Lindsays celebrates 200th anniversary

The histories of businesses tend to concentrate on the founders, the CEOs, or, in the case of law firms, the partners.

But just as crucial to success and good service are other staff members - the people who greet clients, deal with the details, or keep the accounts up to date.

As the firms looked through its archives for stories and landmarks from its first 200 years, it found some evocative accounts from employees of their experiences working for the firm.

One such was Marion (Maimie) Barron, who joined the firm in 1928.

“On 1st October I was interviewed for a typist’s job and started that day. I sat in the basement, Miss Clapperton in charge. … On going home for lunch, I told my Mama that I didn’t like it and didn’t want to go back, but she, being of the old school, soon told me to get back and not to be stupid.”

Maimie Barron did go back after lunch and remained with the firm for many years.

Her memories include the marriage of two colleagues, fire watching during the Second World War, and the annual staff picnics on the first Saturday in June. “Different places were chosen each year, quite a few to the West Coast, Dunoon or Rothesay, travelling in a specially reserved rail coach and by steamer,” she writes.

Miss Barron worked in the cash room, which in those days was on the street floor of the offices in Charlotte Square.

Before the war, the room was furnished with high sloping desks and 30” high wooden stools.

In those days Lindsays collected rents and feu duties for its clients, and members of the public would come to the cash room on quarter days to pay their dues.

The front door was kept closed, and answered by the resident caretaker, who after lighting 15 coal fires each morning, then changed into a smart green uniform.

The firm has found many more accounts of life in the Charlotte Square offices, which it left in 1979 and which many of its clients and staff still remember.

Over the coming months the firm will be sharing more stories and welcomes memories of Lindsays staff and former premises.