History

Tatlock and Thomson was founded in 1891 by R.R. Tatlock, who was the first city analyst for Glasgow. Joined by Thomson, his nephew, the company developed specialist expertise as food and drink analysists. At that time, food and drink adulteration had been prevalent. Public analysts, including T&T, were being appointed by the appropriate authorities to monitor food and drink standards. Subsequently, T&T were appointed public analysts in other regions of Scotland.
The image below shows a page from ‘The Analyst’ journal from 1874 in which Robert Tatlock published a paper on contamination of food by cooking vessels.
T&T’s original Bath Street laboratory became central to much of the development work at the beginning of this century. Sir William Ramsay, the famous chemist in Glasgow, carried out his pioneering work on the chemistry of radium in Tatlock’s laboratory, obtaining the radium from Marie Curie.