The lost factories of Scotland’s cigarette industry
From the workshops of 19th-century Glasgow to the factories of mass production, Scotland’s tobacco industry once burned brightly
They produced tens of millions of cigarettes every week, with thousands employed to sort, dry and cut the vast casks of West Virginia tobacco that arrived at Scotland’s docks during the 19th and 20th century.
From the factories of Dennistoun, Stirling, Paisley, Edinburgh and Dundee came brands such as Glasgow Mix, Three Nuns, Lorraine and the fabulously named Tassie du Lux.
Latterly, as smaller companies were sucked up by global players, familiar brands such as Embassy and Lambert & Butler were pushed out an enormous rate in Scotland’s industrial heartlands.
The industry was to leave an enduring mark on Scotland – and not just on the health of its customers.
Linlithgow man Stephen Mitchell, one of the earliest and most significant players in Scottish tobacco production, bequeathed £70,000 for a large public library in Glasgow following his death in 1874. The Mitchell Library in Charing Cross – one of the largest in Europe – was built in his name.
“He really did leave an astonishing legacy,” said Michael Meighan, author of Scotland’s Lost Industries, adding that Mitchell also invested in British and North American railways, as well as churches at home.
Vast amounts of wealth had been generated by the Glasgow Tobacco Lords during the 18th century but this rich band of merchants, many of whom had stakes in the slave-driven plantations of Virginia and Carolina, largely switched focus from the crop following the outbreak of the American War of Independence.
Tobacco was later to be sent directly to Scotland by American entrepreneurs. As the bonded warehouses along the Clyde quietly filled up with huge tobacco tubs, work began on converting the crop into a range of smoking products.
Mr Meighan said: “Tobacco manufacture became a huge industry in Scotland and it became one of the biggest industries in the West of Scotland.”
Mitchell was one of the first to grow his lo-tech pipe tobacco business into a highly mechanised operation that produced ready-rolled cigarettes at a high rate.
It was also was one of 13 companies to amalgamate into Imperial Tobacco in 1901, along with other Glasgow companies such as WD&HO Wills, J&F Bell – makers of the Three Nun brand – and F&J Smith.
The Scottish Co-operative Wholesale Society also worked against the threat of American acquisitions. Set up in 1891, it produced cigarettes for Co-op stores across Scotland, largely from its factory at Shieldhall, where brands such as Rocky Mount and Adana Turkish were produced.
By 1918 it was producing 24m cigarettes a year as well as cut plug, shag and snuff.
The shift to mechanisation – and the drop in demand for smoking products – was to ultimately lead to loss of tobacco manufacture in Scotland, Mr Meighan said.
WD &HO Wills opened its massive factory on Alexander Parade in 1954 and at its height employed more than 600 workers, with Embassy and Lambert & Butler latterly made there. In Stirling, 500 worked at its Player’s Plant.
Both were closed in the mid-1980s and were producing 160m cigarettes every week at the time. As Imperial Tobacco sought to further rationalise operations, its cigar factory, also in Dennistoun, closed in 1990.
“It was a devastating time for the workforce, particularly in Stirling.
“Tobacco started out at a very lowtech industry but firms such as Imperial Tobacco wanted to mechanise it and make it more efficient, which they did so through rationalisation. That is really why the industry disappeared. That is not to say they stopped making cigarettes – they were just made elsewhere.
Some Scottish brands have sur- vived and are considered rarities among smoking connoisseurs. Edinburgh’s John Cotton tobacco, which dates back to 1770 and was made in Easter Road, has been revived by a Pennsylvania firm. There are plans to stock it in Scotland once again.