Dobbie, Forbes & Co.

Dobbie, Forbes & Co., Stove and Range Manufacturers, Larbert, and 51, Buchanan Street.—

    There are few British industries that have been more creditably developed during recent years than that of stove and range manufacture, and one of the most prominent of Scottish houses now engaged in that important branch of iron-founding is that of Messrs. Dobbie, Forbes & Co., of Larbert, Stirlingshire, and of Buchanan Street and the Hecla Foundry, Glasgow. This well-known business was established upwards of eighteen years ago at Larbert, and has been centred in its present Glasgow headquarters for about twelve months, though a depot has been conducted in the city ever since the foundation of the house. The business has been one of steady and continuous development, and under the capable control of Messrs. Robert Dobbie and William Dick, who constitute the personnel of the firm to-day, its tendencies in that respect have never lacked full scope for advantageous action.

    The works at Larbert stand among the largest and most notable industrial establishments in any part of the vicinity of that town, and afford employment to a very numerous force of hands. The equipment of the foundries, workshops, and all other departments is excellent ; the construction and arrangement of the buildings all that can be desired, and every facility is possessed that is calculated to expedite the satisfactory progress of a great and fully representative industry.

    The Glasgow premises comprise commodious and well-planned showrooms on the second floor, with an excellent assortment of the manufactures of the house ; and at Suffolk House, Lawrence Pountney Hill, London, another branch has been established, with good results in the advancement of the firm’s metropolitan trade.

    The specialities in heating and cooking apparatus, to which Messrs. Dobbie, Forbes & Co. have devoted most of their attention, comprise Anglo-American portable stoves and Anglo-American registered ranges and kitcheners. In these lines they have brought out a fine class of goods, whose merits have commended them to the public everywhere. Certainly the death-blow of the old-fashioned, clumsy, unsightly, dirty, and constantly-smoking grate ought to have been fairly struck with the introduction of Messrs. Dobbie, Forbes & Co.’s neat, novel, handsome, cleanly, cheerful, and eminently useful little Anglo-American stoves for the parlour, bedroom, cabin, office, and shop. They possess every merit that can be desired in a portable heating apparatus. The only advantage the old-fashioned grate could ever lay claim to was that of cheerful appearance — this is retained in the fullest degree by these portable stoves, while the host of defects that have made the old grate, pure and simple, rather more a nuisance than a benefit, have been entirely obviated. Messrs. Dobbie, Forbes & Co.’s “Anglo-Americans” are making their way rapidly, and their popularity is in every respect justified by their perfection.

    In the matter of ranges the firm have been equally successful, and their “Livingstone”, “Stanley”, “ Duet”, " Princess”, “ Empress”, “Enchantress” and “Larbert” ranges - the last-named a remarkably convenient, strong, efficient, and self-contained little apparatus, which has had the largest sale of any range ever made in this country — are too well known as universal favourites to need extended comment here. The house also makes a speciality of ships’ galley ranges, caboose, yacht, boat, and cabin stoves, and of tiles for every description for hearth and stove work, and shows some highly artistic and beautiful goods in this connection.

    In the matter of price, it is particularly noteworthy that Messrs. Dobbie, Forbes & Co. have fallen in well with the requirements of an economical age without in any degree allowing their manufactures to deteriorate in quality or soundness and finish of workmanship. No circumstance could more strongly accentuate the merits of this firm’s productions than the international reputation they have acquired ; and, with the one obvious exception of America — that land of stoves and stove-makers — there is hardly a quarter of the globe to which Messrs. Dobbie, Forbes & Co.’s stoves and ranges have not found their way.

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