Michael Nairn (entrepreneur, 1804)

Michael Nairn

Michael Nairn (born April 4, 1804 , probably in Kirkcaldy , † January 18, 1858 ) was a Scottish businessman and producer of cotton fabrics and floor coverings .

life and work

Michael Nairn was the son of James Nairn and his wife Isabel, nee Barker. He was probably born in Kirkcaldy, Scotland, in 1804 and returned to this place after training with a weaver in Dundee . In 1828 he opened his own weaving, in which he mainly canvases from cotton produced and marketed them worldwide. In the 1840s, he also supplied a number of British flooring manufacturers with cotton cloths as a carrier material for oil cloths.

In 1848 he opened his own factory producing oilcloths with the Scottish Floorcloth Manufactory and in the 1850s he developed his own method of printing these floor coverings and introduced it to the market. He advertised that oil cloths could now be produced with the same delicacy, accuracy and appearance of velvet carpets through his method.

Michael Nairn died on January 18, 1858, leaving his widow Catharine (1815-1891), the daughter of Alexander Ingram of Kirkcaldy, with whom he had six sons and two daughters. She became the sole owner of the company from which she built Michael Nairn & Co. and which their son Sir Michael Barker Nairn joined in 1861. Under this Michael Nairn & Co was the world one of the largest producers of flooring and becoming the largest competitor for linoleum works by Frederick Walton in the late 19th century.

literature

• Anne Pimlott Baker: Nairn, Sir Michael Barker, first baronet (1838–1915) In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press 2004 ( online, access required )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ "floorcloth Could now be produced with 'all the richness, the minuteness, and the finish of a velvet-pile carpet' (Art Journal, 1 Dec 1862)" , by Anne Baker Pimlott