THE profits of the Scottish firm visited by Prime Minister Theresa May last week were once used to fund the election campaigns of Scottish nationalists.

The National was banned from Theresa May’s visit to the Scottish Leather Group in Bridge of Weir, Renfrewshire, and there was huge anger at this assault on press freedom clearly aimed at the only newspaper that supports independence for Scotland.

Now we can reveal that one of the past directors of the Muirhead leather manufacturing company, which was the forerunner of the Scottish Leather Group (Andrew Muirhead and Sons is still listed on the Group’s website as one of its companies), was instrumental in funding early nationalist candidates in Westminster general elections.

Renowned as a radical politician, Roland Muirhead was also a successful businessman with the family firm in the 1920s and 1930s, when he began paying the deposits of candidates put up by the National Party of Scotland, which he helped to found and which was a direct forerunner of the SNP.

A remarkable letter written by Muirhead has survived in the keeping of Willie Wilson, who this year is celebrating 40 years of chairmanship and convenorship of Strathkelvin and Bearsden SNP.

Willie’s father John, then a young solicitor, acted as an agent for John “Manny” McNichol who fought the Shettleston by-election for the NPS in 1930 and was set to fight the Glasgow Hillhead seat for the NPS in the General Election of October 27, 1931.

Muirhead had contributed £100 to that 1930 election campaign and in 1931 he sent a cheque for £100 to John Wilson towards the expenses of McNichol.

The letter is dated October 14, 1931, and states: “As agreed to on the phone, I am enclosing cheque for £100 as deposit in your hands to the expenses of the Hillhead Contest.”

Willie Wilson explained: “It relates to the Hillhead election of 1931, where my father was going to be the agent again for the same candidate, his pal John McNicol, but they chickened out at an early stage, withdrew the candidature and returned the deposit. “

It was Muirhead’s contributions to candidate which enabled the NPS and SNP to gain some electoral credibility though they only once got enough votes to retain their deposits.

Muirhead went on to be one of the principal founders of the Scottish National Party in 1934, becoming the party’s president in 1936 in succession to Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham. He stayed in that post until 1950 and then became a prominent campaigner for a Scottish parliament in the 1950s.

Roland Muirhead died in 1964 at the age of 96. There is a project to instal a memorial to him in his home village of Lochwinnoch.

The Muirhead family still controls the Scottish Leather Group with Jonathan Muirhead currently in charge. He was a recipient of the MBE in 2016.

The National yesterday contacted the Scottish Leather Group for comment.