John Macgregor (1802–1858) was a Scottish shipbuilder. Birth and early life John Macgregor was christened on 24 August 1802 at Fintry, Stirlingshire. He was the third son of Annie McNicol and James Macgregor, a clockmaker. He also had one elder sister, two younger sisters, and two younger brothers. His father qualified as a clockmaker and he moved through Balfron, Fintry, and Comrie with his family working all the time as an engineer in the cotton mills that were developing in these parts of the Highlands. The family were incomers to Fintry, having moved from Balfron. They remained there for about 14 years, before moving on to Comrie in Perthshire, where the last two of their eight children were born. The stay in Comrie must have been short, although Macgregor received a rudimentary education there. When Macgregor was 16, the family moved to Glasgow. Macgregor began his apprenticeship as an engineer under David Napier at Camlachie. He went to Lancefield Foundry with the others in 1821 and was a sea-going engineer on the Belfast which had Napier machinery while still in his early 20s. The Belfast plied between Liverpool and Dublin, and was one of the earliest steamers to cross the Irish Sea. At David Napier’s he made the acquaintance of David Tod. Together, they ran the engineering department for a while and gained considerable managerial experience during this period. They probably also acted as guarantee engineers from time to time. Tod and Macgregor In 1833, Macgregor and David Tod formed a partnership to build steam engines. The partnership, Tod and Macgregor, was initially based at Carrick Street, Glasgow in 1834. The business grew quickly and moved to larger premises in Worroch Street, where they added boiler making to their engineering activities. Towards the end of 1836, Tod and Macgregor opened a shipbuilding yard on the south bank of the River Clyde at Mavisbank. Finally, in 1845, the firm moved to a new purpose built yard at Meadowside in the Borough of Partick. Tod and Macgregor were described as "the fathers of iron shipbuilding on the Clyde", building famous ships such as the City of Glasgow and the City of Paris. In about 1830, he is assumed to have married Margaret Fleming (born 23 March 1809), the daughter of Margaret Biggar and James Fleming. Together they had seven children, of whom three daughters and two sons survived. In 1834, Macgregor was