PENICUIK AND FINLAND

Notes from PCAA's exhibition: Penicuik Looking Back, organised with Penicuik Historical Society and Midlothian Council in May 1997 at the Cowan Institute (Penicuik Town Hall)

A man who started life in Penicuik played an important part in the industrial and social development of Finland, yet he remains little known here in Scotland. James Finlayson left his name and reputation in the Finnish city of Tampere and the company he founded there, Finlayson-Forssa. It is believed that he was born in Penicuik on 28th August 1772. In those days the American colonies were still governed by the British Parliament. Penicuik in 1772 was a small papermaking community where local people had a stake in international trade. The parish church of St Mungo had been newly rebuilt in a classical style similar to many of the colonial buildings going up across the Atlantic.

James' mother, Margaret McLairin, was married to James Finlayson, a tailor in Penicuik. The vague baptism record in Penicuik's parish register leaves out details of their child's name and sex, perhaps suggesting that the Finlaysons were members of a dissenting religious group. There were many such groups in Scotland at that time and weavers and tailors were often associated with them. Certainly James himself was to be a dissenter later in life.

In his early years, James and his parents probably moved to Glasgow. By the time he was ten years old, the double acting rotary steam engine had been invented by James Watt of Greenock and the west of Scotland was beginning to be a ferment of industrial development and trade. Nothing is known of James Finlayson's early interests or training. But we can assume that he became well-versed in the intricacies of machine building, and that it was textile machinery that he was most closely involved with. Scotland was developing textile industries fast. David Dale's massive works at New Lanark and a new cotton mill at Penicuik were just two examples among the many springing up across the country to take advantage of local water power, boosted by Richard Arkwright's grim determination to help Scotland overtake the Lancashire spinners he believed had unfairly copied his earlier inventions.

Was it with benefit of Arkwright training that James Finlayson travelled to St Petersburg in the reign of Czar Alexander I? Five years younger than James Finlayson, Alexander Romanoff had succeeded to the Russian throne on the assassination of his father Paul I in 1801. The new Czar was heartily approved of in Scotland as one suitably Îenlightened' who would unshackle the peasantry and promote Russian education and prosperity. He made peace with Britain in 1801. A brief realignment with Napoleon in 1808 brought Russia and Britain into conflict again, and Russia's naval expedition to Lisbon was captured by the Royal Navy (some prisoners being held at Penicuik?). Russia took Finland from Sweden in 1809. By 1812 she had rejoined Britain and her allies, and made possible Napoleon's final overthrow.

After Waterloo in 1815 Czar Alexander Romanoff became deeply interested in simple religion and good works. He began to encourage the British and Foreign Bible Society in Russia, and sought practical ways to promote Russia's education and industrial development. James Finlayson came to St Petersburg to become master machinist in the Kolpino Workshops. He was associated with the Society of Friends (Quakers). Alexander Romanoff wanted help from members of the Society in carrying out various engineering projects and they looked to him to fulfil his potential as a force for world peace and national reform. According to Finnish sources, James Finlayson and Alexander Romanoff were friends, and the Czar, like James, attended Quaker meetings.

It was in 1820 that James Finlayson and his friend John Paterson, the Bible Society's organiser for Russia, left St Petersburg for a tour of the neighbouring Grand Duchy of Finland. Here James Finlayson saw the fast flowing waters at Tammerfors. Hydraulic power in abundance: the perfect place for a new factory to make machinery for Russia's expanding empire. Czar Alexander visited the spot and gave his personal support, the water power was harnessed and Tampere, Finland's second city and home of its industrial revolution, was born. From making textile machinery, Finlayson's business progressed to making the textiles themselves.

Daniel Wheeler of the Society of Friends described Finlayson's departure from St Petersburg. "He is a solid man, between forty and fifty years of age. It would have been pleasant for us to have kept him here, but I hope he will be instrumental of much good where he has gone." Finland remembers him as "a demanding and prestige-conscious employer· despite his abrupt ways, a respected man of the town·The person himself was very mysterious·a real industrial man, by spirit and blood - a man of the future." In letters, Finlayson told of difficulties he met in running the new factory and of the natural disasters and famines that afflicted the area. With his Glasgow-born wife Margaret, he gave succour to many who had been reduced to begging, by arranging food, jobs at the factory, or work on the land. The couple also began Finland's first provision for orphans.

Czar Alexander's sudden death in 1825 ushered in a period of repression and reducing prosperity. Broken in health and fortune, Finlayson finally gave up the Tammerfors factory to creditors and returned to Scotland in 1837. First at Govan, then at Nicholson Square, Edinburgh, he lived with his wife until his death in 1852, attending the nearby Friends' Meeting House at the Pleasance. They had no children.

In 1970 a headstone was raised by the Finlayson-Forssa company on James Finlayson's unmarked grave in Newington Cemetery, to be maintained by J&P Coats of Paisley as a gesture of Scottish-Finnish friendship. And in 1988 Edinburgh's Lord Provost unveiled a plaque in Nicholson Square to "James Finlayson, industrialist and philanthropist, born Penicuik 1772 died 1852... Around his great textile manufacturing enterprise in Finland grew that country's second city of Tampere. His spiritual qualities and his love of mankind have seen to his name being one deeply respected in Finland's industrial and national history."