THOMAS
McARLYTHE President of the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, like so many others of those who have helped to build up the prosperity of the city, comes of a farming stock. His father, who was for many years a respected merchant in Glasgow, and died in 1869, came from the Almondbank district of Perthshire. His mother was a native of Bromley in Kent. Mr. McArly himself was born in Glasgow in the early forties, and was educated at the High School in John Street and Leiper's Academy in George Street. At school he took a foremost place, especially in languages, and he afterwards continued the study of these at the Athenaeum and under private tuition. At a later day he paid several visits to Spain, where his knowledge of the language proved useful.
His first business experience was gained with the old and important firm of Higginbotham & Sons, but he afterwards began business on his own account, along with the late much-respected Mr. David Guthrie. The firm, known as Messrs. Guthrie & McArly, is now merged in the Calico Printers' Association. He was also a partner in the Ferryfield Printing Company, but after having led a busy and strenuous life, retired in January, 1909.
Though no longer bound to business he is very fully engaged in a number of interests. He is chairman of the British Dyewood Co., Ltd., a director of the Scottish Union and National Insurance Co., a director of the Merchants' House, and, as already stated, is at present President of the Chamber of Commerce, in which he takes a very active interest. For years also he has devoted time to the affairs of numerous charitable institutions, having been a director of the Old Men's and Women's Home, and the Night Asylum for the Houseless. He has also taken a very deep interest in the management of the Bellefield Sanatorium for Consumptives at Lanark, of which for years he has been vice-chairman; and he is a member of the finance committee of Glasgow Savings Bank.
For many years he has had a country house at Duchally, near Crieff Junction, where he has the opportunity of indulging his taste for shooting. He has also a taste for pictures, possessing a considerable collection, chiefly by Scottish artists, and filling the position of a director of the Glasgow School of Art. He is a Liberal Unionist in politics, and since its beginning has been a member of Belhaven U.F. Church, Kelvinside.
Mr. McArly married Isabella Lang Ewing, elder daughter of the late Robert Lang Ewing, long a sugar planter in St. Croix, Danish West Indies, and he has a family of two daughters, one married to Mr. Robert Scott of Balfunning, near Balfron, and the other to Mr. T. W. M. Watson, C.A., of Glasgow and Cambus Wallace, near Biggar.