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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Index of Glasgow Men (1909)