James Templeton and Co. was established in 1843, making Chenille Axminster, Wilton and Brussels carpets. Technological innovation and design skill brought the company considerable worldwide success throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, with its products in high demand in the domestic and commercial markets. It employed artists of international calibre such as Charles Voysey, Walter Crane and Frank Brangwyn, with their carpets used in Coronations and in liners such as the Titanic.

In their 1950s heyday they were Glasgow’s biggest single employers, with 7,000 employees. Glasgow carpets were exported to all four corners of the globe, with major commissions for parliaments, concert halls and cultural institutions, along with domestic interiors. Famous Templeton carpets include the Regatta Restaurant carpets for the 1951 Festival of Britain, and the Twelve Apostles carpet made for the Paris Exhibition of 1867.

In 1983 Templeton’s merged with another local carpet manufacturer, A. F. Stoddard of Elderslie, to form Stoddard International. A. F. Stoddard had been founded in 1862 by Arthur Francis Stoddard, an American who refused to live in the United States because of the continued slave trade. He regularly addressed abolition meetings in Glasgow, which had tended to side with the South during the American Civil War because of its strong cotton and tobacco routes. Stoddard’s went on to produce carpets for the wedding of Queen Elizabeth II, the Palace of Holyroodhouse, Dickens and Jones, Epsom race-course, and Liberty’s.