HENRY ALEXANDER MAVOR

    SECOND son of the late Rev. James Mavor, M.A., the founder of electric engineering in Glasgow was born at Stranraer, 13th March, 1858, and came to Glasgow with his parents four years later. He was trained as an electrical engineer in the Glasgow College of Science and arts, and on the staff of Messrs. R. E. Crompton & Co. During the same period he studied science at Glasgow University, and after acting on the staff of the Swan United Company in 1882 and 1883, he began business on his own account as a partner of the firm of Muir & Mavor in December of the latter year.

    Among the chief works in which Mr. Mavor has taken part was the original lighting by electricity in 1878 of Queen Street Station, Glasgow, and Glasgow Post Office. The Glasgow Post Office contract, subsequently taken over by the firm of Muir & Mavor, was the origin of the public supply of electricity in Glasgow. A private limited company was formed under the name Muir, Mavor & Coulson, Limited, to take up the business of electric supply by meter, and a station which supplied a number of consumers in the centre of the city, including the Municipal Buildings, was developed. The business of this company was taken over in 1892 by the Glasgow Corporation under their statutory powers. The original business was afterwards converted into a private company - Mavor & Coulson, Ltd., - and transferred to new works in King Street, Mile-end. Here many important works have been carried out for the Admiralty and other departments of the Government, and among other industrial applications of electricity the firm has had the credit of introducing coal mining by electric power in Scotland.

    Mr. Mavor is a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, and of the American institution of the same kind. He is a Vice-President of the Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow. He is also a Governor of the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College, and Chairman of the Joint Committee of the Technical College and the School of Art for the carrying out of a joint scheme for the education of architects. He is one of the founders of the Automobile Club of London.

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