The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
VIP guest at Fraser and Sons
Today’s main picture touches on Courier Country’s proud engineering heritage.
From the photographic collection overseen by Dundee University’s archive services team, the image takes us back almost six-and-a-half decades to a moment that captured the international importance of one particular strand of manufacturing in Angus.
Referring to the vintage snapshot, uni archivist Dr Kenneth Baxter explains: “It shows John Maclay, the secretary of state for Scotland, inspecting machinery with John Firth, a machine tool development engineer, at Douglas Fraser and Sons in Arbroath on September 19 1958.
“As part of a two-day visit to Angus, Maclay, along with local MP Sir James Duncan, toured the machine shop and the erecting shop at Frasers. Afterwards, the secretary of state spoke of how impressed he was with the modern and innovative machinery the firm manufactured and his fascination that it was exported to so many countries.
“Douglas Fraser and Sons had its origins in a flax and canvas manufacturing business established by Douglas Fraser of Arbroath in 1832. Following the success of a braiding machine designed and patented by Norman Fraser in 1881, the firm moved to focus more on machine manufacturing, and an engineering works was established during the 1890s.
“Douglas Fraser and Sons was incorporated as a private company in 1905, and by 1950 was almost exclusively an engineering firm. In 1959, the firm was taken over by Giddings and Lewis, a machine tool company based in Wisconsin, USA. The new company was named Giddings and Lewis-fraser, with its head office at Wellgate Works, Arbroath.
“John Maclay served as secretary of state for Scotland under Harold Macmillan from 1957 until he was one of seven ministers dropped from the Cabinet by Macmillan in 1962 in what became known as ‘the night of the long knives’.
“He was first elected to parliament in 1940 when he was returned unopposed as the member for Montrose Burghs, a constituency which included Arbroath. When it was abolished in 1950, he moved to West Renfrewshire, a seat he represented until his retirement in 1964 when he became a member of the House of Lords.”