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Summary
Author: Binnie, Thomas
Title: Memoir of Thomas Binnie builder in Glasgow 1792-1867. By his son Thomas.
Publication: Glasgow, "printed for private circulation" 1882.
Price: Sold
Reference: 11356
Full Description
8vo. viii + 166pp, actual mounted photo frontispiece. Original quarter morocco, cloth sides. No ownership inscription but Sir Howard Colvin’s copy.
A rare privately printed memoir of Thomas Binnie (born Thomas Binning), a journeyman mason who learned his skills while working at Lowther Castle in the 1810s and was to become one of Glasgow’s principal master builders and property developers in the middle years of the nineteenth century. Binnie’s career was based on hard work and religious belief (he was an active member of a Reformed Presbyterian congregation), and there are few comparable memoirs of self-made entrepreneurs in the nineteenth century building trade.