Cook Ltd’s fortunes were reported in the Aberdeen Press and Journal.  They had had a “normal” year, without any labour problems and had completed several contracts for elevating and conveying equipment, and for storage plant, for materials such as coal, coke, ores and ash.  Also, prospects seemed promising for the following year.  Nineteen thirty, too, was a good year with a similar range of contracts.  Victor Cook had survived his baptism of fire.

Victor Cook had been appointed as managing director of Barry Henry & Cook Ltd in 1923 following the family’s success in ejecting the previous board members.  He was 25 years old and the company was exposed to difficult trading conditions for several years.  Victor concentrated at first on cost control throughout the company’s operations including senior salaries.  He also developed an interesting approach to customer care which he summarised as follows.

1.     “Aggressive efficiency”, seeking customer satisfaction and emphasising the importance of quality and delivery on time.

2.     A satisfied customer is the best salesman.

3.     The customer is the most important person connected with the company, in person, by letter and by phone.  The customer is not dependent on us.  We are solely dependent on the customer.

4.     A business succeeds not because it has been long established but there are those in it who live for it and plan and build a future for it.

But Victor’s hard work and unceasing attention to the affairs of the company had its price.  Although by 1928 the company was back in substantial profit, between 1929 and 1932, Victor suffered poor health which he attributed to the demands of his position.

 

Mrs Victoria Cook (nee Gordon)   

Mrs Victoria Cook had been born in 1871 on the farm of Bovagli, part of the Abergeldie estate which was adjacent to the Balmoral lands near the village of Crathie, Upper Deeside.  Victoria was the eighth of ten children of sheep farmer, Donald Gordon and his wife Margaret Smith.   At that time, the Abergeldie estate was occupied by Queen Victoria on a long lease, though it belonged to the Gordons of Abergeldie.  The monarch travelled frequently around the three estates (Balmoral, Abergeldie and Birkhall) on her two annual visits to Aberdeenshire and she knew most of the inhabitants personally, likely including Donald Gordon, and it is probable that the baby, Victoria Gordon, was named after the Queen, possibly at her request (a practice she frequently imposed on her employees), though no direct evidence has been found for that hypothesis.  Victoria married Robert Sellar Cook in 1896 and her first child was baptised Robert Charles Victor, the first two given names being familiar Cook family names and Victor being the masculine equivalent of Victoria.  Robert Sellar Cook died in 1921 and his widow survived him for 44 years until her death in 1965.  After the reformation of the Barry Henry & Cook Ltd board in 1923, Mrs Victoria Cook became a member of that body and remained so until her demise.  Victor was very close to his mother, and she lived with him for the rest of her life, a total of 44 years.  Perhaps due to taking care of his mother for such a long period, Victor never married, did not have a family and therefore had no son or sons to whom he could bequeath the company of Barry Henry & Cook Ltd..  In 1927, Aberdeen’s Lord Provost, Andrew Lewis, was immersed in a major charitable project to raise funds for a new general hospital in Aberdeen to be built on a new site at Foresterhill.  The cost was estimated at £410,000 and by the end of 1927 a total of almost £265,000 had been raised.  At that point Victor and his mother made a donation of £1,000 to the fund.  The total sum was raised over the short period of two years and the hospital was constructed, some of the original buildings are still standing and in use in 2024.   Initially, Victor and his mother lived at Livet House on Kings Gate, but in 1933 they moved, as tenants, to Countesswells House, Bieldside.  The freehold to the house and garden was bought by Victor Cook in mid-1946.  Elizabeth died, aged 94, at Countesswells House in 1965 and Victor lived on in the same house until 1990, when he died aged 93.

Countesswells House

 

Deaths in the Cook family

In the decade from 1916, the Cook family was plagued by unexpected deaths.  James Gordon Cook, the five-year-old son of Robert Sellar Cook died of meningitis in 1916, Charles Cook (born 1836) was next in 1918 succumbing to peritonitis and Robert Sellar Cook (born 1870) followed in 1921, also dying from an infection in his abdominal cavity.  In 1927 the grim reaper scythed down another member of the Cook clan at a tragically early age.  Norman Cook, younger surviving son of Robert Sellar Cook was a keen motorcyclist, indeed, it was his main form of recreation.  On Sunday 13^th February 1927, he set out for a run with his friend Archie Reid on their solo machines and they were returning to Aberdeen along the coast road from Stonehaven when Norman suffered an accident.  Just north of Portlethen he skidded while negotiating a saddleback bridge over the Mosside Burn and was flung from his steed, suffering serious injuries and being rendered unconscious.  He was eventually transported to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.  However, he never recovered sensibility and died at 9.30pm the same evening, leaving a young wife and a small child.  His personal estate was valued at £15,023.  Now Victor Cook was left entirely alone to manage the company left to him by his father.  It was a daunting challenge.

 

Barry Henry & Cook Ltd in the 1930s

Only a few references have been gleaned from the pages of the Aberdeen newspapers concerning the state of business at Barry Henry & Cook Ltd’s works during the 1930s.  The management of the firm felt that in the year marking the turn of the decade that they had secured a reasonable fraction of the work advertised for tender.  Some contracts concerned mechanical transport systems, one of their long-standing specialities.  Their cast iron foundry and gear department had a “normal” year.  In the pre-WW2 year of 1938, the company reported that its engineers were working on cement-making machinery for a firm in the South of England and mechanical handling plant for a chemical works.

 

Barry Henry & Cook Ltd during WW2

With the outbreak of WW2 on 1^st September 1939, the country again prepared for putting its productive capacity on a war footing.  One initiative was the establishment of five local reconstruction panels in Scotland.  They were manned by local industrial volunteers and were designed to organise mutual help to repair damage to production facilities by enemy action.  Victor Cook served on the North-East Scotland panel.  In 1945, at the end of hostilities, the work of the volunteer industrialists populating these panels was recognised by the presentation of certificates.  During WW2, Barry Henry & Cook Ltd were involved in the production of howitzer shell cases and various types of specialist equipment such as bomber arrester gear and depth charge mortars for use on destroyers.  However, by the end of 1945 the firm was able to report that it was 75% back to peacetime production manufacturing handling and conveying machinery for collieries and chemical works.  Demobilisation was anticipated to provide much needed manpower.

Barry Henry and Cook Ltd WW2 shell production

 

Barry Henry & Cook Ltd in the 1950s

By 1950, demand had risen to a level where overtime was often required from the firm’s employees and this state of affairs was anticipated to continue.  In 1958, one story which made local headlines was the need to take down telephone wires in West North Street so that a 22ft long grain elevator could be removed from the works for transportation to the harbour.  But the story was not one of ever rising success during that decade.  In early 1959 there was a succession of lay-offs at Aberdeen engineering companies, including Barry Henry & Cook Ltd where 22 men had been stood down due to a slump in demand and the prospect of new orders remained bleak.

 

Barry Henry & Cook Ltd in the 1960s

Robert Gordon’s Technical College was established in 1910 by the merger of previous institutions providing technical education in the City of Aberdeen and Barry Henry & Cook Ltd and its predecessors have always been dependent on this organisation for the provision of practical training, for example, Gardiner Mitchell had been both a trainee and a teacher there.  By the 1960s, the firm had established prizes in both management and foremanship at the college.  Further, the company had its own apprenticeship scheme operating within the works at West North Street.  The decade of the 1960s was also marked by the firm advertising its capabilities more extensively, describing its range of skills as “Conveying and Elevating Plant, Crushing, Screening and Storage Machinery, Iron Castings” and “Barrys make mechanical handling plants for many materials, both for this country and abroad.  Works consists of Pattern Shop, Foundry, Drawing Offices, Engineering and Machine Shops”. 

This was the age of the newspaper “advertorial”, where a positive report on the success of a firm or industrial sector was accompanied by paid advertisements.  In April 1968 such a story under the title “Conveying Experts” appeared in the Aberdeen Press and Journal.  “The progress report of Barry Henry and Cook Ltd provides interesting fare for engineers.  They have completed the supply and installation of fertilizer handling equipment in the Republic of Ireland and are now designing and manufacturing conveying gear to handle bagged fertilizer for Cuba.  The Aberdeen firm have supplied mechanical handling equipment for a new cement works in Northern Ireland.  Erection is underway with completion likely before the end of the year.  At the design stage is equipment for the handling of shale and anhydrite for cement works on the North-west coast of England.  The foundry is fully occupied.  The work programme includes high-duty and alloy cast iron to suit extreme temperatures and abrasive conditions. … Full employment has been generally maintained with a considerable amount of overtime to ensure deliveries. … This city specialist firm are reasonably confident that maximum employment will continue during the remainder of the year”.  In 1970 the firm employed between 200 and 300 men.

Advertisement 1968

 

The takeover of Barry Henry & Cook Ltd by Seaforth Maritime

Time waits for no man.  In 1970, Robert Charles Victor Cook reached the age of 73.  He had been at the top of the company for 50 years.  His beloved mother had died in 1965 and he had no successor from within the Cook family.  It was time to retire but what would be the fate of the company which had been nurtured by the Cook family since 1889?  The answer came calling in the form of the embryonic North Sea oil industry.  Gas was first discovered in the southern sector of the North Sea in 1965 and the first oil reservoirs were struck in both Norwegian and British waters in 1969, with the discovery of the Ekofisk and Montrose fields.  The giant Forties field was revealed in 1970 and Aberdeen was set for a new industrial boom as the main service centre for this new industry.  Another factor which must have weighed heavily with Victor Cook was the bad industrial relations of the time across Britain.  The power of the trades unions was at its height and much of the joy had probably gone from the management of a major engineering company due to the constant battles with labour.  In early 1971, more than 120 workers walked out of the West North Street works in a dispute over alleged victimisation and about a week later most of the strikers returned to work but found they were locked out because they had declined to abandon a work to rule.  Finally, the dispute was resolved after three weeks of disruption. 

The year 1971 was described by the company as “one of quiet consolidation”.  Its business was still dominated by contracts from its traditional markets of bulk handling and conveying and no sign that the new opportunities in the oil industry were being addressed.  The following year continued in the same vein with bulk handling equipment dominating their activities.  Then, in 1973, a burgeoning neophyte on the local industrial scene came calling.  Seaforth Maritime Ltd was established in 1972 by two Glasgow shipping companies, Lyle Shipping and Hogarth Shipping to exploit the emerging opportunities in the North Sea.  It would be based in Aberdeen.  One of its first moves was to order four offshore supply vessels for transporting materials and supplies out to the oil rigs operating in the North Sea.  It also needed onshore engineering facilities to complement its offshore servicing activities and a neat solution to this requirement was spotted.  In February 1973 Seaforth Maritime took a controlling interest in Barry Henry and Cook Ltd but left Victor Cook in place as the company chairman, a sound evolutionary approach given Victor Cook’s likely emotional attachment to the company.  Seaforth Maritime also took over local haulage firm JG Barrack, another vital piece in solving the jigsaw puzzle of their development strategy.  West North Street, the location of the Barry Henry & Cook engineering premises had excellent access to Aberdeen harbour, a significant aspect of its suitability for Seaforth Maritime’s oil-related activities.

Seaforth Maritime advertisement, 1973

The chairman and the chief executive of Seaforth Maritime, Ian Noble and James Hann, respectively, joined the board of Barry Henry & Cook Ltd.  James Hann outlined his concept for the new relationship.  “Barry Henry and Cook will remain a separate company under the Seaforth umbrella.  We intend to continue the development of their traditional business as designers and manufacturers of bulk handling equipment.  The company however have additional space to enable us to use it as the engineering division of Seaforth Maritime, which will undertake oil-related repairs, maintenance and fabrication and cope eventually with off-shore engineering emergencies.  Victor Cook said of the takeover, “I am confident there are prospects of additional employment later”.  Like all good deals, this one had a win-win outcome.  The Seaforth Maritime strategy for its engineering operations was immediately successful, leading to both an expansion and a modernisation of Barry Henry & Cook Ltd’s site at West North Street.  The design and manufacture of bulk handling equipment continued alongside the new oil related work, though it was the latter which showed the most growth.  A new and expanding activity was the design and fabrication of pressure vessels for the diving industry, an integral part of the services needed for the exploration, development and production activities out in the North Sea.

Seaforth Maritime advertisement 1974

Pouring molten iron into a mould, 1977

 

The end of the Barry Henry and Cook title

In 1976, two long-serving members of staff at Barry Henry and Cook Ltd were appointed to the board of the company.  James Forsyth had worked there since 1948 and he was promoted to works manager in 1959.  David Mack joined the firm in 1958 as chief engineer.  Victor Cook, the chairman said that the appointments reflected the growth of the business both in its traditional area of strength and in the increasing activities related to the oil industry.  But change was afoot.  In 1977, a luffing and slewing mobile stacker-conveyor required to handle sugar beet for the British Sugar Corporation, was designed by Barry Henry & Cook Ltd but manufactured by Seaforth A and M Engineers, a newly formed company in the Seaforth Maritime group, at its site in Inverurie, 16 miles along the A96 north-west of Aberdeen.  Progressively, the West North Street site was run down, and Seaforth Maritime’s engineering activities were concentrated in Inverurie.  On 1^st January 1981, the companies in Seaforth Maritime’s Engineering Division, including Barry Henry & Cook Ltd, were amalgamated into a new company, Seaforth Engineering Ltd and the Barry Henry and Cook name receded into history.  The derelict West North Street site was ravaged by a fire in 1986 and the same year Safeway Limited obtained planning permission for a supermarket on the site and the evidence of its former use was then obliterated.

Safeway store West North Street

Victor Cook, “Values Education” and the Gordon Cook Foundation

Victor Cook, although he did not have a family, had a great concern, even an obsession, with what he called “Values Education”, a non-political, non-sectarian vision of the principles by which young people should be trained to lead their lives.  This anxiety was awakened by two experiences in his life.  When he became managing director of Barry Henry & Cook in 1923, Victor became aware of the shortcomings of the education that his numerous apprentices could access.  He thought the courses available were too academic and lacking in practical application, but he did nothing to develop his ideas to address this concern until 1966.  In that year he had a conversation around morality with Lord Reith, the BBC’s first director-general, who had been born in Stonehaven.  Both held the belief that many of the problems with young people then growing up were the result of experiences they had in the first five years at home and then in the primary school.  After primary education it would be impossible to influence development. Reith asked Victor Cook to draw up a plan for change which emerged as a list of items labelled “values education”.

In 1973, Seaforth Maritime had appeared on the scene to acquire a controlling interest in Barry Henry & Cook Ltd from Victor Cook, leaving him a wealthy, cash-rich man and freeing his time to develop his growing passion for a programme of activities in “values education”.  In 1974 he established the Gordon Cook Foundation, the name being a memorial to his mother and father, as it was derived from their surnames.  A 1989 quotation from Victor Cook revealed his personal analysis of the faults in then current moral education, or the lack of it.  “At one time, values were considered the province of the home, and children learned them from their parents.  But we realise today that the schools often have to take that responsibility.  Once, values were taken as part of religious education.  We know now that a great number of young people will not accept the principles and dogma of established religions.  If you tie values to these doctrines, they will throw the whole thing out.  That’s why it is necessary to teach values on their own”.  The work of the foundation has largely been to build up a library of materials that practising teachers can use, ready-made, in their lessons.

Victor Cook died in March 1990, the last family link to the firm which bore the Cook name between 1921 and 1981, though it had been owned by that dynasty since 1889.  Robert Charles Victor Cook left a gross estate in excess of £3 million.  His foundation was subsequently well-endowed and still exists today.  Whether it has, or even can, achieve the objectives of its founder is a moot point.

 

What constitutes the “Origins” and the “History” of the company that eventually became known as Barry Henry and Cook Ltd?

Even to ask such a question may look like an abstruse and unnecessary exercise in semantics.  But it is important to define the scope of this discussion before embarking on an answer. “History” is the easier to understand.  It is a description, in a time sequence, of all the influences and events which have impacted, or occurred during, the evolution of the ultimate entity.  At the same time that the company’s history is an easier concept to understand, it is also a complex and branching sequence in its description.  “Origins” constitutes the converse situation: difficult to define and agree upon, but simpler to describe once that consensus has been reached. 

Almost the whole content of this essay constitutes the history of the company but because of its inherent complexity it is difficult to see the wood for the trees in the end result.  Thus, in order to produce a potted version which gives a holistic view, a brief summary has been generated which covers the sequence of the main historical events, between the late 18^th century and the late 20^th century, which influenced the origins, evolution and the eventual demise of Barry Henry and Cook Ltd.

To deal with the genesis of this company it is necessary to form an opinion on what constitutes an origin.  Does an origin lie solely in the creation of a legal personality, such as a partnership or a company?  The formation of such an entity governed by a set of written rules would certainly seem to qualify but it does not just exist on paper and is subject to change.  The company or partnership possesses, leases or occupies premises and equipment.  It is owned, financed or participated in by individuals or other legal entities.  It employs people, some temporarily, some permanently, some vital to its success, others easily replaced.  It generates or uses intellectual property, some of which exists informally inside the heads of its employees, and which might simply walk out of the door.  It produces goods and/or services which evolve over time.  The ultimate conclusion is that a precise and constrained definition of an origin is impossible but that for practical purposes some limits need to be imposed. 

Legal entities, owners, plant and premises are given prominence her.  Senior managers are considered to be less significant as they all leave eventually by natural attrition and are replaced, though some individuals can be recognised as having made key contributions.  Most members of the workforce are of little significance as individuals but collectively are more so.  Everything is subject to change.  Items which once were valuable novelties lose their importance, are discarded and replaced.  Buildings burn down or are demolished, and new ones are constructed, sites become too small or too big and locations change.

Even with some measure of agreement about what constitutes an origin another problem arises which is common to all historical research: the further back the investigation goes in time, the sparser is the relevant factual information and the more tentative are the conclusions reached.  A working definition of “origin” is necessary because otherwise it would be impossible to examine whether the company had one or more starting points, and when and where they occurred.  Did the firm actually originate in 1790, the claim emblazoned on the exterior of the works in West North Street? 

 

An overview of the evolution of Barry Henry and Cook Ltd

The earliest two foundries identified in Aberdeen were those located in Footdee, existing from at least 1854 and, from 1863, certainly melting and moulding iron, and elsewhere operating from at least 1750 dealing with copper, certainly from 1792 in the Gallowgate.  It is plausible, but not proven, that there may have been a family linkage between the two separate sites as both were managed, and possibly owned, by individuals bearing the family name “Forbes”.

The oldest firm with an arguable claim to be a progenitor of Barry Henry and Cook Ltd was Aberdein and MacHattie.  It was both a founder, manufacturing “brass, copper, tinplate and blacksmith line, also nails of all kinds”, certainly from 1802 but probably earlier, and also traded in goods made from various metals.  Although only supported by the circumstantial evidence of coincident place and time, it seems possible that Aberdein and MacHattie had taken over the premises of the late George Forbes about 1792.  

Aberdein and MacHattie’s lack of an iron foundry was remedied in 1806 when the firm “formed a connection” with William Watson and Co which had just completed a new iron foundry in the Gallowgate.  This firm too might claim to be an antecedent of the subject company of this inquiry, though it only survived to 1910, when it was consumed by Aberdein and MacHattie.  Another important event occurred at Aberdein and MacHattie in 1809, when John Barry, an experienced iron founder with additional skills, was recruited as the manager from a similar position in London.  Elsewhere it has been claimed that John Barry founded the progenitor firm leading to Barry Henry and Cook Ltd in 1790.  No evidence has been found supporting this hypothesis.  The idea seems far-fetched as John Barry was only born about 1779.

In 1810, the Gallowgate iron foundry was rebranded as the Aberdeen Foundery Company with a new complex of partners, but this arrangement subsisted for only four years before Aberdeen and MacHattie resumed sole ownership for two years, until bankruptcy eliminated the firm 1816.  However, in 1814, John Barry had left the Aberdeen Foundry Company and set up on his own account, staring in 1815, but under a name which has not been uncovered.  In 1822, the year in which he died, John Barry’s firm was passed into the ownership of his widow, Margaret.  She carried on the business under the name of Barry & Henderson for two years with a new partner, Peter Henderson until 1826 when her partner was declared bankrupt, and the partnership was dissolved.  Margaret Barry then managed the company alone under the name of Barry & Co until 1828 when she died.  It is interesting to note that the firm that John Barry had been so closely involved in developing, eventually bore the name “Barry” but not, as far as has been discovered, during his lifetime and it was possibly derived from Margaret Barry’s involvement and not from his own.

In 1828 the firm took on a new name, Barry Henry and Co, along with a new partner, George Henry, whose role in the company appears to have been largely as a financier, not as a craftsman or technical manager.  This name survived until 1889 in this form, until 1921 as Barry Henry & Co Ltd, and until 1981 as Barry Henry and Cook Ltd.  This long period of name stability does not indicate organisational stasis and other events exerted a marked influence on the firm’s evolution.  Although George Henry appears not to have had any craft skills, he was clearly a successful businessman and his long service with the Copper Company (Hugh Gordon & Co) prior to his investment in Barry Henry & Co was a significant factor in that company’s success as an iron founder and engineer.

William Henderson junior’s role as manager or managing partner between 1834 and 1889, a remarkable 55 years, saw some major influences brought to bear on the course of the firm’s history.  The role of George Henry as financier and part-owner, and the move of the locus of operations from the Lochside to West North Street being the main features.  The West North Street site appears to have been used as an iron foundery since at least 1794 and was taken over by Barry Henry & Co for the same purpose by 1871 and produced the space needed for expansion and diversification in the company’s activities.

The purchase of Barry Henry & Co by Charles Cook (1836 – 1918) in 1889 was a key moment in the evolution of the organisation.  Charles’ financial clout which allowed the modernisation of the works, his business acumen, his agile recruitment of key staff from the Albion Ironworks, his conversion of his company to one with limited liability, his opening of a London office, the forging of a relationship with inventor and entrepreneur Gilbert Little, and the training of three of his sons as engineers to serve the family business, were all major factors in the success of the company at the end of the 19^th century and into the new era.

Robert Sellar Cook (1870 – 1921) was particularly noted for his work during WW1 in aiding the war economy and in guiding the company through the re-establishment of a peacetime business in the difficult years which followed the end of the conflict.  He also changed the company name to Barry Henry and Cook Ltd to reflect the role which had been played by the family since 1889.

Robert Charles Victor Cook (1897 – 1990) had an important role thrust upon him when a devious move by two uncles, Thomas and John Cook, and an ambitious works manager, Gardiner Mitchell, sought to seize control of the company from Victor, his brother Norman and his mother Victoria, between 1921 and 1923.  Though a young man at the time, Victor saw the legal action through which proved that the actions of the usurpers were ultra vires and illegal.  He served the company from 1921 to 1981, a remarkable 60 years.  Victor also took the sensible decision to sell out to Seaforth Maritime at the start of the 1970s oil boom in the North Sea.

Although the company name and legal personality were extinguished in 1981, the entity, in its various guises, had made a significant contribution to the economy of Aberdeen for perhaps 190 years - depending upon how one chooses to define “origin”!

 

The origins of Barry Henry and Cook Ltd       

The iron foundery premises in West North Street have been in that use certainly since 1794 but were not occupied by Barry Henry and Cook Ltd, or its predecessors until perhaps 1871.  Although this matter takes the founding date back to 1794, it has only a tenuous claim to be the year of origin of the company.

Aberdeen and Machattie, which had existed in Aberdeen from at least 1802 would have had a strong claim to be a progenitor of Barry Henry and Cook Ltd, if John Barry, who had been an Aberdein and MacHattie manager from 1809, had not jumped ship in late 1814.  As it stands, the firm’s main claim to significance is that it recruited John Barry from London and brought him to the North-East.

However, on the narrowest definition of what constitutes a firm’s origin, ie that a legal entity was created which had a continuous existence over a long period of years, though it may have moved from one site to another, changed owners and managers, and evolved its business activities, there exists a clear contender.  The most plausible date of origin for Barry Henry and Cook Ltd on this basis is 1^st April 1815, when John Barry set up a business as an iron founder at the Lochside in Aberdeen on his own account.  This is a definite date, not subject to qualification or to uncertainty that an earlier date might apply if more information could be uncovered.

The date of 1790 which was emblazoned on the exterior of the West North Street works of Barry Henry & Cook Ltd looks plausible as a date on which an iron foundery was established on that site but cannot reasonably be claimed as the date of origin of the company.

 

Don Fox

20240308

20240503

donaldpfox@gmail.com