Scottish shale Scottish shale

Broxburn Shale Oil Co. Ltd.

Company number:
Registered in Scotland, No. 102
Share capital:
£200
Started:
27th March 1862
Finished:
Resolution to wind-up, 5th October 1863, Dissolved 17th January 1866
Registered office:

36 Renfield Street, Glasgow - 27th March 1862
49 West George Street, Glasgow - 16th April 1862
125 Buchanan Street, Glasgow - 14th September, 1864
48 Gordon Street, Glasgow - 30th May 1865

Oil works:
Broxburn - Albyn Oil Works

The first limited company operating in the shale oil industry, and one of the first to be wound-up. The company appears to have collapsed before their oil works were fully complete. The works were subsequently taken over by E.W. Fernie, and then by the Glasgow Oil Co. (Broxburn) Ltd which had several shareholders in common with the Broxburn Shale Oil Co. Ltd.

It appears that the company was sometimes referred to as "Faulds & Co."

Directors

  • William Brown - Glasgow, Timber Merchant - Chairman
  • Robert Faulds - Glasgow, Timber Merchant
  • William Hindshaw - Glasgow, Manufacturer

  • Newspaper references

      • At an Extraordinary General Meeting of The BROXBURN SHALE OIL COMPANY (Limited), held at the Offices of the Company, No. 49, West George Sfreet, Glasgow, on Monday the 5th day of October 1863, the following Special Resolution was unanimously passed, and confirmed at a subsequent Extraordinary General Meeting held at the same place, on Tuesday the 20th day of October 1863, viz. :— "Resolved, as a Special Resolution, within the meaning of the 51st Clause of 'The Companies Act 1862,' that this Company be forthwith wound up voluntarily.' WM. BROWN, Chairman.

      Edinburgh Gazette, 23rd October 1863

      .......

      Mr. Faulds, in company with some others, erected a small work in 1862, just north of Canal-Bridge No. 28, and set up 36 horizontal retorts, but they abandoned the works shortly afterwards because the price of crude oil fell below a shilling per gallon. Mr. Fernie then took up the works in 1864, added 32 vertical retorts, and abandoned them in 1866; they were restarted, however, shortly after by a firm known as the " Glasgow Oil Company ".

      Primrose, Strathbrock or The History and Antiquities of the Parish of Uphall, 1898

  • Associated references

      • Registration Records transcribed from dissolved company records held by the National Archives of Scotland.

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