Muir & Houston

MUIR & HOUSTON, Marine Engineers and Boiler Makers for Merchant Vessels, Harbour Engine Works, Portman Street, Kinning Park, Glasgow.

    The steady and substantial progress of the engineering industries in and around Glasgow has been marked by the rise and development of many firms that have become known and distinguished over a wide area in connection with some special branch or branches of production. Concerns of this kind have modelled the industrial character of Glasgow with a firm hand and in an enduring form ; and among the many prominent houses that have played a part in building up the city’s reputation in this respect, a high position is held by that of Messrs. Muir & Houston, of Harbour Engine Works.

    This firm has greatly distinguished itself in the manufacture of all descriptions of marine engines and steam boilers. The works are of very considerable extent, fully two-thirds of the area being covered by the buildings, offices, and workshops. The principal engineering shop is a model of complete equipment in all parts. The machinery in operation is of the most improved modern type, and the entire arrangement of the place indicates how carefully and thoroughly the sources have been developed, in order that the various classes of work here undertaken might be accomplished with rapidity, economy, and efficiency. Some of the most powerful machine tools are here to be seen in operation — drilling, boring, cutting, and performing prodigious feats in a few minutes which would have occupied our grandfathers for several days. So great are the facilities in this respect that the firm have, up to the end of August of this year (1891), been able to turn out at the rate of one set of marine engines and
boilers per week, viz., thirty-six sets. The large shop is full of machinery in a multiplicity of forms, each apparatus doing its own special work with the utmost regularity and precision as required.

    The blacksmith’s shop with its numerous forges, steam-hammers, etc., etc., is another notable department well worthy of a visit. There are many other buildings incidental to the industry carried on, and all are well planned and commodious, the most prominent being the engine and boiler houses, the pattern shops, and the various stores. The air of busy activity which pervades the establishment will not fail to impress the visitor with a sense of the magnitude of the industry to which these fine premises and their costly equipment are devoted. The firm devotes a large share of its attention to the introduction of boilers of the leading types, and contracts in this department are carried out in the most thorough manner, Messrs. Muir & Houston embodying in all their work the latest improvements that mechanical science has been able to devise.

    The firm altogether has developed a business and industry of exceptional magnitude and influence, and it will universally be admitted throughout the engineering world that Messrs. Muir & Houston have won a splendid position in the line of operations they follow. They employ five hundred hands, and, in addition to the large and valuable home connection maintained, control also an immense export trade, and send their machinery to win added fame and extended renown in every quarter of the globe.

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