SECTION V: PEOPLE AND PERSONALITIES

79) During his Shettleston ministry John White, on his horse Victor, was a familiar figure in the remote parts of his large parish.

80) Shettleston merchants at an annual outing, Anstruther - August, 1898.

81) Shettleston Parish Church Choir Outing - about 1904.

82) John Adam of Larchgrove, who also owned the estate of Springboig, was a Justice of the Peace, and prior to 1912, the representative for North Shettleston on the Lanarkshire County Council, the President of Shettleston Curling Club, the fisrt Captain of Sandyhills Golf Club, Chairman of the Scottish Automobile Club and first Master of Lodge Eastmuir Np. 1126.

83) Glass blowers at the North British Bottleworks in Shettleston, not long after the factory was established in 1904, when there were nearly 50 such works in Glasgow.  The last bottle produced at the factory before its closure in November, 1983 in now in the People's Palace.

84) Interior of A. & D. Turner's Engineering Works, 605, Main Street - about 1905.

85) Rev. Hector MacKinnon, Minister of Shettleston Parish Church, 1905-1913.

A contemporary account of this funeral recorded that:

“There are funerals which arouse public interest and evoke public sympathy and the funeral of Rev. Hector MacKinnon was of this kind. Men, women and children crowded the streets of Shettleston not just out of curiosity, but because they felt here was the last they would see of one who they had all learned to respect. It was fitting that the various organisations of his great con­gregation should be there, a host of ministers from all denominations and the Highlanders of Glasgow. That was to be expected as he was a beloved pastor and a friend to every Highlander and a co-worker with every minister. But to see the grimy collier, the toiling foundry worker, the common labourer, even the street loafer, with their women-folk and children, stand and reverent­ly salute the passing bier, was eloquent testimony that this man had touched the hearts of the common people. Hector MacKinnon’s place in the hearts of those among whom he had worked, was the place the Gospel always makes for itself when it is earnestly preached and faithfully lived.”

86) Funeral procession of Rev. Hector MacKinnon on 7th February 1913 proceeding eastward along Eastmuir Street at about the junction of what is now Culross Street and Shettleston Road.  The procession led by the Pipe Band of the 9th Bn. H.L.I (Glasgow Highlanders) of which the Rev. Hector MacKinnon had been Hon. Chaplain.

87) Works Group of Glasgow Decked Lifeboat Co., Shettleston - 1913.

88) The motor vehicle complete with laundry basket used for the collection and delivery of laundry by Wellshot Laundry about 1922.

89) Having a studio portrait or a family group photograph taken was much in vogue prior to the outbreak of the Great War, although this was perhaps a fashion of more affluent middle-class than working-class families.  This photograph of the Thornton family taken about 1914 is a typical example.  The family then resided at Garlow Bank, Sandyhills (now 1793 Shettleston Road) and James Thornton the father was a bank agent and Justice of the Peace.

90) Wedding groups were also popular providing as they did a record of the members of both families.  This wedding group of two Shettleston families on 31st January 1919 at the Douglas Hotel, Bath Street., Glasgow, records the marriage of near neighbours, Thomas Waugh, who resided at the top floor of 304 Eastmuir Street, and his bride, Mary. S. Martin, who resided in the flat immediately below at the same address, now 1638 Shettleston Road.

91) Wellshot Laundry workers - about 1921.  On left Nellie McKinnell, on right Elisabeth Simson later Mrs Rymill.

92) Mrs Deazeley who resided at Bellview Cottage and was the local midwife from 1912 to 1952.

93) Wellshot Laundry Workers - about 1935.

94) Shettleston Co-operative Society Ltd.  Vanmen - about 1930.

95) Shettleston Co-operative Society Ltd.  Carthorse decorated for Annual Gala, outside Stables, Pettigrew Street - about 1930.

96) Shettleston Co-operative Society Ltd.  Carters, in front of Stables - about 1930.

97) Staff and Foremen, Acme Steel & Co., Gartocher Road - about 1930.

98) Pipe Major Robert Reid, Cowal - 1932.

Robert Reid was born in Slamannan in 1896 and came to Shettleston about 1910 to work as a contract miner. As was the practice of that time, his father dug the coal, brother Jim loaded it into the hutch and Robert pushed the hutch to the pit cage, all for 1/- per ton.

His father, Robert and his six brothers were all keen pipers, and Robert at the age of twelve was sent to be tutored by John McDougal Gillies, one of the foremost teachers of Piobaireachd at that time.

At the age of sixteen he joined the 5th Bn. FI.L.I. as a boy piper and served in that battalion during the Great War as a piper and infantryman, in Egypt, Palestine, the Middle East, France and Belgium.

After the war he began to compete in piping competitions. He was a masterly piper and an out­standing player of Piobaireachd and in 1921 won the Northern Meetings Gold Medal and the following year the Clasp, and from that date until 1948 was seldom out of the prize lists at such Highland Gatherings as Cowal (winning 15 times), Oban, Inverness, Braemar, Aboyne.

In his later years he concentrated on his bagpipe­making business but was much in demand as a piping instructor and as a judge at piping competitions. He died in 1965 the day after judging at Cowal.

99) Father James Kearney

Father James Kearney was a native of Wexford, and was ordained in Glasgow in 1902. He served for some years as parish priest in St. Patrick’s, Shotts, and then St. Mary’s, Largs, before coming to Shettleston. He was appointed to the combined parishes of St. Paul’s and St. Mark’s in 1923.

He immediately set himself the task of building a separate and permanent church for St. Mark’s parish. His original ideas for a church in red-sandstone to match the Presbytery and St. Mark’s School had to be discarded due to prohibitive cost, so a more simple structure was erected which was completed and blessed by Archbishop Mackintosh in June 1927.

The parish flourished under the guidance of Father Kearney; priest and people formed a very definite community in St. Mark’s, bound together by a bond of faith in and love of God. Father Kearney served through the difficult thirties and the years of the Second World War, and at his death in 1945 had served the combined parishes of St. Paul’s and St. Mark’s for twenty-two years.

100) Dr W.T.G. Davidson, a local doctor, organised in conjunction with St. Andrew's Ambulance Association, a series of First Aid Classes, which over a period of years were held in the Waiting Room, Shettleston Station, on Sunday afternoons.  Dr Davidson is the central figure in the front row of this photograph of the class in session, 1930-31

101) Chums - 1933 at 803 Shettleston Road.

The Daily Record in 1930 instituted and ran for several years a children's club entitled the "Scottish Chum Club".  The basic aims of the club was to provide children with some amusement to impart in an attractive way a sense of social comradeship, to instill in the young some basic principles of conduct and responsibility and with the possibility of providing some aid to appropriate and deserving charities.  Many old members may recall with some nostalgia the chorus of the "Chumsong"; 

"Being a Chum is fun, that is why I'm one!

Always smiling, always gay;

Chummy at work and chummy at play.

Laugh away your worries, don't be sad or glum,

And everyone will know that you're a Chum, Chum, Chum!"

Photographers from the paper toured various parts of the city to take group photographs of the club members.  They tended to arrive in an area without much advance warning with little time for the subjects to tidy up, comb hair or even wash knees or faces!

102) Chums - 1934 at 1042 Shettleston Road.

MISS MARY GRAY

Miss Mary Gray celebrated her hundredth birthday on 21st October 1985 and resided at that time with her sister Bessie aged 88, at 66 Hillview Street, Shettleston.

103) The photograph on the left shows Miss Gray's father and sister Bessie about 1910, seated on a motor tri-cycle built by their father who was an engineer to trade.  Others in the photograph are their mother and sister, Jean.

104) Miss Gray celebrating her 100th birthday, doing the shoping!  (Photograph courtesy of the Evening Times)

"I was born 100 years ago in James Street which is now Elvan Street.  From a very early age I carried milk up to Carntyne where Lightburn 

Hospital is. Carntyne was then all fields with a farm. We would walk up there at dawn, and one day my sister and I dropped all the milk when a corncrake frightened us, so we ran back down the lane that ran up to Lightburn Coalpit.

When I left school I was put to Miss McGuire to learn the dressmaking trade; my parents paid for me to learn. I started work in the Co-op, working from 9 to 6 p.m. Mondays to Fridays for a small pay. Later I went into business with another dressmaker, Beth Brown, and we made some lovely clothes.

One of my sisters was a teacher in Shettleston School, or McHaffie’s School as it was called, a Mr McHaffie being headmaster for many years.

My younger brother was killed on his wedding night in the Queen Street tunnel disaster, and his wife lost a leg and died six years later. My father never got over the shock and died two weeks later at the age of 72.

I remember that we always had plain food, porridge for breakfast, and our special treat was stew and dumplings. I adored my food and enjoyed every mouthful — no talk of dieting in those days!

Bessie and I are very happy together: we have always been good pals, but sometimes just agree to differ. She has a bad knee so does the cooking, whilst I, having no arthritis in my joints, I’m the “Message Girl” and do the shopping.”

105) Members of the A.R.P. Section Shettleston Baths - about 1912.

106) Prime Minister visits Sandyhills

During the Second World War the residents of Strowan Street organised a scheme to dam the adjacent Tollcross Burn to create an emergency water supply to be used in the event of houses being set on fire by enemy action. On a visit to Glasgow sometime in 1943, Winston Churchill, accompanied by his wife and the then Lord Provost of Glasgow, Patrick Dollan, paid a visit to Sandyhills to view this unique Air Raid Precautions scheme. Local people in the photograph taken at that time include in the rear from left to right, Mrs Manohay, Mrs Scott and Miss McAleer.

SHETTLESTON MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT

 John Wheatley was born at Bonmahon, Co. Water-ford, in 1869 and at the age of nine came to reside in Bargeddie where his father found work in the local mines. From the age of eleven to twenty-four he also worked in the mines. The hard labour of the miner and the miserable housing conditions of his child­hood, — he was brought up with ten brothers and sisters in a one-roomed house with neither drainage nor a water supply — coloured much of his political activity in later years.

After leaving the mines he established a successful publishing business and in 1908 joined the Indep­endent Labour Party and became an active and influential figure in the labour movement.

In 1922 he became Member of Parliament for the Shettleston division of Glasgow, and in the Labour Government of 1924 was appointed Minister of Health. During his nine months of office he was responsible for what became known as the Wheatley Act, designed to assist local authorities to build houses for let at a rent the average working-class family could afford.

From about 1925 onwards he became increasingly identified with revolutionary socialist views and with left wing criticism of the Labour Government, and when another Labour Government was formed in 1929 he was not invited to take office. By this time his activities were impaired by failing health, and he died at Shettleston on 12th May 1930.

John McGovern was born in Coatbridge in 1887 and after a few years in Australia in the early twenties returned to this country and worked in Shettleston as a master plumber and later as an insurance agent between 1926 and 1931. He became a member of the Independent Labour Party, served for a period as a Glasgow City Councillor, and succeeded John Wheatley as the Member of Parliament for the Shettleston division of Glasgow in 1930. He was a prominent leader of the Hunger Marches from Glas­gow to London in the early thirties, and made a speech of protest in the House of Lords, during the King’s speech in 1933, on the failure of the govern­ment to restore cuts in unemployment benefit and to end the Means Test.

He joined the Labour Party in 1947 and continued to represent Shettleston as a Labour M.P. from 1947 to 1959 when he gave up the seat.

107) John Wheatley (Photograph by courtesy of The Glasgow Herald)

108) John McGovern Photograph by courtesy of The Glasgow Herald)