Sir John Auld MacTaggart was born on the 30th September 1867 in Anderston, the eldest son of Neil McTaggart (1835-1904), coppersmith, and Anne Auld (d.1906). After his schooling he joined Robert Mickel & Co., timber merchants and sawmill owners, where he trained as a Mercantile Clerk rising to the position of Chief Accountant.

In 1889 he joined the Independent Labour Party and became their first treasurer.

He started John Auld McTaggart & Co. in 1901, manufacturing concrete pipes, steps, and lintels but soon turned to building large tenements for middle class tenants in the west and south of Glasgow. Most of the tenements he built included bathrooms which led him to claim later that 'he had made Glasgow bathroom conscious'. In 1902 he Joined the liberal Party becoming secretary of its Glasgow Branch.

By 1911 he had an annual rental income of £14,000 which provided him with the financial security to raise loans, buy land and finance building developments. In 1913 he gave evidence to a Royal Commission set up to tackle Scotland's housing. where his solution to the problem of overcrowding was for a reduction in the local property tax to encourage people to move into larger houses. He also argued for rent control, leading to the passing of the rent restriction acts. During the First World War his company undertook many Government contracts and in 1919 was converted into a limited company, his family being the largest shareholders.

In 1919 the Government also passed the Addison Act which was supposed to realise the wartime promise of 'homes fit for heroes to live in'. John Auld McTaggart & Co., were beneficiaries of the Act which provided local authorities with subsidies to undertake large scale housing projects. His company was awarded a contract worth £1.8 million to build the new Mosspark Housing Scheme by Glasgow Corporation. He began buying up land at King's Park to the south and Kelvinside in the west of the city through a consortium involving his wife and family.

John Auld MacTaggart & Co went into voluntary liquidation in 1924 and in the following year he took over the Western Heritable Investment Company Ltd and applied for permission to build collage flats for rent on the lands he had purchased in King's Park.

The Government passed the Housing Act Bill in 1924. This funded companies who built houses available for rent with subsidies, that John Auld McTaggart had encouraged John Wheatley MP (1869-1930) to include in the Bill. Clearly his earlier political involvement as a member and treasurer of the Independent Labour Party was bearing fruit. In six years he had built 1356 houses available for rent subsidized by the 1924 Housing Act and further financed through loans of 75% of the value of the completed house from Glasgow Corporation. In 1931 a similar agreement was reached for an additional 1512 houses on the lands at King's Park. Further agreement was reached for houses on land at Kelvinside and on Glasgow Corporation land at Cardonald. In all he built 6038 houses available for rent subsidized through the 1924 Housing Act. In 1927 his wife Margaret Lockhart died and the following year he married Elizabeth Ann Orr (d.1958), daughter of the Rev. David Orr of Elder Park Church, Govan. In 1930 he presented the house and grounds of Aitkenhead Estate on the fringe of his King's Park development to Glasgow Corporation to be preserved for future generations as a public park. He later formed the London Heritable Investment Company Ltd and developed luxury flats on a site in Park Lane close to the Dorchester Hotel.

He visited the United States in 1936 to study housing conditions and was asked by advisors to President Franklin D Roosevelt for a report of his findings. He was increasingly viewed by Government as an authority on housing and in 1938 he was created a Baronet for his services to housing. He financed the Peace Pavilion at the 1938 Glasgow Empire Exhibition and after the Second World War he formed Grove End Gardens Ltd which built and managed luxury flats in St John's Wood. London.

He died at his Kelmscott home on 25th November 1956 and is interred in Cathcart Cemetery.

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