Andrew Little - son of a bottlemaker..

[carlineric]

I was previously a civil engineer which involved some areas of the draughtman's job and can testify that it took some skill to produce a good drawing. This was using modern pens in contrast to what was being used earlier, it is difficult to describe the pens being used but they were basically two prongs with a screw to adjust the gap between them to draw lines of different width. I have handled many old drawing both mining and architectural and what strikes me is the artistry that went into producing them especially the north points which tended to works of art. Also many drawing were coloured in water colours to show different materials or for visual effect and again the workmanship was usually superb. One usefull byproduct of being a draughtsman was linen from discarded drawings, I remember being told by a draughtswoman of how she used to bring home old drawings and boil them to get the linen cloth.

Eric

[littlealison]

Were/are there many draughtswomen? And - what did she use the linen for?

My sister has the most beautiful architectural drawings for her (old) house. I remarked on them when I saw them. I didn't realise, though, that the stencils which I still have, from my father (identical ones shown in one of the links), were probably my grandfather's! And I have seen those pens, but didn't know what they were for. I recognised them in the picture there.

I also found a good report on the doings of Findlay's at that time, in the Glasgow Herald , Tuesday, January 4, 1898.
Thanks again for comments - Alison

[carlineric]

Not sure about the number of draughtswomen but it was probably more a 20th century occupation all the tracers/draughtwomen in our office were female. Linen was used for drawing on as it was more durable than tracing paper which tore easily. Until recently the drawings for Building Warrants etc had to be produced on linen so that they lasted. The downside of linen was that it could not be copied easily (no photocopiers ). Drawings produced on tracing paper could be copied onto paper or linen by a number of processes.