Murray, Sons and Company
{{Short description|Former Northern Irish tobacco manufacturer}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox company
| name = Murray, Sons and Company, Ltd.
| logo =
| logo_alt =
| image = Murray sons tobacco factory 1900.jpg
| image_size = 250
| image_caption = Murray's Tobacco Factory in 1900
| type = Subsidiary
| industry = Tobacco
| fate = Acquired by British American Tobacco, factory closed
| predecessor =
| successor =
| founded = 1810
| founder =
| defunct = {{end date and age|2005}}
| hq_location_city = Belfast
| hq_location_country = N. Ireland
| area_served =
| key_people =
| products = Cigarettes
| owner =
| num_employees = 63 (2005)
| num_employees_year =
| parent = British American Tobacco
| website =
| footnotes = Carcinogenicity: IARC group 1
}}
Murray, Sons and Company Ltd was a tobacco manufacturing company based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The company traded under its own name but under various ownerships, from its foundation in 1810{{cite book| last=Owen| first=D. J.| title=History of Belfast| publisher=W. & G. Baird| year=1921| page=313| url=https://archive.org/stream/historyofbelfast00owen#page/312/mode/2up| accessdate=17 February 2012}} until closure in 2005.{{cite news| last=McGurk| first=Helen| title=60 staff face axe in tobacco firm closure| newspaper=The News Letter| date=13 January 2005| url=https://www.questia.com/read/1G1-127014767| accessdate=17 February 2012}}
History
Murray, Sons and Company Ltd began trading in Belfast in 1810, and became a limited company in 1884. By 1921, it shared most of the Belfast manufacture of tobacco, cigarettes, and snuff with Gallaher Limited, who had moved to Belfast in 1867.
Dunlop McCosh Cunningham took over the running of the works in the mid-1920s from his uncle. The firm produced the Erinmore and Yachtsman Navy Cut brands, though the cigarettes were not the superior quality that the pipe tobacco proved to be. The firm produced high quality popular pipe tobacco.{{citation needed|date=September 2020}} For a time in the 1970s, the managing director was Belfast man Mr Gleghorne and his personal assistant was Mrs Elizabeth Iris McDowell (née Hillock)
=Acquisition=
File:Former tobacco factory, Belfast (1) - geograph.org.uk - 1345156.jpg
In 1953, Murray, Sons and Company Ltd was acquired from Dunlop McCosh Cunningham by London-based Carreras Tobacco, which following the sale of shares in 1958 by the Baron family, merged with Rothman's of Pall Mall to become Carreras Rothmans Limited.{{cite web| title=History of Rothmans UK Holdings Limited| work=referenceforbusiness.com| url=http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/history2/22/Rothmans-UK-Holdings-Limited.html| accessdate=17 February 2012}} Carreras Rothmans became known as Rothmans International in 1972.
In June 1999, Rothmans International was acquired by British American Tobacco.{{cite news| last=Andrews| first=Edmund L.
| title=British American Tobacco Will Buy Rothmans| newspaper=The New York Times| date=16 January 1999| url=https://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/12/business/international-business-british-american-tobacco-will-buy-rothmans.html| accessdate=17 February 2012}}{{cite news| title=Tobacco workers face redundancy| publisher=BBC News Online| date=27 October 2004|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/3957589.stm| accessdate=17 February 2012}}
=Closure=
Brands
Throughout its trading life, Murray Sons and Company Ltd manufactured various brands of tobacco products including pipe tobacco:
- Craven
- Dunhill
- Erinmore
- Yachtsman Navy Cut
References
{{commons category|Whitehall Tobacco Works}}
{{reflist}}
{{British American Tobacco}}
Category:Tobacco companies of the United Kingdom
Category:British American Tobacco brands
Category:Manufacturing plants in Northern Ireland
Category:Manufacturing companies established in 1810
Category:Manufacturing companies disestablished in 2005
Category:British companies disestablished in 2005
Category:Defunct manufacturing companies of Northern Ireland