SECTION II - INDUSTRY AND TRADE
AGRICULTURE
40) Farleton Malvina - Clydesdale mare owned by J. & A. Clark, Avenue End Farm, Millerston. Winner of First Prize at Shettleston and Chryston District Agricultural Show - 1924. Winner of numerous prizes at shows at Ayr and Kilmarnock.
41) Andrew Buchanan of Ruchazie Farm, ploughing - 1940.
42) Hollowglen Farm about 1900, with on the left the lane leading northwards to Lightburn Hospital, now Hollowglen Road.
In the landward area of Shettleston Parish the main industry was agriculture and some aspects of farms and farming did not finally disappear from the district until about twenty years ago.
At the end of last century two farms lay within the bounds of the village, with Shettleston Farm at the west-end near the present Edrom Street and Middle Quarter Farm located at what is now the Fenella Street/Shettleston Road corner.
There are records of Middle Quarter Farm as far back as the early 18th century and in the 1881 census, John Anderson is recorded as the tenant, farming some 124 acres and employing four men and two girls.
Other farms near the village were Springfield Farm located where is now the Sandyhills Bowling Club and Sandyhills Farm on whose land the Meadowlea private housing estate has recently been erected.
The brothers James and John Murdoch farmed the area now occupied by the Carntyne housing scheme and John Murdoch was a prominent breeder and judge of Ayrshire cattle.
The farming in the area was mainly a mixture of arable and dairy farming, with the arable designed to supply winter feed for the herds of mainly Ayrshire cattle kept to supply milk for Glasgow’s teeming population.
For about 50 years up until 1929 there existed a Shettleston and Chryston District Agricultural Society and a show was held annually in the month of June at either Shettleston or Chryston.
As early as 1898, John Anderson of Middle Quarter was in the prize list of the Glasgow Agricultural Show for a cow with calf, and at the local Shettleston and Chryston Show, John Murdoch was a prominent exhibitor and prize winner with his Ayrshire cows, as were J. and A. Clark of Avenue End Farm, Millerston with their pedigree Clydesdale horses.
Between the wars the land south of Shettleston became the site of Sandyhills Housing Scheme and the farms of Carntyne became the Carntyne Housing Scheme. After the Second World War the farming land in the north of the parish became the location of the large Easterhouse Housing Scheme and farming virtually ceased, with now only such street names as Croftspar Avenue, Wellhouse Road, Easter Queenslie Road, and Avenue End Road to perpetuate the names of some of the farms that once stood in the area.
COAL MINING
43) Shettleston Colliery - about 1910. This colliery owned by the Mount Vernon Colliery Co. Ltd., was opened about 1872 and closed in 1923. It was located just east of where Old Manse Road passes under the Airdrie to Helensburgh railway line.
The Ordnance Gazeteer of Scotland published in 1885 by Francis H. Groome describes Shettleston as “a somewhat dingy and poor place inhabited chiefly by colliers and agricultural workers”.
Certainly at that period and for at least some 100 years previously coal was extensively mined in the parish of Shettleston.
The Gray family of Carntyne and the McNairs of Greenfield together worked the “Westmuir” coalpits which were for a long period one of the main sources of fuel supply to Glasgow.
The first steam engine in the West of Scotland for draining water from coal mines was installed in Carntyne in 1768 and continued in use for a hundred years. In 1875 coal working was finally abandoned by the eighth generation of the Gray family, mainly due to the increase in water levels finally flooding the mine workings.
However, coal mining continued in other parts of the parish and the end paper maps for 1858 and 1910 show the sites of many coalpits in the Shettleston area and the extensive nature of coal mining operations in this area.
44) Shettleston Colliery Surface Workers - about 1910. Surface workers, mostly young girls, removing stones from coal passing along a conveyor belt.
45) Garthamlock Colliery - abut 1910. This photograph depicts the hutch tramway from Queenslie Pits 1 and 2 passing over the Monkland Canal, and on the north bank of the canal, Garthamlock Pits Nos. 5 and 6, and then proceeding northwards to the railhead at Garthamlock Pits 1,2 and 3. Garthamlock Colliery was owned by the Glasgow Steel Company and the various pits were in operation from 1859 to 1929.
The whole area was dotted with coalpits, operated by several companies, including such as in the west the Caroline Pit where is now Caroline Street; the Sheddens Pit near the present junction of Old Shettleston Road and Shettleston Road; the Wellshot Pit adjacent to where is now the Shettleston Bowling Green; the Dog Pit where is now the Salvation Army Hall in Etive Street; the Eastbank Pit in present day Fleet Street and the Kirk Pit just north of the Old Parish Churchyard in Shettleston Road. Southward near the Tollcross area were Foxley, Burntbroom and Daldowie, and just north of the railway line Pricklemuir, Frankfield, Greenfield and Lightburn, and in the landward area of the parish to the north, such as Queenslie, Garthamlock and Bartiebeith.
A survey of some 300 households in the 1895 valuation roll of Shettleston Parish revealed 10% of the male working population recorded as miners, and this proportion of miners to the rest of the working population probably did not greatly alter for the next twenty years.
By the end of the 19 14—18 war, many of the local coalpits which had been in existence for thirty years or more were becoming exhausted and during the next ten years many were closed until by about 1930 almost all the coal mines in the parish had ceased production, and that familiar mark of a coal mining area, the pit winding gear, had disappeared from the local scene.
There is now little to be seen of this once great industry in present day Shettleston, although the names of a few old mines live on in a few street names, and Eastbank Pit bequeathed its name to the local school which opened in 1894, namely Eastbank Academy.
There are other legacies left by the old mine workings. It is said that due to the water that flooded into the old Carntyne or Westmuir coal mines and which eventually led to their closure a goodly part of Shettleston floats on a vast subterranean lake of water.
There has over the years been the ever recurring problem of subsidence. During the last war part of the old Caroline Pit workings opened up in Caroline Street, and in 1986 families had to be speedily evacuated from houses at 1457 Shettleston Road when a large hole opened up in the backcourt, probably part of the old Kirk Pit workings.
Houses in the Springboig area have been subject to severe subsidence for over forty years, with a number of the houses having to be demolished, including some built in Croftspar Avenue between 1950 and 1960.
ENGINEERING
J. & T. Boyd’s Shettleston Iron Works were established about 1874 on a location at the corner of what is now Old Shettleston Road and Eamside Street and were manufacturers of textile machinery. During both the Great War and Second World War they switched production to munitions as the two photographs on this page illustrate. The personnel in both photographs seem to be comparatively young, a possible reflection on the fact that at mid way period of the Great War, a fair proportion of the adult male population would be serving in the Army or other services.
46) Working on munitions - J. & T. Boyd's Works - about 1916.
47) Working on munitions - J. & T. Boyd's Works - about 1916.
SHOPS
48) Black's Dairy - 618, Shettleston Road - about 1925.
Many shops at one time displayed a sign denoting the service they provided, the most common being the barber's red and white pole and the mortar and pestle of the chemist. This shop displays an excellent example of a large fish denoting a fishmongers.
49) Wilden - Fishmongers - 1052 Shettleston Road - 1935.
50) A. Massey & Sons Ltd. - Provision Merchants, 1032 Shettleston Road - about 1932.
51) A. Massey & Sons Ltd. - Staff - about 1936.
Fourth from left: Manager, Alex McArthur. On extreme right: Marion Gunn (nee Reid)
52) John White - Butchers - 1306Shettleston Road - about 1930. From left to right: W. McKie, unknown, John White, H. Gilliland.
53) Ballantyne's - Fruiterer & Florist - 1342 Shettleston Road - about 1926.
54) Town Restaurant and part of Broadway Cafe - 1198-1200 Shettleston Road - about 1939.
55) Portland Arms Bar - 1159 Shettleston Road - about 1924. A building dated of 1844 can just be discerned at the bottom of the centre chimney and is typical of the houses built along the then Main Street in the first half of the last century, initially as dwelling houses but later converted to shops on the ground-floor with dwelling accommodation above.
56) Shettleston Co-operative Society's Baker's van - about 1927. Van man - W. McConnell.
William Rae, who came from Lightburn, established this firm of haulage contractors about 1890 and was succeeded in the business by both his son and grandson.
This family concern remained in business until about 1980. Their original premises were on the south side of Old Shettleston Road where Ram Street is now located, and when this area was developed about 1930 moved across to new premises at the corner of Old Shettleston Road and Fernan Street.
(See photographs 110/ 111.)
57) William Rae, Haulage Contractor, Horse and Cart - about 1930.
58) - J. T. Curry Ltd. - 1075 Shettleston Road - about 1935.
Winnie Drum, later Mrs Jack Neillis, second from left in photographs 59, recalls working in both shops, particularly the long hours of work from 8 am. to 8 p.m. Monday to Saturday with a half-day off on a Tuesday. In those days about the only pre-packed goods were Melrose’s or Brooke Bond Tea. Most other goods had to be carefully scooped into brown paper bags and weighed on a scale with brass weights, or later on an automatic scale. Cheese was cut with a wire and butter cut from a large mound and patted into shape after weighing with wooden butter pats.
All this for a wage of about 15/- (or in metric 75p) per week.
This firm, moved from the north side of Shettleston Road to new premises across the road at 1102 Shettleston Road about the end of 1935.
59) J. T. Curry Ltd. - 1102 Shettleston Road - about 1939.
60) Forbes, Newsagents and Tobacconists - 1406 Shettleston Road - about 1936. Left to right: Robert, Alec and George Forbes.
61) Mr Knox at the doorway of his shop at 1609 Shettleston Road - about 1925.
62) Ferguson's Store - 1082 Shettleston Road - about 1927.
63) Myreside Engineering Works, Carntyne Industrial Estate - about 1953.
64) McKeller Watt Ltd. - 17 Old Shettleston Road, Sausage Packing Department - 1982.
65) Walker Precision Engineering Ltd. - 14 Eastmuir Street - 1988.
