R B Farquhar History
Since its inception in the austerity of post war Scotland, RB Farquhar Ltd has built its reputation on providing superb quality and service coupled with great value for money.
The group, which is involved in temporary accommodation, bathroom pod manufacture and self storage operating throughout the UK and Europe, was originally the vision of one recently de-mobbed Aberdeenshire sailor with the energy and enterprise to grow a business which would develop into one of Britain’s leading suppliers of temporary accommodation, prefabricated pods and modular buildings.
Bob Farquhar travelled the world during World War II, and perhaps his globe-trotting experiences first sparked his entrepreneurial spirit. He was de-mobbed with a gratuity of £65, which he invested in an old lorry and set up in business as a firewood merchant.
Hard-working and thrifty, he and his young wife Elsie suited the austerity of the post-war period, and the firewood business was steady, if not spectacular.
In February 1953, the North of Scotland was buffeted by a tremendous gale which felled trees in their thousands. To most of the farmers and landowners, the fallen timber was simply a nuisance, to be cleared as soon as possible.
The shrewd young businessman, however, could see the market potential of all this timber. He bought his own sawmill, and started converting the plentiful new resource into pit props and railway sleepers. Business boomed as Britain invested in post-war reconstruction, and before long the company employed over 50 workers in six sawmills across North East Scotland.
Bob Farquhar also demonstrated his resourcefulness in developing a sideline in making sectional wooden hen houses which, although small, would ultimately pave the way for the modular construction business which is so critical to the business today.
When, at the end of the 1950s, Britain’s coal mines started closing and the National Coal Board cut its investment. The market for pit props dried up but the potential for sectional buildings was to prove the company’s salvation.
It was a logical diversification from henhouses into garden sheds, and RB Farquhar entered its first consumer market in the late 1950s. As car ownership increased, contracts were also won to supply sectional timber garages for local authorities.
Even more significant there was also a growing demand from builders for weatherproof accommodation which could be easily relocated from one site to another.
The first prototypes were site sheds mounted on old caravan chassis, but in 1971 RB Farquhar introduced its first Hyjaks – site cabins mounted on adjustable jacklegs which enabled quick offloading from lorry transport and easy levelling on uneven ground conditions, offering the latest in flexibility to the booming construction industry.
Hyjaks caught on fast, and by the late 1970s the RB Farquhar name could be seen on construction sites all over the North of Scotland.
In 1971, North Sea oil was discovered, and huge oil-related construction projects sprang up in locations like St Fergus and Sullom Voe. Suddenly fabrication contractors were also looking for site accommodation units, literally by the hundred.
It soon became obvious that the company had outgrown its original Rhynie works, and, with a bulging order book, the company duly moved to Huntly in 1973.
The first tangible spin-off from North Sea oil for the company was a rapid expansion of the on-shore temporary accommodation market, but the heady opportunism of the early 1970s suited entrepreneurs like Bob Farquhar.
He identified the need for prefabricated accommodation modules for the new rigs and platforms springing up in the North Sea.
Despite having no previous offshore experience, the company quickly produced a steel-framed prototype and was duly rewarded with an order in early 1972 from drilling contractors Sedco Forex for the first North Sea offshore accommodation unit.
RB Farquhar was one of the first local exhibitors at the first Aberdeen oil and gas show in 1973 (now Offshore Europe), and was rewarded with regular contracts for offshore accommodation throughout the 1970s, culminating in a massive, five-storey 330 tonne module for Chevron’s Ninian Northern platform in 1979.
As the decade progressed, the company became synonymous with offshore accommodation, and at one stage it was estimated that 80% of modules in service in the North Sea had started life in Farquhar’s Huntly factory.
The company’s reputation for onshore accommodation also spread quickly in oil and gas circles, and Huntly-built system buildings were shipped out to fabrication yards as far afield as Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
But all through the boom years of North Sea oil, the company had also developed its core markets of site cabins, leisure chalets, system buildings and private housing.
The oil exploration market in the North Sea declined in the 1980s and the company withdrew from the market after fifteen years at the top. However, the skills in module design and expertise in fitting out pre-manufactured steel-shell accommodation were successfully redeployed as the company diversified into a promising new market – factory-built bathrooms (pods).
In 1977, the company opened its first depot in Warrington, and within a decade had seen its workforce rise to 350 and a network of depots established across Scotland and the North of England.
The company also experienced tremendous growth in the design, manufacture and supply of modular buildings. Since the 1970s, entire office complexes, schools, laboratories, hospital wards and even prison buildings have started life in the Huntly factory before being shipped to sites all over the UK.
RB Farquhar has worked with many of the UK’s leading manufacturers, dozens of local authorities, government departments, market leaders in leisure and retail, and construction firms ranging in size from local businesses to international conglomerates.
In the late 1980’s, London saw a boom in high-rise commercial developments, most notably with the giant Canary Wharf project. In keeping with their prestigious nature, these developments featured top-of-the-range executive washroom facilities, several hundred of which were prefabricated in RB Farquhar’s Huntly factory before undergoing a spectacular side-entry crane lift into position on site.
The modules, weighing up to 10 tonnes each, featured high specification Italian ceramics and Indian granite preinstalled into steel framed modules. This was a logical extension of RB Farquhar’s quality-controlled factory workmanship allied to years of experience in fitting out prefabricated steel modules. Having the washrooms entirely fabricated off-site offered City property developers the twin benefits of enhanced quality control and accelerated fast-track installation.
At the same time, the company also moved into the prefabrication of hotel bedrooms as expansion-minded leisure groups like Granada pioneered the concept of value-for-money roadside lodges. The two new markets were then consolidated as RB Farquhar moved into the high-volume production of pods, mainly for hotel and leisure groups but also for student accommodation contracts.
In the past decade, thousands of pods have been fabricated by RB Farquhar.. Regular customers include some of Europe’s major hotel chains, including Travelodge, Radisson and Holiday Inn. The development of a manufacturing base in the Czech Republic has increased capacity and the company now produces one pod every 15 minutes.
In November 2006, the company launched Simply Self Storage, an innovative service, offering easy to manage and secure storage to the consumer and business markets.
Bob Farquhar died in 1984, and was succeeded as managing director by Forbes Shand. Today, RB Farquhar, the company he founded is one of the UK’s market leaders in pods, prefabricated buildings and modules.
A third generation of family now manages the company, with the appointment in 2002 of brothers Michael and Kevin Shand as managing directors of RB Farquhar Manufacturing and RB Farquhar Hires respectively. After 32 years with the company, 18 years as managing director, Forbes Shand assumed the position of chairman of RB Farquhar Holdings. Together, they maintain the company’s core values of hard work and enterprise, customer service and quality.
