William Frederick de Bois MacLaren was born on 17 November 1856, in
Blythswood,
Glasgow in Scotland, as the son of Walter Gray McLaren (Master Printer, sometimes misspelt as painter) and Caroline Amelia De Bois, from France. He had an elder sister, Margaret Ann Aitken McLaren (born 25 April 1855), and younger brothers: Walter Gray (born 14 April 1858, who attended Glasgow University, was ordained in 1885 in New Zealand where he lived until 1903, and died (1916 in Glasgow), Charles (born 19 November 1859) and John (born 28 June 1861). By the beginning of the 20th century, MacLaren and Frank Copeman were sole partners of
MacLaren & Sons Ltd, 37–38 Shoe Lane, London, in the
Fleet Street neighbourhood, who were publishers or publishers' agents of industrial books and magazines, such as
The Brick and Pottery Trades Journal, and
Ceylon Observer, and publishers of household titles, under the name of
The British Baker, such as
All About Pastries. One of their
periodicals was the
India Rubber Journal, the leading publication for the
flourishing rubber industry in the beginning of the 20th century, with
Sir Herbert Wright as
editor for the period 1907–1917. Copeman and MacLaren founded in 1906 the
Rubber Estate Agency. It was the first UK company for the specific purpose of financing the acquisition of rubber estates and of acting as secretaries and agents of rubber and other plantation companies. With this expertise in the rubber industry, MacLaren wrote and published
The Rubber Tree Book (MacLaren and Sons, London, 1913, 384 pages), about technology and business administration of
rubber plantations. In 1919, the Rubber Estate Agency was sold to the Belgium company
Societé Internationale de Plantations et de Finance (SIPEF). The R.E.A. company still exists, and was worth approximately GBP 37 million in 2010. MacLaren wrote several other books including
Climbs and Changes,
Chuckles from a Cheery Corner, and
Word Pictures of War (a book of poetry based on experiences of the First World War, published by
Methuen, London, in 1917). He died on 3 June 1921. Posthumously in 1922, his ''Child's Song-Story Book'' was published for private circulation by Blackie & Son, Glasgow. == Scouting ==