Frazer & Green

Messrs. Frazer & Green, Pharmaceutical Chemists to the Queen, 127, Buchanan Street.—

    One of the most notable and representative of all the notable and representative business undertakings centred to-day in Buchanan Street, Glasgow, is that now carried on under the title of Frazer & Green, pharmaceutical chemists. This distinguished house, which has from the date of its inception been associated with the famous and fashionable business thoroughfare in which it is to this day prominently situated, was founded as far back as 1830, by Mr. N. B. Frazer, eldest brother of its present well-known principal, Mr. Daniel Frazer. At Whitsuntide in that year Mr. N. B. Frazer took the shop, 105, Buchanan Street, and laid the foundation of the singularly successful and extensive business which has ever since borne his family name. He was then but a little over twenty years of age, yet he had already served fully six years’ apprenticeship at the Glasgow Apothecaries’ Hall, having entered in that capacity a few months after his father’s death, in March, 1824. The business established by him grew and prospered after the manner of all ably directed and well-managed commercial enterprises; and it is interesting to note, as an illustration of the remarkable development of Glasgow (which then contained a population of only about two hundred thousand), that for six years his was the westernmost drug shop in the city north of Argyle Street. In August, 1831, the premises were visited by a somewhat destructive fire, but the energy and spirit of the proprietor rose superior to even this discouraging event. Mr. Daniel Frazer, younger brother of Mr. N. B. Frazer, who died 10th December, 1836, has, since the death of Mr. George Green (who was assumed a partner by the founder’s widow in the spring of 1849, been sole partner of the house.

    For the past four years the business has been located at its present eligible address in Buchanan Street. The premises here occupied comprise a very handsome double-fronted shop, spacious and commodious in dimensions, with fine frontage and a very considerable rearward depth, rich and elegant in all details of appointment, complete in every matter of requisite business equipment, and thoroughly well suited to the purposes and requirements of the firm. Messrs. Frazer & Green control west-end establishments at 469, Sauchiehall Street, Charing Cross Corner, and Belmont Place, Hillhead ; and each of these branches do full credit to the parent house. Messrs. Frazer & Green operate in all departments of pharmaceutical chemistry, devoting the most careful and competent attention to the dispensing of prescriptions, and hold the royal warrant of appointment as pharmaceutical chemists to Her Majesty the Queen. Their Buchanan Street establishment contains one of the finest and most comprehensive stocks of superior drugs and chemicals, medicines, proprietary articles, toilet preparations, and pharmaceutical sundries, of guaranteed purity and high quality, to be found in any similar establishment in Great Britain.

     Many and valuable are the specialities developed and put forward by the firm ; and of these a brief and condensed mention will at this point be desirable. Large stocks are held of such noted goods as Rowland’s toilet articles ; the famous “ AEsculap,” tasteless aperient Hungarian natural mineral water ; patent medicines of all kinds, embracing everything that has become celebrated upon the basis of genuine worth ; the well-known diuretic and aperient mineral preparation, natural Karlsbad sprudel-salt ; Brand & Company’s food specialities for invalids, comprising a wide variety of nutritive meat essences, soups, meat lozenges, &c., of the finest quality ; the Liebig Company’s extract of meat ; Apollinaris mineral water ; Jansen’s well-known cod liver oil ; the Hunyadi Janos water ; Wells, Richardson & Co.’s lactated food ; Maltine ; Nestle’s food ; and Farina’s world-renowned eau de Cologne, of which this firm have been direct importers for nearly half a century. The above selection will perhaps sufficiently accentuate the fact that Messrs. Frazer & Green’s stock affords full representation to every worthy speciality and preparation that can properly be expected to find a place in the establishment of a first-class chemist.

    Among the firm’s own proprietary specialities are mentionable such well-known and highly esteemed articles as their “double-distilled” lavender water ; “British” eau de Cologne, preferred by many for its sweetness to even the original of Farina ; essence of verbena, and many other exquisite perfumes ; “Nature’s Own” saline, a mild and safe aperient, peculiarly efficacious in cases of headache, biliousness, &c. ; fruit syrups of all kinds ; tooth powders, honey water, Dalmatian insect powder, gout and rheumatic mixture, quinine and iron tonic, pomades, hair washes, bay rum, &c., &c., all being preparations of no ephemeral status. They likewise stock sponges, tooth, nail, and other brushes, soap boxes, sponge bags, nursery requisites, inhalers, elastic silk stockings, filters, sick-room thermometers, and various household sundries. A prominent feature consists in medicine chests, to the proper equipment of which great care is devoted ; and it should be mentioned that the firm have, ever since 1834, been manufacturers of a class of aerated waters which have acquired a wide reputation for purity and general excellence. Everything considered, there could not well be conceived, according to all our best criterions, a more thoroughly representative establishment than this.

    The trade controlled by the house takes effect in every quarter of the globe, and is supported both at home and abroad by the patronage of a long-established connection in the most distinguished circles. There is no better known or more generally respected name in the long list of Glasgow’s eminent and worthy citizens than that of Mr. Daniel Frazer, for upwards of a quarter of a century justice of the peace for the county of Dumbarton, where he resides, and for ten years a member of the Council of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain.

    And the city of his birth and adoption has just reason to congratulate itself upon the fact that he has found time, apart from the duties and responsibilities of a business life, to make a distinct mark in the world of literature. His “Story of the Making of Buchanan Street” (1 vol. Glasgow : James Frazer), is a delightful series of the personal reminiscences of the author during the last half-century, and charmingly and graphically portrays the various successive epochs incidental to the building-up of one of the handsomest and most interesting of Scottish city thoroughfares. Excellent reading also, for those interested in such matters, is Mr. Frazer’s lecture on the proposed changes in the Pharmacy Act of 1868, and in the educational system of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain. This able discourse was delivered before a meeting of the Chemists’ and Druggists’ Association of Glasgow, on April 10th, 1883, and exercised no inconsiderable influence on the question to which it referred. From the pen of the same versatile writer we have a most instructive and entertaining little book (now in its second edition), entitled “Paper, Pens, and Ink” (1 vol., square 8vo, 1s. David Bryce & Son, Glasgow), which furnishes a capital sketch of the principal writing materials used in all ages, with a chapter on “How and when we began to write,” all told in a lucid and concise style and manner. As a business man, as a citizen, and as a litterateur, Mr. Daniel Frazer has deserved well of Glasgow ; and the splendid success of the one representative commercial and professional undertaking over which he now presides, goes far to show that, in one sense at least, he has not failed to profit according to his deserts.

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