The Miramichi operations, established by Alexander Rankin, had originally been conceived by Allan Gilmour as a means of beating Napoleon's Continental System, which prohibited lumber exports to Britain from the Baltic countries.
Pollok, Gilmour, and Company was a vast North Atlantic concern which by 1838 operated 130 vessels in the timber trade – making it the largest British shipowning firm at the time – and employed no fewer than 15,000 men in its sawmills, on its wharves, and in the forests; it owned as well 2,000 horses and oxen for draught purposes.
Robert maintained the helm of the firm throughout his remaining years, renaming it as Rankin, Gilmour and Company, and moving the headquarters to Liverpool, England.
[1] In order to employ its large fleet fully in the winter months, branch houses were opened in New Orleans, and Mobile, Alabama, where the company entered the rapidly expanding cotton trade.
The diversification into cotton brought great profits, and by 1851 Rankin was a member of the Dock Committee of Liverpool.