Thomas Menzies
Thomas Menzies (1846-1901), Director of Menzies and Co.
Died 1901 aged 54.
"At his residence, Elstrie, Arboretum-road, Edinburgh, on the 15th inst., the death took place with painful suddenness, after a period of suffering from acute rheumatism, of Mr Thomas Menzies, of the old-established shipbuilding and ship-repairing firm of Menzies and Co., Limited, Leith.
Mr. Menzies, who was only fifty-four years of age, was joint managing director of Menzies and Co., and a grandson of Mr. Robert Menzies, who founded the business so far back as 1760.
He was born at Leith in 1846, and received a sound education at the High School of Edinburgh. After having served an apprenticeship of five years under his father at the family yard at Leith, he entered the employment of Barclay, Curle and Co., shipbuilders, Glasgow, with whom he remained for some years, and then went to the Tyne to serve with the then firm of Charles Mitchell and Co. After seven years experience with this firm he returned to Leith, and joined his father in partnership, bringing approved skill and wide experience to bear upon the conduct of work. Succeeding his father in the management, the business prospered and developed, especially as regards the ship-repairing branch, to which engineering was also added some years ago after Mr. Menzies had assumed as partner Mr. R. Russell Cockburn, and converted the business to the limited liability system. For some time past also Menzies and Co., Limited, have carried on shipbuilding at Inverkeithing. It is of interest to recall the fact that it was in the yard of Robert Menzies and Sons, the name by which the firm was then known, that the Steamer Sirius, memorable as the pioneer - with the Great Western - of Atlantic steam navigation, was built in l837, the machinery for which was made by the now extinct firm of Thomas Wingate and Co., Glasgow. On April 6th, 1837, however, the Menzies firm launched a larger steamer than the Sirius, to wit, the General Steam Navigation Company's passenger steamer Leith, of 760 tons burthen, and an over-all length of 210ft., being the largest steam vessel built in this country up to that time."
1901 Obituary [3]