Born at Nether Lauchope on 24 June 1792, Binnie came from farming stock. In 1819 he started work as a builder and soon attained a reputation for thoroughness, walking many hours to inspect sites and to spend time with his subcontractors.
He became mainly associated with construction in Glasgow, in the east end and on the south side, for instance in the Hutchesontown and Laurieston areas of the Gorbals.
He had an interest in philanthropy, becoming involved in schemes for temperance and black emancipation. He was a member of the Reformed Presbyterian Church and one of his two sons, Dr William Binnie, became a Professor of Church History in the Free Church College of Aberdeen. His other son, Thomas Binnie, became a successful property valuator in Glasgow.
THOMAS BINNIE, a builder and prominent property valuator long resident in the City, came of that small-farmer class of the people of Scotland which has ever been the bone and marrow of the country. His forebears for many generations had owned the upland farm of Coxhill, in Muiravonside parish. Thomas Binnie was born at Nether Lauchope on the 24th of June, 1792. His mother, Margaret Rodger, was a daughter of James Rodger, tenant, like his fathers before him, of the farm of Foulyett, on the estate of Lauchope. In the killing times they had been Cameronians, and more than one had suffered for the cause. It was, no doubt, the Covenanting blood he got from his mother that made him such a staunch adherent to the Reformed Presbyterian Church. On his father's side, his ancestors had all been big men, and he was no degenerate scion. To the day of his death there were few men in Glasgow of a more imposing appearance; six feet three in height, with a singularly wide and deep chest, he gave one a most vivid impression of power.
In the year 1819 Mr. Binnie began business in Glasgow as a builder on his own account. It was a favourable time to begin. The population, which had been steadily increasing for years, had outgrown the accommodation, and the building trade was consequently brisker during the ten years from 1820 to 1830 than it had ever been before. From the beginning, Mr. Binnie prospered as a builder. His motto was "Thorough." Whatever work he had on hand - and at times he had a great deal - he looked after it himself. One summer he built the mansion-house of Newton, a little east of Cambuslang, and often he visited his men there before breakfast. He left home shortly after five so as to be at Westfield Quarry, near Rutherglen, of which he was lessee, at six. He then went on to Newton, and returned to a late breakfast after a walk of nearly twelve miles. And this was the beginning of the day's work. On another occasion he had the contract for the mason-work of a church at Muirkirk. When the work was finished he drove to Muirkirk, measured the work of each sub-contractor, paid them all, and had everything finished by the evening; as he had not intended to return that night, he had sent back the carriage in which he had come. When everything was over, however, he found he was expected to preside at a supper provided by the sub-contractors. As he was a most temperate man, and this would involve a night's hard drinking, he resolved to walk back to Glasgow, at least thirty miles over a wild road. He set off at once and, walking all night, arrived in Glasgow early next morning.
During the railway mania of 1845, he was largely employed as a valuator, and he long had the reputation of being the best witness in Glasgow in all matters connected with property. A good instance of Mr. Binnie's care and conscientiousness as a witness occurred in connection with one of the Clyde Bridges Bills, when he was upwards of seventy years of age. Alarming evidence having been led as to the dangerous state of the old Jail Bridge, the other side put Mr. Binnie into the box, who laughed at this evidence, which he said was greatly exaggerated.
It was a Tuesday, and from some cause or other the committee adjourned to the Thursday before Mr. Binnie was cross-examined. As the condition of the bridge was a vital point, he was asked to go to Glasgow and confirm his impression. He left London that night; examined the bridge minutely next day, both from the land and the water, and the same evening left for London. The train met with an accident at Carlisle, where he received a slight injury, but he continued his journey and appeared in the witness box on Thursday. On being pressed by the cross-examining counsel as to when he had last seen the bridge, he gave him the coup de grace of "yesterday," and then the whole story came out.
Mr. Binnie's building operations, besides the East-end, were mostly in Hutchesontown and Laurieston. He was a feuar from Mr. Laurie, and built a good deal on his own account; but probably he did more as contractor for others. We are so accustomed to a great town on the south side of the Clyde that we never think how new it all is. It is the fact, nevertheless, that there are people now alive in Glasgow old enough to remember the "South Side" almost without a house except the cluster at the south end of Bishop Rae's great bridge. The greater part of southern Glasgow is built on the barony of Gorbals. In 1650, Sir Robert Douglas, of Blackerston, sold these lands to the Magistrates of Glasgow for behoof of the Corporation of Glasgow, Hutchesons' Hospital, and the Trades' House. The Hospital had right to a half of the barony, for which they seem to have paid £3388 17s. 9 4/12d. sterling.
From an early period there had been a small village at the south end of Bishop Rae's, now Hutchesontown Bridge, but outside of this village the lands for many years after the purchase lay unenclosed, rough and uncultivated. Gradually they were brought under tillage and by the end of last century they had been divided into fields and were in a fair state of cultivation. The City was getting more and more crowded, and the tide of population threatened to roll over the haughs of the Gorbals. To avoid the inconveniences of pro indiviso ownership in such circumstances, the Corporation, Hutchesons' Hospital, and the Trades' House agreed on a division, which was carried into effect in 1792. The Corporation got the west-most lot, which included the ground from West Street to the Kinning House Burn and an irregularly shaped piece of land between the Pollokshaws Road and Eglinton Street. One of the field names of this portion still remains in the Gushetfaulds Station of the Caledonian Railway. The Trades' House got the great block between West Street, Eglinton Street, and the Clyde, now known as Tradeston. Hutchesons' Hospital got, speaking roughly, what lies between Eglinton Street on the west and the Blind Burn on the east, including the old village of Gorbals, as well as some parks on the south of the Barony. This portion extended to 208 acres imperial, and about this time were let on a sixteen years' lease for a rent of £613 1s. 4d. The return in 1880 was £17,321 4s. 9d.
After the division, feuing was begun immediately, and by 1807 the whole lands as far south as Cumberland Street had been laid out for building. A good many tenements had been built in Tradeston. On the Hospital property the only new buildings were in the then greatly-admired Carlton Place, named, no doubt, after the Prince of Wales' London House. These houses were built by Mr. David Laurie, timber merchant, Glasgow, one of the first of our great land speculators. In 1802, Mr. Laurie feued from Hutchesons' Hospital the Kirkcroft of 12 acres 2 roods 1 fall for a feu-duty of £475 4s. 9d., and the Hospital's part of the Trades' croft of 7 acres 3 roods 4 falls for a feu-duty of £242 17s. 1d.
This enormous feu forms the rectangular block bounded by Bridge Street on the west, Cavendish Street on the south, Buchan and Portugal Streets on the east, and the Clyde on the north. He at once laid out the district for building, and gave it the name, which it keeps to this day, of Laurieston. What is now Abbotsford Place was then Laurie Street. Mr. Laurie had a leaning towards aristocratic names, as witness Portland, Cavendish, Bedford, Salisbury, Cumberland, and Warwick Streets. Bridge Street was then Bloomsbury Street, and Eglinton, Marlborough Street. The name of the last was changed when the canal was made to Paisley, Lord Eglinton being Chairman of the Canal Company. By the year 1827, the ground had been laid off as far as the Cavalry Barracks, near the south end of Eglinton Street, better remembered as the Poorhouse, and a large number of buildings, all or nearly all dwelling-houses, had been erected. West of the Kinning House Burn, however - that is west and south of Pollok Street - there were nothing but corn-fields and trees, except a few villas. Some of the best coursing in the county was to be got where Pollokshields now stands, and indeed right down to the Paisley Road.
By the end of another twenty years the south side had begun to assume very much its present aspect, so far, at least, as Glasgow is concerned. The town, however, stopped at the line of the Terminus railway. After that came those snug villas which made the Renfrew Road so pleasant. Greenbank, Mavisbank, Plantation, Haughhead, Cessnockbank, the very names seem to breathe a spirit of retired quiet. There were no pig-iron stores - surely the most dismal of sights known to mortal man - and no factories. On one side was the river and on the other green fields, with the Renfrewshire hills closing in the view. Then came Govan - not the dirty, noisy town of today, with its endless streets of gaunt, shoddy houses, but a small, quiet, bien Scotch village, with one street of thatched cottages, and a short cross street leading down to the ferry. Close to the ferry was the village green, where the villagers spent their summer evenings, watching the salmon-fishers drawing goodly takes of the famous Clyde salmon where the Clyde and Kelvin unite. The work of extension still goes on. Soon mighty docks will swallow up Plantation and stretch south of Cessnock, while wharves are to be constructed on the lands of Shieldhall. Renfrew and Paisley had better be on the watch or Govan may have an annexation bill to include them both!
Mr. Binnie, though he never took part in public affairs, took a warm interest in such philanthropic schemes as the agitation for negro emancipation and the temperance cause. The time and thought which might have been given to imperial or local affairs were, with not a small share of his means, ungrudgingly bestowed upon the Reformed Presbyterian Church, to which he belonged. The ministers of that Church were, with comparatively few exceptions, his warm personal friends. His home was their constant resort, and he their trusted counsellor in all matters of difficulty. In 1867 he died full of years, a type of Scotchman that, to our sorrow be it said, is becoming scarcer every year.
Mr. Binnie's surviving sons are, Dr. William Binnie, Professor of Church History in the Free Church College of Aberdeen, and Mr. Thomas Binnie, the well-known property valuator in Glasgow.
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