I wonder how many people have heard of the Buttercup Dairy Company and its remarkable founder, Andrew Ewing, who quietly gave away a fortune in his final ambition to die a poor man. Andrew Ewing founded the Buttercup in 1904, and its first branch was opened in Kirkcaldy in the same year. The companys head office was opened in Leith soon afterwards and at its peak in 1930 there were 250 branches all over Scotland and the north of England. The Buttercup was one of the pioneering grocery chains and was 100% Scottish, Each branch could be recognised by its beautiful tiled entrance lobby mural, which showed a little girl holding some Buttercups under the chin of a big friendly cow, In 1928, Ewing built one of the largest poultry farms in the world in Corstorphine, Edinburgh, with 200,000 laying hens. However, as a devout Christian, he would not charge for eggs laid on a Sunday and, as a consequence, over 100,000 were given away every week, Such was the mans compassion and generosity that, during the depression years of the 1930s, he personally handed out food to the poor. The last Buttercup shop closed in Edinburgh in 1965 but the company continued to operate as a cold store for another nine years. By all normal standards of history, Andrew Ewing should be a Scottish icon, but because he spurned publicity and carried out his philanthropy in secret, the story was lost for fifty years. Now, however, he is receiving some belated recognition with the construction of The Buttercup Farm Park in Corstorphine, next to the site of the old Buttercup Poultry Farm. When Andrew Ewing died in 1956, his estate was worth a mere £50. As he wished, he achieved his aim to die a poor man
Posted on: Sun, 30 Mar 2014 13:11:50 +0000
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