Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-30T21:58:52.874Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Scottish house factoring profession

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 July 2011

Duncan Sim
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The tenement is the traditional form of urban housing in Scotland and most tenements were built for rent. From the early nineteenth century onwards, private landlords in Scotland employed ‘factors’ to manage the houses on their behalf, responsible for houseletting, rent collection and the organization of repairs and maintenance. This paper examines the nature of the house factoring profession in terms of its organization and uses case studies to illustrate the way individual firms operated. The representation of the profession through factors’ associations is also examined and there is a consideration of the negative image which factors have acquired. The paper explores the changing nature of factoring as tenement flats have been sold off and factors have become agents not for individual landlords but for a multiplicity of owner-occupiers.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 23 , Issue 3 , December 1996 , pp. 351 - 371
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 G. Gordon, ‘The changing city’, in idem (ed.), Perspectives of the Scottish City (Aberdeen, 1985), 7.

2 Gibb, A., Glasgow – the Making of a City (London, 1983), 124Google Scholar.

3 W. Miller, ‘Politics in the Scottish city 1832–1982’, in Gordon, Perspectives of the Scottish City, 190.

4 Checkland, S.G., The Upas Tree. Glasgow 1875–1975 (Glasgow, 1981), 25Google Scholar.

5 H. Fraser, ‘Labour and the changing city’, in Gordon, Perspectives of the Scottish City, 165.

6 Miller, ‘Politics in the Scottish city 1832–1982’, 192.

7 McCrone, D. and Elliott, B., Property and Power in a City. The Sociological Significance of Landlordism (London, 1989), 24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Prebble, J., The Highland Clearances (London, 1963)Google Scholar; Grimble, I., The Trial of Patrick Sellar (London, 1962)Google Scholar.

9 Blackstock, C., The Factor's Wife (London, 1964)Google Scholar.

10 Smith, I. Crichton, Consider the Lilies (London, 1968)Google Scholar.

11 R. Burns, The Twa Dogs: a Tale (date unknown).

12 McArthur, A. and Long, H. Kingsley, No Mean City (London, 1935), 2–3Google Scholar.

13 Keating, M., The City that Refused to Die. Glasgow: the Politics of Urban Regeneration (Aberdeen, 1988)Google Scholar.

14 Glasgow Herald, 15 March 1972.

15 Shaw, G.B., Widowers' Houses (London, 1893).Google Scholar

16 Property Magazine, 1927.

17 Gauldie, E., Cruel Habitations: A History of Working-Class Housing, 1780–1918 (London, 1974), 182Google Scholar.

18 Morgan, N.J. and Daunton, M.J., ‘Landlords in Glasgow: a study of 1900’, Business History, 25.3 (1983), 264–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 M.J. Daunton, ‘Introduction’, in idem (ed.), Housing the Workers, 1850–1914. A Comparative Perspective (Leicester, 1990), 17.

20 Morgan and Daunton, ‘Landlords in Glasgow’, 264–86.

21 Morgan, N.J., ‘John Campbell McKellar’, in Slaven, A. and Checkland, S. (eds), Dictionary of Scottish Business Biography 1860–1960, vol. 2 (Aberdeen, 1990), 150–3Google Scholar.

22 Atherton, C.M., ‘The development of the middle class suburb: the West End of Glasgow’, Scottish Economic and Social History, 11 (1991), 19–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 Morgan and Daunton, ‘Landlords in Glasgow’.

24 Elliott, B. and McCrone, D., ‘Landlords in Edinburgh: some preliminary findings’, Sociological Review, 23.3 (1975), 539–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 Elliott, B. and McCrone, D. and Skelton, V., ‘Property and political power: Edinburgh 1875–1975’, in Garrard, J. et al. (eds), The Middle Class in Politics (Farnborough, 1978), 92–132Google Scholar.

26 Ibid., 126.

27 R. Rodger, ‘Introduction’, in idem (ed.), Scottish Housing in the Twentieth Century (Leicester, 1989), 9.

28 R. Rodger, ‘Crisis and confrontation in Scottish housing 1880–1914’, in idem, Scottish Housing in the Twentieth Century, 41.

29 Fraser, W., The House Factor's Educational Equipment: Suggestions of Suitable Study (Glasgow, 1901)Google Scholar.

30 Ballantyne, H., Report of the Royal Commission on the Housing of the Industrial Population of Scotland, Rural and Urban, Cd. 8731 (Edinburgh, 1918)Google Scholar.

31 Report of the Departmental Committee on House-Letting in Scotland, vol. 1 (Report), Cd. 3715; vol. 2 (Evidence), Cd. 3792 (Edinburgh, 1907)Google Scholar.

32 Personal communication fron N.J. Morgan.

33 Englander, D., Landlord and Tenant in Urban Britain, 1838–1918 (Oxford, 1983)Google Scholar.

34 ibid.

35 Departmental Committee (1907).

36 Englander, Landlord and Tenant.

37 Glasgow Herald, 18 December 1909,9.

38 Report of the Committee on the Rent Restriction Acts (the Constable Committee), Cmd 2423 (London, 1925), 50–1Google Scholar.

39 Damer, S., ‘State, class and housing: Glasgow 1885–1919’, in Melling, J. (ed.), Housing, Social Policy and the State (London, 1980), 73–112Google Scholar.

40 Daunton, M.J., House and Home in the Victorian City: Working Class Housing 1850–1914 (London, 1983), 173Google Scholar.

41 O'Carroll, A., The Development of Owner Occupation in Edinburgh 1918–1939 (unpublished Heriot-Watt University Ph.D. thesis, 1994)Google Scholar.

42 Quoted in Simpson, M.A., ‘Middle class housing and the growth of suburban communities in the West End of Glasgow, 1830–1914” (unpublished University of Glasgow B.Litt. thesis, 1970), ch. 2Google Scholar.

43 Glasgow Herald,30 January 1875.

44 Morgan and Daunton, ‘Landlords in Glasgow’.

45 Glasgow Landlords Association, Annual Report (Glasgow, 1888), 41Google Scholar.

46 Personal communication from Ian Hart, Hacking and Paterson.

47 Personal communication from Jack Fulton, Winning and Fulton.

48 Information on Archibald Stewart and Son is taken from Norman, P., The Tenements of Partick (Glasgow, 1978)Google Scholar, itself based on personal researches and recollections.

49 Kemp, P., The Changing Ownership Structure of the Privately Rented Sector. A Case Study of Partick East 1964 to 1978, University of Glasgow Centre for Urban and Regional Research Discussion Paper 17 (Glasgow, 1979)Google Scholar.

50 Ibid.