Tudor House

The Owners:

James Whyte was born in Glasgow in 1844, a son to Alexander Whyte (manufacturer) and Marion (Gebbis) Whyte. Little appears to have been written about his early life but the following article, on the website ‘whisky merchants’ tells us about how he became involved in whisky manufacture.

“Prior to founding Whyte and MacKay, James Whyte and Charles MacKay joined the Glasgow Warehousing firm of Allan & Poynter as bonded warehousemen sometime in the 1860s /70s, just after William Scott took over the reins.  By the late 1870s the firm was warehousing more and more whisky as wine and spirit merchants sought a substitute for brandy which was unavailable due to the grape vine disease phylloxera.^[10]

When William Scott died in 1882, his widow sold the business to James Whyte and Charles MacKay. One of the conditions of sale was that they were not to use the name Allan & Poynter, and thus the firm was renamed Whyte and MacKay.  Confident that their future lay with whisky blending, the two partners invested in a blending plant and suitable premises in Robertson Lane, Glasgow. ^[10]

Initially blending to customer’s orders, they quickly launched a new blended whisky under their own joint names the ‘Whyte &MacKay’ special. ^[10]

In the early 20^th century, times got tough for Scottish distillers and independent bottlers. Shady financial practices amongst bottlers became commonplace and when one firm Pattison, Elder & Co. declared bankruptcy in 1896, ten other business with whom they’d done business failed alongside them. The “Pattison Crash” as it became known, initiated a softening in whisky prices and triggered a cascade of closures, contractions and output reductions throughout the Scottish whisky industry. By 1906, production has dropped below 24m gallons, a reduction of nearly a third in 9 years. Whyte and MacKay weathered this crisis and the drop in sales and production. Charles MacKay passed away in 1918, the same year Whyte and MacKay became a limited company.” ^{[10] [11]}

James married Lucy (Waddington) Whyte in Islington, London in 1893. At the time, Lucy who was born in 1864 to Hartley Waddington (merchant) and Sarah Anne (Hatersley) Waddington, would have been 29 and James 49. ^[12]

In 1895, the couple were living in Robertson Street in Glasgow but also owned Taymouth, now Burncroft, on Seton Terrace, Skelmorlie. Their first son Randolph James Waddington Whyte was born a year later in 1896, and a second son, Hartley Waddington Whyte was born in December 1897. ^[4][12]

The family were staying at Taymouth at the time of the 1901 census: James then 57, Lucy 36, Randolph and Hartley then 5 and 3 respectively. Staying with them was James’s brother, John, whose occupation was listed as mechanical engineer and visitor Martha Barclay, a widow aged 60 who was living on own means. There were two servants living-in, a Mary Mcdonald, cook and domestic from Blantyre and a Jeanie Brown, housemaid, aged 17 originally from Greenock.  Alexander Waddington Whyte, the youngest son was born in 1901 at Taymouth (obviously after the census!) ^[13]

A few years later, work commenced on the build of Tudor House, with the valuation roll of 1905, giving the proprietor as Mrs Lucy Waddington Whyte, wife of James Whyte and telling us the house is in course of erection. Interestingly, ownership of Tudor House is never in James’s name always Lucy’s, whether this is for tax planning purposes or Lucy has money in her right, we don’t know. ^[4]

By the time of the 1911 census, the family are living at Tudor House. James is 67 and is there with his 3 sons; Randolph then 18, Hartley aged 13 and Alexander aged 9, who are all being schooled at home. There is no mention of Lucy. Also staying at the house was James’s brother John, aged 73. At the time there were 3 servants living-in: John Catchpole aged 31, born Midlothian, Marion Johnson, aged 28, who was cook and hailed from Inverness and presumably her sister, Kate Johnson, aged 24 who is listed as the housemaid also born Inverness. ^[13]

James Whyte died in 1921 at home in Tudor House. By this time, we assume Hartley and Alex are working in the family business. Randolph, the eldest appears to have become an engineer. ^[12]

Tragically in July 1928, Randolph accidentally drowned in the sea at Kildalton on Islay in the middle of the afternoon. His usual residence is given as Tudor House, Skelmorlie. ^[12] Turning back to the family business…

“For small concerns like Whyte and MacKay, the going was rough in the 1920’s and the firm was restructured in 1926 to reduce its capital stock levels. Trade began to pick up in the late 1920s with a resurgence of export orders, particularly from North America, followed by a growth in exports to Australia and New Zealand in the 1930s. ^[10]

Again, prospects were hit by the outbreak of the second World War. It was not until the 1950’s, under the direction of Hartley and Alex Whyte, that the recovery was sustained with a new advertising campaign. With the end of voluntary rationing on the home markets, Whyte and MacKay began to build its sales in the UK. ^[10]

In 1960 the company acquired Dalmore Distillery in the NE of Scotland and was renamed Damore, Whyte and MacKay. During 1963, Whyte & MacKay pioneered the 40 oz bottle size for use in bars.  By 1965 Whyte and MacKay was the fifth most popular brand in Scotland. A successful redoubling of efforts in export markets, followed this achievement. In 1971 the company was sold to Sir Hugh Fraser’s Scottish and Universal Investments Ltd (SUI)” ^[10]

There are few public records of that time that tell us more about the family. We know that Hartley became Major Hartley Whyte, presumably from service during WW2, that in due course he became chairman of the company and was ‘infatuated’ with cars. ^[14]

Alex also had a love of cars, in 1929, Alex bought himself a Bentley 4.5 Litre ‘Le Mans Replica’. This car shows up for sale on Bonhams website in 2017 and from here we learn that H.M Bentley and Partners sold it to A.W Whyte of Tudor House, Ayrshire, Scotland and that it was registered for the road in July 1929 as “AG4554”. ^[15]

This car is remembered by at least one local lady, Patsy Cathcart. Patsy who had been at Tudor House altering some skirts for Mrs Whyte, recalls been driven home, a few streets in the Bentley, and all the curtains ‘twitching’ as it pulled up outside her house. ^[16]

Sometime between 1930 and 1935, ownership of Tudor House passed from Mrs Lucy Waddington Whyte to her youngest son Alexander, although she continued to live there as a tenant. ^[4]

In 1939, Lucy died aged 75 years, at home in Tudor House. ^[12]

It’s not clear how long Alex lived on at Tudor House, but the suggestion is that he was still in the village until the early 1970s. From reminisces on the local history site, we learn that Alex Whyte also owned an Aston Martin DB4/6 and was an excellent scratch golfer, winning the local Skelmorlie Club championship in 1956 and played for Ayrshire and for Scotland in home internationals. He is also remembered for his generosity of spirit and action. ^[15][16]

We are told that the next owners of Tudor House were Mr Archie and Mrs Jenny Pearson but without title deeds we do not know exactly when the property changed hands. Our working assumption is around the mid-1970s.^[15][17]

However, we do know that after the Pearsons, Mr Jack & Mrs Mary Paton and their two children, moved to Tudor House in 1983/4 and made it their family home for the next 25 years.  Jack was originally brought up in Sandybrae Road in Skelmorlie and attended the village school, Largs Academy and then Greenock High, before moving away. ^[17]

During their time at Tudor House, the family spent a lot of time ‘lovingly and sympathetically’ upgrading the 5-bedroom home. One of the first jobs entailed removing all the virginia creeper from the house, which as Jack described ‘whilst magnificent, had been allowed to grow wild and was getting in between stone blocks and windowpanes and allowing water ingress’.  Thereafter, they then had the painstaking job of repointing the front of the house. On the roof they had to replace all the lead flashings in the gullies and on the chimneys and replace internal timbers upstairs, which were affected by both wet and dry rot. In 1995 they replaced a lean-to glass house at the back of the house, with a conservatory and knocked through to the kitchen.

During their twenty- five years at Tudor House, the Patons also upgraded the kitchen, lowered, and barrelled the ceiling in that room and decorated throughout. In the garden, they reinstated the paths, added shrubs and flowers and rebuilt the partially collapsed sandstone balustrade along the front of the house. For the latter, Jack recalls that he and his son made fibreglass moulds to replicate the broken balusters and top sections, which they filled with concrete that matched the colour of the original sandstone. Another small touch was the addition of the words ‘Tudor House’ to the gate pillars. ^[17][18]

Asked about the tower, Jack recalled that it was accessed via a steep staircase rising from the Minstrel’s Gallery. At the top of the stairs, there was a 12 ft square room with an enormous water tank which gave the house its water pressure. From there, the top of the tower and a flagpole was accessed through a hatch. ^[17]

The Paton’s moved away in 2009, at which point Finnish striker Jonatan Johansson, 33 (who played for Hibs, Rangers and Charlton) and his wife Jean Johansson purchased Tudor House. They used Interior Designer John Amabile to redecorate throughout. ^[18]