Stewart & McDonald opened a small wholesale drapery warehouse in 1826. The original premises consisted of a room in a rented tenement on the first floor of 5 Buchanan Street, Glasgow, round the corner from this building in Argyle Street. The founding partners were Robertson Buchanan Stewart of Rothesay and John MacDonald, a tailor from the Vale of Leven. They supplied drapery of every description to local retailers, and later extended & built a shirt factory round the corner. By 1889 the company had become a huge business with thirty-three wholesale drapery departments and a thriving retail business. It specialised in dress materials and ready-made clothes. By 1892 the company had branch establishments in London, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Rochdale, Birmingham, Belfast, Dublin, Newcastle upon Tyne, Leeds, Preston, Hull, Montreal, Toronto, Melbourne, Sydney, Dunedin and Port Elizabeth.
The first Hugh Fraser, later of Arthur & Fraser, drapers, of Glasgow, was a lace buyer at Stewart & McDonald and rose to be a manager in 1849. This building forms part of "Frasers".
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