Bonar Law - Business Career

Business Career

At Kidston & Sons, Law was paid a nominal salary, with the intent being that he would gain a "commercial education" from working there that would serve him well as a businessman. In 1885 the Kidson brothers decided to retire, and agreed to merge the firm with the Clydesdale Bank. The merger would have left Law without a job and with poor career prospects, but the retiring brothers found him a job with William Jacks, an iron merchant who was pursuing a parliamentary career. The Kidson brothers lent Law the money to buy a partnership in Jacks' firm, and with Jacks himself no longer playing an acting part in the company, Law effectively became the managing partner. Working long hours (and insisting that his employees did as well), Law turned the firm into one of the most profitable iron merchants in the Glaswegian and Scottish markets.

During this period Law became a "self-improver"; despite his lack of formal university education he sought to test his intellect, attending lectures given at Glasgow University and joining the Glasgow Parliamentary Debating Association, which adhered as closely as possible to the layout of the real Parliament of the United Kingdom and undoubtedly helped Law hone the skills that served him so well in the political arena.

By the time he was thirty Law had established himself as a successful businessman, and had time to devote to more leisurely pursuits. He was an avid chess player, whom Andrew Harley called "a strong player, touching first-class amateur level, which he had attained by practice at the Glasgow Club in earlier days". Law also worked with the Parliamentary Debating Association and took up golf, tennis and walking. In 1888 he moved out of the Kidson household and set up his own home at Seabank, with his sister Mary (who had earlier come over from Canada) acting as the housekeeper. Two years later he met Annie Robley, a 24-year-old daughter of a Glaswegian merchant Harrington Robley. They quickly fell in love, and were married on 24 March 1891. Little is known of Law's wife, as most of her letters have been lost. It is known that she was much liked in both Glasgow and London, and that her death in 1909 hit Law hard; despite his relatively young age and prosperous career, he never remarried. The couple had five sons and two daughters, although the first son was stillborn. The youngest son was Richard Law, later Baron Coleraine, the third Charlie Law, who as a soldier with the King's Own Scottish Borderers was killed at the Second Battle of Gaza. His eldest son, a pilot with the Royal Flying Corps, was shot down and killed on 21 September of that year, and the deaths made Law even more melancholy and depressed than before. Isabel, the eldest daughter, married Sir Frederick Sykes and Catherine, the youngest, married George Archibald, 1st Baron Archibald.