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You searched for: More Like: 'Opened 12 Sept 1854, Closed 6 May 1968'
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Commerce Street School class portrait
1710 The name of the individuals and the class shown here are unknown. The board held by the child in the centre looks like it says Commerce Street at the top. The rest is more difficult to read. The line below may read "Senior I", suggesting that the children shown here might be around 11 to 12 in age.
Records for Commerce Street School are held by the Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire Archives (under reference ED/AT5/1).
The online catalogue entry for these records indicates that Commerce Street was the first new school completed by Aberdeen School Board and was opened on 13 March 1876. The school closed on 30 June 1925 and the pupils were transferred to Hanover Street School. Thereafter the Commerce Street School buildings were used as the infant department of Hanover Street School.
The photograph likely dates from sometime in the early 20th century. Union Works
4399 A mid-20th century photograph of the Union Works in central Aberdeen. This images looks south east across College Street from a high vantage point and has railway tracks, Poyernook and the hills of Torry in the background.
The factory likely dates from around 1862. A notice from the Aberdeen Herald newspaper of 17th May 1862, page 4, records Alexander Pirie & Sons moving from the Adelphi to their new premises of Union Works, Poyernook.
From the 1860s onwards, the works were owned and operated by Alexander Pirie & Sons, then Pirie, Appleton & Co. and finally Wiggins Teape (Stationery), Ltd.
At the time of this photograph, the works were likely operated by Pirie, Appleton & Co. This image may been sourced from a promotional brochure for the company. In addition to the Union Works, they also had factories at Chadwell Heath in East London and in Dublin, Johannesburg and Cape Town.
As with many significant local enterprises, the operation of Pirie, Appleton & Co. is described in mid-20th century Official Handbooks created for the Corporation of the City of Aberdeen. The volume from 1954 states that the company specialised in manufacturing commercial envelopes, including their successful "River Series."
The company had also recently introduced a quality note-paper to their range called "Mitre Club," which is described as a brand of social stationery. They additionally manufactured different types of account and manuscript books, including a system of loose leaf binding known as "Swing-o-Ring." Other products include "printers' cards, paper collars, commerial heading, filing folders, and record cards." (pages 166-167).
In this image, a large sign can be seen on the north side of the factory building that reads "The mark of good stationery" with an Aberdeen terrier. This black Scottie dog, closely associated with the city, was adopted as a trade-mark of the company in the mid-20th century.
Wiggins Teape and Co. had amalgamated with Alexander Pirie & Sons in 1922 (see Aberdeen Daily Journal, 30th March 1922, page 4). Alex. Pirie & Sons and Pirie, Appleton & Co. were subsidiary companies of Wiggins Teape.
The Union Works site closed down not long after 1969 when Wiggins Teape began construction of a replacement factory at Dyce (see Evening Express, 4th September 1969, page 7).
The site was sold and the works were demolished to make way for the multi-storey office block, St. Machar House. Built by Sir Robert Alpine & Sons for Neale House Properties (Aberdeen) Limited, to a design by architects Mackie, Ramsay & Taylor, construction was well under way by Autumn 1975 (Evening Express, 2nd August 1975, 'Business Bureau' page 6).
Below the southern end of St. Machar House, the rest of the old Union Works site is occupied by the College Street Car Park, built by Arup and Partners (Scotland), with consulting architects Baxter, Clark & Paul, and opened on 4th July 1991. Union Works
536 An illustration of the Union Works factory on College Street, Aberdeen. This drawing, which looks south across railway tracks outside the Joint Station, is sourced from a book called A Descriptive Account of Aberdeen Illustrated (published by W. T. Pike & Co. in around 1894). This book provides an account of the history and then current operation of Messrs. Alexander Pirie & Sons, owners of the Union Works at the time.
The factory likely dates from around 1862. A notice from the Aberdeen Herald newspaper of 17th May 1862, page 4, records Alexander Pirie & Sons moving from the Adelphi to their new premises of Union Works, Poyernook.
From the 1860s onwards, the works were owned and operated by Alexander Pirie & Sons, then Pirie, Appleton & Co. and finally Wiggins Teape (Stationery), Ltd.
In the late 19th century, the time of the above mentioned book, Messrs. Alex. Pirie & Sons also operated Stoneywood Works at Auchmill, their first and largest site, the Woodside Works and various offices and warehouses around the world. Both Stoneywood and Woodside Works were located on the River Don.
As indicated above the illustration, Union Works primarily produced envelopes and enamelled papers. This would be done with paper created in the firm's Donside factories. A Descriptive Account states that Messrs. Pirie were employing nearly 1000 people at the College Street site and between one third and one half of all envelopes in Britain were being made there. The book additionally asserts that the firm were the first to introduce envelope making machines into Scotland.
The avenue shown in this illustration to the left of the factory runs from Guild Street in the north all the way down and around the south side of the works to the junction of Wellington Road, South College Street and Marywell Street.
The production of envelopes, plus other paper products such as note paper, was continued well into the 20th century by Pirie, Appleton & Co.
The Union Works site closed down not long after 1969 when Wiggins Teape began construction of a replacement factory at Dyce (see Evening Express, 4th September 1969, page 7).
The site was sold and the works were demolished to make way for the multi-storey office block, St. Machar House. Built by Sir Robert Alpine & Sons for Neale House Properties (Aberdeen) Limited, to a design by architects Mackie, Ramsay & Taylor, construction was well under way by Autumn 1975 (Evening Express, 2nd August 1975, 'Business Bureau' page 6).
Below the southern end of St. Machar House, the rest of the old Union Works site is occupied by the College Street Car Park, built by Arup and Partners (Scotland), with consulting architects Baxter, Clark & Paul, and opened on 4th July 1991. |