Identity area
Type of entity
Authorized form of name
James Allison & Sons (Sailmakers) Ltd, Dundee
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
History
The firm may be said to have been founded when James Allison set up as a rope and sailmaker in Dock Street in 1860. In the 1870s the firm became James Allison & Sons and by the 1880s was trading as rope and sailmakers, shipchandlers, out and bonded and free store merchants as well as being shipowners. The two vessels which feature most in the firm's records, for which Allisons were part owners and acted as managing agents, are the ships 'Countess of Rothes', built in 1876 and sold in 1896, and the ship 'Countess of Derby', built in 1877 and sold in 1895. The firm also owned shares in whalers and James Allison (d.1925), a son of the founder, was director of a number of whaling companies. Allisons later became involved in the manufacture and hiring out of tents and marquees, including those for circuses. On the death of Charles Allison in 1953 his son and former partner James established the firm as a limited company, James Allison & Sons (Sailmakers) Ltd. In 1972-1973 Allisons were acquired by the Dundee, Perth and London Shipping Co. Ltd. (DP & LS) and were merged with Andrew Gray Ltd., a firm of shipchandlers taken over by the DP & LS in 1955, to form Allison-Gray Ltd. James Allison & Sons (Sailmakers) Ltd. were subsequently wound up. Allison-Gray Ltd. still trades although its parent company, DP & LS, is now part of the Coalite Group PLC.