ALEXANDER MORTON

   BORN 1844 DIED 1923

Alexander was born in a weaver’s cottage in Mount Holy in Ranoldcoup Road in Darvel. His father Gavin Morton died when he was only 6 years old leaving Alexander’s mother with 2 sons and 3 daughters. When he was 8 years old he went to work at the harvest at Greenbank in Darvel, by the age of nine he was herding by the roadside between Auchincloich and Sorn, for an aunt whose husband James Brown was a nephew of Jean Armour.

His scholastic education was finished when he was 9 years old, whereupon he was sent to the herding on a moorland farm near Muirkirk. While doing this work for the next 3 years, gave him the love of animals and the outdoor life.
At the age of ten his mother brought him home to learn the weaving trade along with his brother. This was a task he devoted himself with enthusiasm, and in his scant leisure time he studied the craft of weaving. When he had reached the age of 15, he had saved £16, which he put to good use and bought his first loom. He also used what little spare time he had with his love of singing and joined the local church’s singing class. He made such good progress that at the end of the session he won one of the prizes, the other prize being awarded to Jeannie Wiseman, Later, to become his life-partner, at the age of 19 years, she was a year younger. He looked upon her as his anchor and the centre of his life for the next 50 years.

The young married couple set up home in a “But and Ben” at 104 West Main Street Darvel. There was a garden behind the cottage, and in it Alexander dedicated his spare time to such good purpose that he won the championship at Glasgow.
At the age of 23 his life was to change dramatically, William Bowie his brother-in-law died, leaving him the task of winding up his business. William Bowie had been the middle man between the weavers and the Glasgow merchants. At the time of his death, several beams found in the house had not been given to the weavers, so young Alexander took this job in hand, gave out the beams and returned the curtains he found back to the merchants. The city firm they were supplying asked for a repeat order for some of the designs, so along with Mrs Bowie, his sister-in-law, he employed a number of local weavers to carry out the work, It was at that point he instructed the weavers to put in a warp twist weft instead of an ordinary weft into the leno curtains to make them last longer.
The firms he supplied in Glasgow noticed the difference in the crispness and the quality and as Alexander was to remark “That little expedient” was the beginning of the success of our business.

The leno curtains were sold as grey material which means unbleached or undressed, it was then, he had an idea that he wanted to dress the material himself and sell it directly to the shops, missing out the middle man.
This proved a big success, so he proceeded with his next phase and that was to break into England. His first port of call was to sell in Carlisle, where he secured orders for a 100 pairs of curtains. This gave him the boost he was looking for and his next stop was Newcastle, he again secured orders from 3 companies, when he visited a fourth his hat was thrown out the door without them even looking at his samples, but undeterred he stuck to his task and managed an appointment and an order for 60 pairs of curtains. That was the never say die attitude of Alexander Morton and his knowledge of the weaving trade that won the day.
Over the next 2 years he extended his conquests further south, his most formidable task awaited him and that was London, It just so happened that a Glasgow firm had went bust and he managed to secure in buying some of there best samples and along with his own he had a good array of materials.
He visited Schoolbred’s Warehouse the best in town, first without much joy. He went and got orders from Swan & Edgers an establishment in Piccadilly Circus, it was while there their chief buyer told Morton that the main man at Schoolbred’s was about to retire, on his later return he got on well with the new buyer and secured £80 pounds worth of orders. Alexander wanted to impress this new client he wired his cousin Alex in Darvel to make the goods even better than the samples. The company, after receiving there goods were so impressed that they repeated the orders again and again to the value of £2,000 in the first 6 months and £4,000 by the end of that year.

The success of the business of the three young weavers Big San, Wee Rab and cousin Alex seemed secure.
However, San Morton foresaw that weaving leno curtains by hand was a dying industry. (The locals shut their eyes to this fact.)
In 1874 on a visit to a machine exhibition in London, he saw a Levers Machine working, he watched and observed all he could and left with enough knowledge to say that was the way forword. He stopped off at Nottingham on the way home and arrived at the firm of Sharman & Tilson who built lace machines, they gave him an estimate for a machine, which would cost in the region of £1,050.
Back in Darvel he called a meeting between the weavers and the agents to join him in this new venture; none were prepared to risk their savings.
Big San, Wee Rab and Cousin Alex went it alone and formed the firm of Alexander Morton & co. They raised the necessary cash for the deposit on the machine and while waiting on it being built, they started erecting temporary premises at the townhead in Darvel. During this waiting period Big San visited Lille in France to see a new curtain he had heard about with a bold floral design, this would be ideal for his new machine.
The new machine was capable of producing 100 pairs of curtains per week, but as demand increased 2 more machines were purchased in the first 2 years. A piece of land at Ranaldcoup Road was bought to accommodate more machines, within 10 years there were 24 machines in production.

While in London staying at the Grand Midland Hotel in Trafalgar Square, Morton noticed that the hotel had double plush curtains, so that, there was a wealth of plush velvet on the outside and inside alike. This gave him the idea that, if it was possible for a thread to be made with a pile all round and to weave it with rather a thin warp to bury it below the pile, it would give the same effect for half the cost.
This was put into practise and A Morton & co began the weaving of plain shiela chenille curtains and had to employ another 150 hands. On the back of this new idea they built a factory in Carlisle where there was an abundance of workers. Lace and Madras continued in Darvel and the new shiela chenille was transferred to Carlisle.
In 1898 while on one of his many London trips Big San was looking in the window of Maple & co where he saw a hearth rug on which the pile stood up and reminded him of mosaic carpet work, this rug haunted him for months. When he was judging an International show in Brussels, he saw the very machine that made the hearth rug and it was producing a similar rug at the exhibition. Between Alex and his son they soon were on the lookout for premises to produce these rugs, the place they chose was Killybegs in County Donegal, where the woman workers were plentiful. They turned a large barn into a factory and after it were up and running everyone was surprised at how quiet the machines were because the machines used Jacquards instead of shuttles clanking back and forth all day long. These Jacquard machines also opened up a whole new world as far as design and colour was concerned on the rugs. The demand was so great another 4 factories were built to keep up with demand. Royalty were very impressed with the rugs and Queen Victoria, Princess Beatrice, King Edward VII and King George V all had them in their famous residencies, they also graced 10 Downing Street, Bank of England and many places all around the world.

When Alexander Morton was away from his business activities he was also a well respected judge on horses, especially the hackneyed breed, which he maintained a stud at Gowanbank near Darvel. He bought a sire called Goldfinder for a £100 and sold it a few years later for 3,000 guineas. He acted as a judge in all the European events, and as far a field as New York in the States.
In later years he took up farming and fruit growing in Ireland and this proved to be as much success as his past adventures.
In his public life in Darvel, Alexander Morton served on the town council and the school board where he was to become Chairman.
In August 1923 he and his wife quietly celebrated their Diamond wedding; but on the 28th December that same year at his fruit farm of Bruckless in County Donegal, Alexander Morton set out on his last journey. His earthly remains were brought back to be interred at Darvel Old Cemetery on New Years Day 1924.
On Saturday the 12th of November 1927 The memorial to this great man was erected by public subscription, it was unveiled in the presence of a very large crowd. The memorial is between Darvel and Newmilns, with Gowanbank just behind.

This chapter of the life of Alexander Morton maybe finished, but it certainly wasn’t the final chapterA in the History of a world famous company called Alexander Morton & co. That story is for another day.