Stan Laurel, of famous comedy duo Laurel and Hardy, was born Arthur Stanley Jefferson in Ulverston in the North of England, and moved with his family to 17 Craigmillar Road in Langside, South Glasgow when he was 15 years old. His father, Arthur Jefferson was an actor, playwright, and theatre manager, and his mother, Margaret ‘Madge’ Metcalfe was a draper’s saleswoman, who became an actress after the two got married (13). Growing up, Stan spent his pocket money on toy theatres and marionettes and loved dressing up, putting on make-up, and performing for his friends and neighbours (67).

He attended Queen’s Park School, often skipping class to hide in an old shed with an entertainment troupe run by his friend Willie Walker (68). After dropping out of school, he began working at the Metropole Theatre (in the city centre, now demolished), which his father managed. Stan first took to the stage at the Britannia Music Hall in Trongate (now the Panopticon, which still holds shows), without his father’s knowledge, and wearing his father’s clothes and ‘topper’ hat. One night, he was shocked to see his father in the audience. Arthur Jefferson described the scene in his unpublished biography:

Giving a subdued yell of horrified astonishment, [Stan] dropped my topper which thereupon rolled toward the footlights. Stan pursued it, tried to grab it and in doing so kicked it accidentally into the orchestra where one of the musicians made a rush to retrieve it and stepped on it, squashing it thoroughly! Then Stan made a dash for the exit but his luck was out. As he ran off, he came in contact with a steel hook fixed in the wings for a trapeze act and the hook ripped off half the skirt of my beautiful frock coat. Exit…loud applause! … smashing the topper and the tearing of the coat was extremely funny! (69-70)

When father and son met afterwards they stood in silence for a while. Then Arthur said, ‘Not bad son’ and got him a whisky and soda. Stan burst into tears. His father wrote:

Imagine his astonishment and joy when I received him with open arms and congratulations and promises to help him achieve his ambition! (70)

He certainly did achieve his ambition. Stan joined the Karno Company of comedians in his teens and was soon understudy to Charlie Chaplin (72-3). He went with the Company to New York, travelling in high style aboard a cattle-boat (having missed the liner they had booked). After another stint in the UK, Stan moved to the US to try his hand at vaudeville (74). He changed his surname to Laurel, figuring fewer letters could be written in larger print on the billboards (75). He had his first film break in Nuts in May in 1917, and went on to become a director, writing and directing several films starring Oliver Hardy, before they ever performed together.

One day, Stan was asked to stand in for Hardy (who had scalded his arm) in front of the camera. Something clicked. Soon the two were performing together as Laurel and Hardy, with Stan writing and directing many of their films, as well as starring in them. They took their double act to the Glasgow Empire, and their films made them two of the most internationally famous comic actors of their time (159). Stan and Ollie made over 100 films together from the 1920s to the 1950s (7), including well-known hits such as The Flying Deuces, The Music Box (which received an Academy Award), and Big Business. Meanwhile, Stan had numerous wives (one of whom he married twice) and two children. He received an Academy Honorary Award in 1961, and a Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 1964, and died the following year in California.

Today Langside, the area he grew up in, is being considered by Battlefield Street Design, a project led by Sustrans in partnership with Glasgow City Council, to redevelop the area. This project aims to:

• Redesign public spaces so that they feel safer, more attractive and sociable places to spend time in
• Make it easier for people of all ages and abilities to travel on foot and by bike to local facilities in the area.
• Empower residents to influence and become involved in local decision making.
• Showcase best practice engagement and design to inspire other groups and organisations.

You can learn more about this exciting project here: https://battlefield.commonplace.is/. Here at SGHET, we are collaborating with Battlefield Street Design to bring you short histories of the local area. Stay tuned for more…

By Saskia McCracken

Sources:

Danny Lawrence. The Making of Stan Laurel: Echoes of a British Boyhood. London: McFarland & Company Publishers, 2011.

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Battlefield Rest is an Edwardian former tramcar shelter, once considered ‘the most exotic tram shelter in Scotland’ (Battlefield Rest: About). The building has had quite a history, involving disputes over a replica tram tearoom, and current closure threats as the result of increased business rates of 400%.

The shelter was designed by Frank Burnet and Boston Architects in 1914-15, with an Art Nouveau style clock tower and exterior features, green and cream tiles, and a north gable featuring a plaque which reads ‘Let Glasgow Flourish’ (Historic Environment Scotland). The original building, B-listed since 1981, featured three sections: public toilets, a newsagents, and a waiting room. According to Historic Environment Scotland:

‘Battlefield Rest former tram shelter is the only known example of a tram shelter of this scale and design to have been built in Scotland. It was built for the Glasgow Tram Corporation, which was the largest late 19th century city tram system known in Britain. The former Battlefield Tramcar Shelter was built as the result of a design competition in 1914 for a prototype tram shelter for Glasgow Tram Corporation. It was intended that numerous tram stops would be built around the city, however, plans to build further shelters were shelved due to the outbreak of the First World War and construction was not resumed after the war. Consequently Battlefield Rest was the only one built. It was opened on 18 August 1915 and remains the only example of its type.’

Glasgow’s tramway system, established in 1872 and once the largest in Europe with 1,000 tram cars, closed in 1962 (see our forthcoming history of Glasgow’s Tramway). In 1992, Glasgow District Council Building Control ordered the derelict and damaged building to be demolished. A petition of over 1,500 signatures saved the building, and it was sold to Marco Giannasi, who began restoring it the following year (Battlefield Rest: About). Between 1994-6 (there are conflicting accounts), Battlefield Rest reopened as a restaurant. It has gone on to receive numerous awards, including many Papa Industry Awards, and is recommended by The List, and Visit Scotland.

Giannasi spent five years applying for permission to install a 1920s replica tram on the public walkway next to the building, to be used as a tearoom and performance space, in hopes that this would boost tourism in the area. He intended profits to go to local charities and good causes. It was to be a one-of-a-kind project. Giannasi said:

‘The idea started many years ago when I took over the Battlefield restaurant and restored it. We thought it would be great to have a tram and make it a feature of the area. […] We are hoping to build a replica of a 1920s Glasgow tram and I have spoken to the Tramway about the possibility of doing live shows in the afternoon or evening.’ (Evening Times 15 August 2016).

He had hoped to draw both city residents and tourists to the South Side, pointing out that:

‘Tourist maps stop at the Clyde, and the South Side has always been neglected. There are beautiful things in the area but nobody crosses the river for some reason. The tram would be an opportunity to bring tourists and people from the north of the city to the south’ (Evening Times 15 August 2016).

He had five letters of support, and there were no public objections to the plans, but the council rejected them. According to a report by Glasgow City planners, the replica tram ‘would obscure the frontage of the category B-listed building, in a way that would not have been the case with the original use of the property’, when ‘trams would have only temporarily paused in front of the building before continuing their journey’ (Evening Times 21 October 2018).

In 2018, two major things happened. First, Battlefield Rest was named ‘Restaurant of the Year’ by Glasgow’s Food Awards. Second, Giannasi was faced with an increase in his business rates bill of 400%, and an annual bill hike of £27,000, due to the 2017 revaluation of non-domestic properties (Glasgow Herald 21 March 2018). He is appealing the ‘unacceptable’ (Glasgow Herald 21 March 2018) new bill, and has raised over 2,850 signatures (with 1,000 raised in just four days) protesting the scale of the increased rates.

Giannasi has both an online petition, as well as a paper petition in the restaurant which has gained several hundred signatures. You can sign the online petition here: https://www.change.org/p/city-assessors-ggc-fair-rates-for-battlefield-rest. According to Giannasi, the hike would be equal to ramping up the price of a cup of coffee to £10 at the restaurant (Glasgow Herald 21 March 2018), and could result in the loss of 16 jobs, and the closure of the award-winning restaurant.

For now, Giannasi will pay a transitional 50% of his increased bill. The Scottish Government moved to put a temporary 12.5% cap on rises in rates payable, and are in the process of implementing a series of recommendations to reform the business rates system (Glasgow Herald 21 March 2018). The appeal case continues to be delayed, and the local rates assessors have been vague, Giannasi claims, about the logic behind the sharp rate increase. The campaign continues.

Giannasi has joined a group of restaurants faced with massively increased business rates, who are planning to propose rates system reforms to the Finance Minister. In 2019, Battlefield Rest won the Glasgow Retail Business Awards for the second year running, and continues to be a local landmark, worth visiting for both its heritage value, and its delicious food.

By Saskia McCracken

Sources

1. http://battlefieldrest.co.uk/about
2. http://portal.historicenvironment.scot/designation/LB32361
3. https://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/14682334.tram-to-be-used-as-tearoom-in-south-side-restaurant/
4. https://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/16997742.tramcar-tearoom-plans-for-glasgows-south-side-derailed-by-council-bosses/
5. https://www.heraldscotland.com/business_hq/16098391.restaurant-protest-against-400-rates-bill-hike-backed-by-hundreds-of-customers/
6. https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/battle-save-battlefield-rest
7. https://www.glasgowsouthandeastwoodextra.co.uk/news/business/battlefield-rest-scoops-top-award-1-4787482
8. http://www.scotcities.com/cathcart/langside.htm
9. https://www.change.org/p/city-assessors-ggc-fair-rates-for-battlefield-rest

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Mary Barbour, based in Govan, is most famous for leading what was known as Mrs. Barbour’s Army in the Glasgow Rent Strikes of 1915.

She was born and raised in Renfrewshire, the third of seven children, to carpet weaver parents. She worked as a thread twister until she married David Barbour and moved to Govan, where he worked as an engineer in the Fairfield shipyards. She became active in local South Glasgow movements, including Kinning Park Co-operative Guild, the first of its kind in Scotland, and the Socialist Sunday Movement, and joined the Independent Labour Party.

In 1914, at the beginning of the First World War, thousands of people moved to Glasgow to work in the shipyards and munitions factories. Local landlords saw this new demand for housing as an opportunity to raise rents, despite the fact that women – in the newly formed Glasgow Women’s Housing Associations – were already campaigning against negligent landlords, who were neglecting their duties to carry out maintenance work on their properties. Mary Barbour established and led the South Govan branch of the association, and was joined by numerous housewives (she had two children herself) at meetings held in kitchens and ‘the closes’ (tenement communal hallways and stairwells) in the area. These activists united to try to prevent evictions. One woman would keep watch with a bell, and ring it whenever the bailiff came, drawing all the other women away from their work. These women threw bags of flour and other sundries at the bailiffs, and crowded together to chase them off.

Local women refused to pay the increased rent and garnered support from workers in the shipyards and factories, who threatened to strike in solidarity with those being evicted. In November 1915, one factor, Mr. Nicholson, in Partick (west Glasgow) was prosecuting 18 tenants, mostly munitions factory worker families, for refusing to pay increased rents. This was the last straw, and the city was in uproar. On the 17^th of November 1915, a crowd of roughly 20,000 women and workers from the shipyards and factories, nicknamed Mrs. Barbour’s Army, marched to Glasgow Sheriff Court and demonstrated against these prosecutions, in what the Govan Press called ‘remarkable scenes’. Helen Crawfurd, another striker, said: ‘This struggle brought great masses of women together.’

‘Headed by a band of improvised instruments, including tin whistles, hooters, and a huge drum, the procession aroused a good deal of interest. The majority carried large placards with the words: ‘Rent Strikers. We’re not Removing’.’

The court contacted munitions minister David Lloyd George (later Prime Minister of the Wartime Coalition Government 1916-1922), who ordered the eviction cases to be dropped. The Rent Restrictions Act of 1915 was introduced less than a month later, fixing rents in the UK at their pre-war level until the war ended. As historian James Smyth puts it, the rent strike ‘may well have been the most successful example of direct action ever undertaken by the Scottish working class’.

In 1920, Barbour was elected as one of Glasgow’s first female Labour Party councillors in Govan. In her new role, she fought for the introduction of washhouses, laundries, public baths, free milk for school children, child welfare centres, play areas, pensions for mothers, home helps and municipal banks. Barbour was appointed as the first ever woman Bailie of Glasgow Corporation in 1924, and she became one of the first woman Magistrates in Glasgow. In 1925, she chaired and raised funds for the Women’s Welfare and Advisory Clinic, Glasgow’s first family planning centre, where she supported birth control, though only for married women. She was on eight committees for health and welfare services, and continually campaigned on behalf of working class people. Although she retired from the council in 1931, she continued to serve on housing, welfare, and co-operative committees. She died, aged 83, in 1958.

Barbour has not been forgotten. She features in several books about the rent strikes, and socialism in Glasgow, such as Joseph Melling’s Rent Strikes: Peoples’ Struggle for Housing in West Scotland, 1890-1916, Maggie Craig’s When The Clyde Ran Red, and James Smyth’s ‘Rents, Peace Votes: Working-class Women and Political Activity in the First World War’. A play about the rent strikes, Mrs. Barbour’s Daughters by AJ Taudevin, sold out in 2014, received rave reviews, and was hailed as ‘Magnificent … A thought provoking piece of radical history’ by The Scotsman. The Remember Mary Barbour campaign has been working for years to commemorate her life and work. Finally, on International Women’s day (the 8^th of March) in 2018, outside Govan subway station, a statue was unveiled of Barbour leading her army.

By Saskia McCracken

Sources:

Maggie Craig. When The Clyde Ran Red. Edinburgh: Mainstream, 2011.

Joseph Melling. Rent Strikes: Peoples’ Struggle for Housing in West Scotland, 1890-1916. Edinburgh: Polygon Books, 1983.

James Smyth. ‘Rents, Peace Votes: Working-class Women and Political Activity in the First World War’. Out of Bounds: Women in Scottish Society 1800-1945. Eds. Esther Breitenbach, and Eleanor Gordon. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 1992.

http://www.pearceinstitute.org.uk/about/history/mary-barbour/

https://www.firstworldwarglasgow.co.uk/index.aspx?articleid=11384

https://sites.scran.ac.uk/redclyde/redclyde/docs/rcpeomarybarbour.htm

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-43338204/statue-of-rent-strikes-campaigner-mary-barbour-unveiled

https://remembermarybarbour.wordpress.com/2014/03/04/bbc-focus-on-mary-barbour/

https://remembermarybarbour.wordpress.com/mary-barbour-rent-strike-1915/

https://www.tron.co.uk/event/mrs-barbours-daughters/

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It has been a long campaign, but Govanhill Baths are set to reopen soon thanks to the hard work of local people.

In 1914 the Lord Provost of Glasgow, Sir Daniel Macaulay Stevenson, laid the foundation stone of Govanhill Baths, complete with a time capsule, the contents and location of which remain a mystery. In 1917 the new Provost, Thomas Dunlop Bart, formally opened the Edwardian baroque-style Baths. The biggest in Glasgow at the time, the Baths were a predominantly working-class community hub that provided facilities for cleaning clothes, bathing, and exercise (28). The Baths comprised a men’s pool, a women’s pool, a shallow learners pool, and showers (32). There were footbaths, a Turkish bath, a Russian bath, a cold plunge bath, a sauna and a cooling room, as well as forty ‘slipper baths’ for men, and ten for women, where locals without a bath of their own could have a warm soak (36). Hot water and soap were a real treat back then. The building also had a ‘Steamie’ for washing clothes, with sixty-eight wash stalls and drying spaces, and ten large mangles (32). In 1971 the Steamie was converted into a laundrette.

The by-laws scattered around the pool tell us what it might have been like in those days. One, held in the archive, bans anti-social behaviour: ‘No person shall spit, smoke tobacco, or drink spurious or malt liquors in or on any part of the premises’. This ban suggests as historian Rachel Purse points out, that the Baths must have been a bit rowdy back then, aided by the hoops and trapezes that used to hang over the pool (35). Some swimmers even brought their dinner to the baths (39, 75), along with the odd beer (75), and you could find all sorts on the pool floor, even a diamond ring and a glass eye (117)!

The Glasgow Herald published complaints that the baths were built in ‘impossibly slummy districts’ with ‘no discrimination exercised in the admittance of undesirable bathers’ who used the pools ‘for cleaning purposes’ (36-7). These complaints missed the point. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, working-class people in Glasgow did not have baths, their own toilets, or even hot water in their tenement flats (46), and were often forced to clean their clothes and bathe naked in the city’s rivers and ponds (43). This nudity distressed Glasgow’s political classes (49), but the health consequences were the real problem. At the time, the Clyde was ‘a general sewer for the factories of the rapidly expanding city’ (44), and carried diseases (46). Worse, the ‘dismal deaths-by-drowning statistics of the day’ (13) show that trying to keep clean could be lethal. One advert for the Baths, held in Glasgow City Archives, reads: ‘WHY DROWN? When swimming provides a pleasant and health-giving exercise?’. The Baths not only provided a sanitary environment for the community to bathe, clean their clothes, and exercise but gave life-saving swimming lessons.

In January 2001, the Queen’s Park club for older swimmers found a letter on the pool reception desk informing them that pool was going to be closed (79). There had been no community consultation, health audit, or social audit (80). Pool users were told that the cost of refurbishing the B-listed building (estimated at £250,000) was not worth it, and were encouraged to start using the new pool in the Gorbals district (79). On the 17^th of January, Southside Against Closure (SAC) was established, and on March 17^th, 600 locals and MSPs marched from Queen’s Park to Govanhill Park to protest the closure. On the evening of March the 21^st, the community began a 147-day occupation of the building. People chained themselves to cubicles, demanding assurance that SAC could participate in a conservation feasibility study was carried out, during which time they demanded that the pools remained open (82). Local people and businesses donated food and support. Police inspecting the occupation said that said they would not intervene unless the property was damaged. A week into the occupation however, police and council staff smashed their way in through a side door with hammers, cut off the water and electricity supply, and drained the pool (82).

Fearing an eviction raid, and learning from the 1915 Rent Strike anti-eviction tactics, the occupation had locals and the media a phone call away. If a raid was attempted, locals would crowd with whistles and bells, making a scene worthy of media attention (86). Meanwhile, protesters held a gala day outside the building on the 31^st of March. Six hundred people came to hear speeches, music, and entertainment, while children enjoyed face painting, and chalk drawing on the pavement (97).

Why all the fuss, with the new Gorbals pool down the road? There are plenty of reasons. The Gorbals only had a mixed pool, removing swimming as an option for local minority and religious groups. Govanhill Baths had Muslim women’s swim sessions, orthodox Jewish men’s nights, gay nights (67), parent-toddler swim groups, sessions for older people, and for people with disabilities (69). There are health reasons, too, for re-opening the pool. In 2001, there were still (and probably are still) 100 homes in Govanhill without a bath. Research from the Department of Child Health at the University of Glasgow revealed that Govanhill was one of the six ‘worst health constituencies’ (16) in Britain, with chances of dying at ‘2.3 times the national average’ (11). Govanhill, one of the most densely populated areas in Glasgow, is known for ‘high rates of poverty, unemployment, [and] poor housing’ (16). Many locals have neither the time nor means (such as a car) to access the Gorbals, and others cannot swim in mixed pools for cultural reasons (52). After the Baths closed, an estimated 100 children gave up swimming altogether (87).

On the 10^th of July 2001, the occupation was served a 48hr notice to quit the building, and on the 7^th of August, the Battle of Calder Street began with a dawn eviction raid. Some 250 police officers, many of them mounted, with helicopters flying overhead, descended on the building and met resistance from a crowd that swelled to 600 people (14, 88). The eviction made national headlines. The raid lasted from 4.30am-9.30pm, when police smashed the building windows, put up shutters, and drove away the crowds with batons. Although a dossier of complaints against police racism and assault was prepared, no officers were charged.

In 2005 the Save Our Pool campaign gained charitable status as Govanhill Baths Community Trust (GBCT), with backing from Historic Scotland, to reclaim and develop Govanhill Baths as a Wellbeing facility for the community. The Trust held a Doors Open Day in 2008, with a turnout of 2,192 people (98). In 2010 the Trust drew up a three-phase, five-year redevelopment plan: 1) refurbish and reopen the front suite, including the ladies and toddlers’ pools, as well as an arts space, gardening space, Turkish suite and sauna, gym, and healthy eating café. 2) redevelopment of the Steamie as an events and community space. 3) Reopen the main pool.

So far, so good. The Trust has raised £6.5 million (including £500,000 from Historic Environment Scotland, £1,000,000 from the Big Lottery, £1.8 million from Heritage Lottery, and £2.1 million from Scottish Government’s RCGF). The Prince’s Regeneration Trust is managing the delivery phase. The front suite of the building was formally reopened in 2012, with over 200 attendees, and speeches by actor Peter Mullan, Nicola Sturgeon, and Glasgow councillor Archie Graham. In 2014 the learners and toddlers pool reopened, and in 2019, Phase 1B (that is, the rest of phase 1) begins!

There are numerous arts groups based at the Baths today, including Govanhill Baths Art, Rags to Riches upcycling project, Govanhill children’s choir, a Roma choir, a gypsy band, Govanhill Theatre Group, and Cast Offs knitting group. The venue hosts a Hindu prayer meeting, cooking classes, yoga, and more, and Castlemilk Law Centre provides welfare and financial advice. Govanhill Baths Archive, established in 2015, features artefacts, photos, and an oral history archive, where you can learn about the Baths, and the people who make it what it is today. The community fought hard to save the building, and a few years from now, the Baths will be revitalised as a Wellbeing centre for that community.

By Saskia McCracken

Sources:

United We Will Swim: 100 Years of Govanhill Baths. Ed. Helen de Main. Edinburgh: Luath Press, 2015.

https://www.govanhillbaths.com/

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Thomas Lipton was born on 10^th May 1848 at 10 Crown Street, Gorbals. The son of immigrants from County Fermanagh, Ireland, he was the youngest of 5 and was the only one to survive infancy. In the 1860s Thomas’ father setup a small shop in the Gorbals, selling basic provisions to the local community. Thomas left school at the age of 10 to start his first job at a stationers on Glassford Street, earning just “half a crown’ for a wage.

At 16 Thomas signed up to work as a cabin boy on a steamer between Glasgow and Belfast and managed to save up enough for passage to New York before being let go from his position. He travelled around the US for 5 years and worked in a number of positions including obacco plantation in Virginia, as an accountant and bookkeeper at a rice plantation in South Carolina, as a door-to-door salesman in New Orleans, a farmhand in New Jersey, and finally as a grocery assistant in the World’s largest retail store (at the time) A. T. Stewart & Co at 280 Broadway, Manhattan, New York.

It was here that Lipton learned the many unique selling methods that allowed him to change the way of shopping in Glasgow when he returned home in 1869, strategies such as “low mark up, high volume” and “set prices”.

When he returned in 1870 he setup his first store – Lipton’s Market – at 101 Stobcross Street in Anderston. Here he employed many of the techiques that he had learned in New York – the sales assistants were in bright white aprons with rows of ham and cheese. It was bright and airy and ridiculously clean and Lipton behind the counter being as charming as ever.

It wasn’t just about the store, it was also about the products on sale. He sold a number of irish goods but also imported a number of high quality goods from further afield. He also employed someone to go out and meet the farmers before they arrived at the market – and guaranteed a price, cutting out the middle man and allowing him to control the supply chain. As more stores started to pop up Lipton proved to be a master of marketing too. He had butter sculptures, giants cheeses on elephants, pig parades and much more!

By 1888 Lipton had 300 stores and wanted to grow his empire further. Tea prices were following and his middle-class customers were demanding more so he decided to open his tea-tasting office and bought Ceylon tea gardens before establishing the Lipton tea brand and distributing it throughout Europe and the USA . In doing so was able to in order to sell teas at low prices to a poorer working class market, who had previously been unable to afford such a luxury.

By this point Lipton’s stores had made it as far as London and he was mixing with royalty and the upper echelons of Victorian Society. In 1898 he floated his company, retaining a controlling interest, but pocketed £120m (£1 billion in today’s money).

In 1901 he was created a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (KCVO) by King Edward VII.

Growing up on the river Clyde it is understandable that Lipton had an interest in boats, making and floating models as a child. Lipton tried to join the Royal Yacht Squadron but was turned down due to snobbery. He ended up joining the Royal Ulster Yacht Club in Bangor (County Down) and set out on a quest to win the America’s Cup in his yacht ‘Shamrock’, in 1899 but was defeated. The image of Lipton in a yachtsman’s hat ended up featuring on a lot of Lipton packaging. He challenged again a number of times up until 1930 but was always defeated each time and was labeled the “most cheerful loser” but Hollywood actor Will Rogers.

Lipton died in 1931 and huge crowds lined the streets as the funeral cortege made its way to the Southern Necropolis, where he is buried less than a mile from the Gorbals street where he was born.

Published: 25th September 2018

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This elaborate cast-iron Moorish canopy was erected in 1893 to honour James Martin (1815-92). James Martin was a senior councillor (local bailie) represented Whitevale Ward from 1870, the Town’s Master of Works, a member of the Clyde Navigation Trust, a Justice of the Peace and a highly respected Police Judge. It was erected in 1893 and dedicated to him on 26th May 1894. It was removed from outside Langside Halls and is now located beside the old Templeton carpet factory on Glasgow Green. He is remembered for his opposition to the council`s speculative development on Woodlands Hill. This expensive building venture was undertaken to provide homes for the rich at a time when the East End`s housing was in an appalling state.  represented Whitevale Ward from 1870. A Radical in his politics, he was nicknamed “the East End Tribune”.

The fountain is decorated with the city`s coat of arms, flowers, birds, lions and various strange-looking beasts, and was made in the Possilpark area of Glasgow in the world-famous Saracen iron foundry of Walter Macfarlane.

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Hampden Bowling Club sits on the 1st Hampden Park. This fact was lost for over 113 years. Yes – Scotland didn’t know where its true home of Scottish Football was. There was no map that people knew of.

People know about the current Hampden and some even know about the second Hampden at Cathkin Park but very few knew there was a ground before both of these.

First Hampden was home to Queens Park FC and the Scotland International Football Team from 1873 to 1884. It hosted the first Scottish Cup Final where Queens Park beat Clydesdale 2-0 in 1873/74 season. It also hosted England 3 times and beating them on this ground 17 – 7 over 3 amazing matches. And most importantly it was where the Glasgow Game was first played.

Whereas the English kicked and rushed, Queens Park and hence Scotland, created a passing and dribbling game that made them the greatest footballing nation at the time. It has now been adopted by the world, where 2 billion people either watch it or play it. And it all started at Hampden Park.

The founders of Queens Park FC are regarded as pioneers of their time: establishing one of the most famous football clubs in the world and also creating the modern game. The restoration of their original ground will continue that heritage through another sport and ensure that future generations know the legend of the first Hampden Park.

The 1st Hampden is historic and was home to Queen’s Park Football Club and the SFA from 1873 to 1884.

You can check out the campaign that is underway to #restore1sthampden over at The Hampden Collection and follow them on Facebook and Twitter.

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Whilst walking in Pollokshaws you may have noticed a beautiful red sandstone building that was the old Sir John Maxwell Primary School. It was built 1906-07 on a site that had been donated by Sir John Maxwell for its predecessor school of the same name.

Unfortunately the grand replacement building was closed in 2011 and has remained empty but did you know that here, between 1908 and 1915, the political activist John Maclean taught courses in Marxism to a rather large class? Did you go to this school? What are your memories?

Get in touch info@sghet.com or in the comments below.

The original Sir John Maxwell School was built after Sir John Maxwell (of Pollok House) gifted the land required to build an industrial school in Pollokshaws in 1854 after the passing of the Education Act of 1872 which meant that charitable education could no longer be provided by The Parish of Eastwood. This allowed local children to carry on accessing free education and it offered different trade lessons to each gender. The goods produced in these trade lessons, alongside vegetables grown, were sold to raise funds for the school.

In 1907 the new school was built at a cost of £16,600. John Hamilton was commissioned to design it and later an extension was designed by David Thomson, after the number of new student enquiries increased drastically.

Hamilton chose to use red sandstone (from stone hewn from the Locharbriggs Quarry in Dumfriesshire) for the building, following on from his previous school designs. Many criticised the use of red sandstone, none more so than Sir Robert Rowand Anderson (architect of Pollokshaws Burgh Hall and Pollok House) as it wasn’t in keeping with the blond sandstone used to give close neighbour Pollokshaws Burgh Hall its Baronial style.

As the land had been gifted by his ancestor, it was fitting that Sir John Stirling Maxwell officially opened the new school on 9th January 1909. You can read more about the Maxwells of Pollok here.

Between 1908 and 1915 the school was also used to teach night classes, including one on Marxist economics by revolutionary socialist John Maclean who was born in Pollokshaws. His anti-war revolutionary activism led to him being arrested for sedition in April 1918 and imprisoned in Peterhead prison in north Aberdeenshire, being released on 3 December 1918 a few weeks after the Armistice.

There is an ongoing active campaign to save the building – which is not listed and the roof of which partially collapsed in 2021 – with a current focus to turn it into the Maxwell Centre for Environmental Change. See: https://www.sirjohnmaxwellschool.com/ and follow them on Facebook and Twitter.

Share your thoughts on the building and memories of the school in the comments below.

Interior pictures by Proj3ct M4yh3m

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Since its closure in 1958 and later liquidation in 1960 the Dixons Ironworks has been a strong part of the historic past of the Gorbals and those who are able to recall its physical dominance within the area have similar memories of this part of the environment that was known to “light up the sky with a glow of red in the night”

Through recollections from individual recordings, anecdotes and past newspaper articles SGHET has been working on archiving information on this unique (and now gone) part of the Gorbals’ rich historical jigsaw.

More info coming soon!

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In 1839 a public meeting was held in the Gorbals Baronial Hall with the proposal that land should be bought for the provision of a much needed Southern Necropolis, resulting from the cholera outbreak of 1832. After further meetings a management committee was set up which included particularly noteworthy member, Colin Sharp McLaws, Tea Merchant from King Street. The committee issued a prospectus and emphasised that the new cemetery was one where lairs could be disposed of at such moderate prices and payment taken in such small instalments as to put the prospect of a burial place within the grasp of even the poorest citizens. There was to be no common ground and of course no pit burials. People were then invited to become subscribers.

The Southern Necropolis was opened in the year 1840. It is a cemetery rich in the history of the past. Early Chartists and Socialists, poets, artists, soldiers, merchants, engineers etc. are all buried here. All were players in the drama of the changing life of the city. Like any other graveyard the Southern Necropolis has its very own white lady. The mournful lady’s head is said to turn after someone passes. But if you ever see it turn you too will be turned into stone. The cemetery and the gatehouse are an important historical and education resource that has much to offer for the present and future generations to come.

History of The Southern Necropolis

The Southern Necropolis was established for two main reasons. Firstly, the old burial ground, first established in 1715 to meet the needs of the one time village of Gorbals was, by the late 1830’s, in an appalling state; the unfortunates “on the Parish” were buried in long trenches, left barely boarded over until the trenches were full; it had been used for mass pit burials in the cholera outbreak of 1832; the bought lairs were full, and not much space was left. Secondly, the city had its great Necropolis by the cathedral, and the new Sighthill Cemeteries-both places of great dignity.

Gorbals, now joined by Laurieston and Hutchesontown, and full of merchants and professional people, and prospering mill-owners and engineers, aspired to similar dignity. But with a difference. The dignity was to be shared by all. This later point was emphasised at a public meeting in the Baronial Hall on the fifteenth of November, 1839. There it was proposed that the Southern Necropolis should be established “to enable the working classes to become proprietors of burying places similar to those in the Necropolis, or Sighthill.”

This meeting was chaired by Archibald Edmiston, the Chief Magistrate of Gorbals, Timber Merchant and Builder. A second meeting followed very quickly, on the 27th of February, 1840. A Committee was formed, made up of the Magistrates of Gorbals. Two members are particularly noteworthy: Colin Sharp McLaws (who it was later stated was the projector of the scheme), and Archibald Edmiston. This committee issued a prospectus, re-emphasising that the new graveyard was to be one “where lairs could be disposed of at such a moderate level, and payment taken in such small installments as to put the prospect of a burial place within the reach of the poorest.”

What is now called the Central Division, the original seven-acres, was bought from a Mr. Gilmour, father-in-law of Colin McLaws, and was afterwards vested in a committee of the Magistrates of the Gorbals. (Archibald Edmiston has now disappeared from the scene). This committee`s function was apparently to act as guardians of the land and legal protector. The organisation of the affairs of the division was by a committee of lairholders, who met annually, were elected, were responsible for the recording of, and payment for, lairs, appointment of a superintendent, and his necessary staff. The affairs of the Central Division seem to have gone along fairly smoothly for many years, although signs of alteration to the original plans appear after a while. In the first two years, there is a surprising amount of burials, and then reburials, almost exactly a year later. But this could be explained by the time it would take to prepare the ground, and lay it out.

After the first years though, there is correspondence between the burial books and the actual lairs, i.e. if the burial book says that x is buried in lair 192, one finds that a stone to x is there-or no stone at all, since many have collapsed, and been removed. But this is not so in the Eastern and Western Sections. The Burial Book may say x is in lair 192. One goes to 192, and the stone is inscribed to a totally different family. This happens repeatedly. The reason can be found in the history of these sections.

THE EASTERN SECTION

By 1846, all the cheap lairs in the Central Section had been sold and it was decided to buy more land, and set it out, largely in cheap lairs. These lairs were to be seven feet by three, cost £1/1, payable at 6d a week. When 5/-had been paid, the lair could be used for burial, and when all had been paid, the lair became the property of the buyer. Colin McLaws, accordingly bought from Mr. Gilmour (father-in-law) a further seven acres. And here the first great mistake was made…

The Management Committee of the Central Lair-Holders did not wait to take on extra responsibility, so the agreement between McLaws and Mr.Gilmour was an agreement between individuals. The agreement was that as soon as the price of the additional ground, and the expense of building a wall round it, and laying the ground out, (all paid for by Mr. Gilmour) was repaid by Mr. McLaws, and the new lairs disposed of, then the extension should go into the control of the Magistrates of Gorbals (or of Glasgow when the Gorbals take over took place) in trust for the lair-holders.

In 1847 on the same conditions, McLaws bought a further stretch of land from Gilmour. Clearly the faster the lairs were sold, and the more lairs were sold, the sooner McLaws was out of debt. How he set about this can be seen more clearly when we reach the Western Section. In 1853 McLaws borrowed £300 from Mc Glashan, monumental sculptor, security was the unsold lairs in the Eastern Division. In the meantime in 1848 Gilmour died, in 1857 McLaw went bankrupt. His estate was sequestered, and his rights sold publicly. The rights to this section of the Necropolis were acquired in 1865 by the Central Management Committee.

According to the original agreement, the Management Committee, prepared to convey the extension into the protection of the Magistrates of Glasgow. But all the lairs had not been sold, and so, in accordance with the original agreement, the Magistrates decided it was not yet time for them to come on the scene. This is understandable. What is difficult to understand is that in 1891 when all the lairs were sold, and the Magistrates were approached again in the name of the lair-holders, they still did not want to be responsible. They suggested application should be made to the Court of Session to constitute a new body of trustees. This suggested application was made in 1893 by the Central Management Committee and they suggested as suitable trustees for the Eastern lair-holders, their chairman and treasurer, Mr. J. Hovett and Mr. W. Hovett, of 146 Buchanan Street.

THE WESTERN SECTION

Still running short of space, Colin McLaws bought more land-9½ acres from the trustees of a Mr. Jardine, claiming that it too was to be laid out in cheap lairs. The ground cost £4,858. (£1,000 paid in cash the rest to be paid for the sale of lairs.) McLaws launched his selling campaign. Canvassers were sent all over the city and surrounding country-offering every inducement. “Lairs were to become private property of purchasers and successors for all time, were to be preserved inviolate as a repository for the reception at death of all held most dear.” So that the ground be tastefully laid out, 30/- lairs were raised to 36/9- the additional charge to be used for ornamental gardening. The section was to be laid out on the general plan of the central. All lairs were to be private. No place for burial of strangers (common ground). No pit burials. Sales were rapid, but not rapid enough…

In 1855 McLaws borrowed from the City of Glasgow Life Assurance Co. £6,000 on security of 9½ acres of Western Division. Three gentlemen were bound with him for interest on the loan, and £700 lodged to build a wall. One of the seventeen was Mr. W.T. Edmiston, son of Archibald Edmiston, who had been chairman of the inaugural meeting of the Central Necropolis. In 1857 McLaws was bankrupt. The Assurance Company sold lairs until 1859, when the three gentlemen (cautioners) who had guaranteed the loan, borrowed from the Royal Bank to pay the balance due to the Assurance Committee and proceeded to pay themselves back with the sale of lairs. Edmiston defended it by saying that he had noticed some “respectable artisans” could not afford the price of lairs, and he had proposed to set aside a certain portion of the 9% acres where this type of burial could be offered, at a low cost of 8/- for an adult and 3/- for a child.

At the same time other actions were brought about the reselling of lairs, on the grounds that a lair had not been selected, or that it was not fully paid. Other practices, totally opposed to the original concept of the Necropolis were hinted at-the re-opening of pits, after a time, and the remains huddled together in a piece of waste ground lying on the south side of the cemetery; certain undertakers claiming that they held land of their own within the cemetery, offering special terms, and making use of the pits, and the waste ground (we have found indications of this service from undertakers in the Burial Books).

All this accumulation of complaints finally brought about collective action on the part of the lair-holders of the Western Section. They sent deputations to Mr. Edmiston, to no avail. Through his lawyers he claimed he was the sole proprietor. They offered to buy the remaining land. No reply. They had a public meeting in October 1869. The complaints were once again recorded, and a decision made that if they were not remedied, they would go to law. A conaittee was formed to collect funds for this purpose. The Committee applied to the sheriff for an interdict on pit burials. This was refused. But a small victory was won, when Edmiston’s lawyer, although he still upheld Edmiston as the proprietor of the ground, conceded that the lair-holders became the proprietors of the lairs.

At a second public meeting in December 1869 the committee of the lair-holders decided that since the land had now very largely been disposed of as lairs, Mr. Edmiston had no right to manage them. That right now belonged to the lair-holders. The meeting authorized the committee to assume management. The committee decided to force a confrontation. They advertised that after the 3rd January 1870, they would conduct internments (until this none could take place without Mr. Edmiston’s consent). Several lair-holders stated that they wanted to conduct internments, but Mr. Edmiston reacted strongly, and advised the committee that a strong body of police would be in attendance to prevent any attempt to conduct funerals without his consent. This the local police superintendent confirmed. Clearly a long battle with the law was imminent, and an appeal was made to the lair-holders to build up funds for it.

SOURCES

Constitution, Regulations etc. of the Original Southern Necropolis-1865.
Report on Burial Grounds to the Town Council-1870.

The Western Southern Necropolis-A Statement of the Dispute between the Lair-Holders and Mr. W.T. Edmiston-1870-71.

Petition by Peter Luineden and other Lair-Holders in the Eastern Section of the Southern Necropolis for appointment of Trustees-to the Lords of the Court of Session-1893.

For more direct information about the site and its programme of community activities: find the Friends of Southern Necropolis on Facebook and visit their website.

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