Old Photograph East Main Street Rutherglen Glasgow Scotland

Old photographs of shops, cars, people and buildings on East Main Street in Rutherglen, Glasgow, Scotland. James White was a Scottish lawyer, businessman and chemicals manufacturer. He was born in 1812 at Shawfield House in Rutherglen which at that time was a rural country estate on the banks of the River Clyde. He was educated at Glasgow Grammar School and Glasgow University and thereafter became a lawyer and a partner in Couper and White solicitors, a position which he held for 17 years. In 1836 he married Fanny Campbell, sister of businessman Robert Orr Campbell, settling initially at Hayfield House within the Shawfield estate, and they produced seven children, six daughters and one son, John Campbell White. At the invitation of his father and older brother, another John White, who had joined the business in 1833, James White became a partner in the family firm in 1851, focusing on the commercial aspect whilst his brother and father, who died in 1860, were more concerned with the manufacturing. Apart from his business interests, White was also deputy chairman of the Glasgow and South Western Railway, although the railway lines which served the Shawfield works were operated by the Clydesdale Junction Railway and the Caledonian Railway), was a director of the Merchants' House of Glasgow, and at various times was chairman of the Glasgow Royal Exchange, the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce and the National Bible Society of Scotland. He was a member of the Free Church of Scotland and a Liberal in politics. Upon his death in 1884 aged 72 at Overtoun House, the Lord Provost of Glasgow remarked that White was " a gentleman who has long occupied a foremost place among the citizens of Glasgow ".



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