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GB 249 SOHC 46 · Colección · September - November 1989

Oral history project conducted in 1989 by Glasgow Museums with eight former workers in the Clydeside shipbuilding industry. The project documents, from the workers' own perspectives, life in Glasgow's shipbuilding industry in the 1930s and 1940s, and includes their recollections of the Great Depression in the 1930s.

Based along the river Clyde in the west of Scotland, the Glasgow shipbuilding industry grew dramatically in the late 19th century, becoming one of the world's major centres of shipbuilding construction, employing tens of thousands of people in a host of different firms, constructing ocean liners, steamships and battleships, for export around the world. At the turn of the 20th century, Glasgow was responsible for a large proportion of the world's ship production. After suffering a severe downturn during the Great Depression in the 1930s, the Glasgow shipbuilding industry went into terminal decline in the post-war decades, and by the 1990s was at a fraction of its former capacity.

The interviewees held the following occupations within the shipbuilding industry:

  • shipwright/boilermaker
  • 2 x shipyard blacksmith
  • 2 x shipwright
  • caulker
  • ship's plumber
  • marine engineer
    In addition, one of the interviewees (Pat McChrystal) describes in detail a myriad of other roles, and the overall process of ship construction.

The interviews reference a range of shipbuilding companies on the Clyde, including Fairfields, Alexander Stephen & Sons, and Harland & Wolff. As most interviewees spent most of their working lives in the industry, interviews chart the career trajectories of workers, often involving changes of role and employer, including time spent in the broader industrial marine ecology of the Clyde, such as the merchant navy and ship repairers. Comments are also made on wages, hours of work, the hierarchy within jobs, and differences in skilled/semi-skilled labour.

Most of the interviewees started their working lives in the 1930s and 1940s in the shipyards. Although the interviewees talk about their working lives across the decades, most of the specific detail focuses on their experiences in the yards in the 1930s and 1940s. The impact of the Great Depression of the 1930s is a notable feature of the material, and this period's effect on the shipbuilding industry on the Clyde is described. In particular, the interviewees outline the personal impact of the collapse in shipbuilding, describing the impact of periods of prolonged unemployment. The development of cycling and hostelling around Scotland as a popular leisure activity for unemployed men in the 1930s is also featured.

One interview is with Andy McMahon, a former shipbuilder, who was also the Labour Party Member of Parliament (MP) for Govan, between 1979 and 1983. Leaving school at 14, McMahon became an apprentice in the Fairfield shipyard in the early 1930s and later became a trade union shop steward. McMahon describes his periods of unemployment during the depression of the 1930s, and details his emerging political consciousness in the shipyards in this period, which included membership of the Communist Party and being blacklisted for political activism.

The interviews cover the entrance of the worker into the shipbuilding industry, which was typically on leaving school, aged 14 or 15. The interviewees discuss parental attitudes towards employment, as well as the influence of fathers - who typically were also employed in the shipyards - in securing work. All entrants to the shipyards underwent a 5 year apprenticeship, leading to a skilled trade, and this apprenticeship period is heavily described in the material, including entrance examinations, rival gang fights, an apprentice strike in the 1930s, and the impact of the Great Depression.

The interviews also document everyday experiences in the workplace environment. There is material on interviewees' day-to-day routines, detailing the challenges and tasks required by specific roles within the shipbuilding process, often going into detail regarding specific industrial techniques, typically involving skilled manual labour. Interviews also cover the various tools and equipment used to perform specific roles, and comment is often made on the provision and availability of tools. Interviewees frequently discuss how they were expected to make their own tools. The impact of new technology in the shipbuilding industry is also touched upon.

The interviews also provide details of the working conditions in the shipyards. Interviewees often describe the conditions of the shipyards which they encountered on leaving school and starting work there. Frequent comment is made on the physical conditions of life in the shipyards (noise levels, extreme heat, working outdoors in winter etc), the provision of specialist equipment (or lack of), and the various strategies adopted to ameliorate demanding conditions. The sheer physical demands of the work is often commented on, and the provision of on-site facilities (eg. canteens, toilets) - or lack of - is also outlined. Interviews also cover the health and safety procedures (or lack of) in the shipyards, describing workplace accidents, workplace risks to injury, and exposure to hazardous substances, including asbestos.

The interviews also document industrial relations within the shipyards. Interviewees discuss their relationships with management, the distinct dress codes of different groups, and management attitudes towards workers. Interviewees also outline their relationships with foremen, who were responsible for day-to-day oversight of ship workers, described by one interviewee as "very powerful". Discussion also takes place on workplace discipline, and penalties for infringements. Interviews also feature material on the development of trade union activity in the shipyards, as well as the campaigns for improved wages and conditions in the 1930s. Workers also discuss their myriad grievances in relation to their working conditions: no teabreaks, low wages, no pension, no holiday pay, lack of tools, "hire and fire" culture. Some interviewees also reference Catholic/Protestant relations in the shipyards, detailing practices of discrimination and sectarian attitudes.

Some of the interviews feature life in the shipyards during WWII. Interviewees discuss the "boom time" of the industry, the changing focus towards warships and merchant fleet, and the new influx of people into shipbuilding. In particular, comment is made on the arrival of women workers in the shipyards during WWII, undertaking traditionally male roles.

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GB 249 ON/1 · Colección · 1967 - 1973

Papers of initial meetings to set up Trust, 1967; minutes and papers, 1968-1971; correspondence, 1971-1972; financial records, 1967-1973; papers for Glasgow Corporation's House Improvement and Rehabilitation conference held at City Hall, 8 February 1971; circulars on housing trusts including Christian Aid (Glasgow) Housing Association Limited, 1967.

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Thomas O'Beirne papers
GB 249 OM/472 · Colección · 1934 - 1947

Correspondence relating to engineering qualifications; photograph of Royal Technical College students participating in the annual Student Charities Day; caricature drawing of Keith Speirs (known as 'Bindle'), Union Attendant at the Royal Technical College; copy of 'Uno Ygorra', the Glasgow Students' Charities Committee magazine.

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GB 249 OS/86/3/12 · Item · c. 1993

Leaflet advertising the University's accommodation, activities and campus buildings, including maps and directions to the campus.

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Study Circle records
GB 249 STU · Colección · 1894 - 1942

Study Circle minute book, 1919-1937; envelope of newspaper cuttings, telegrams, letters and other ephemera collected by or associated with the Study Circle, 1909-1942; album containing character testimonials, tributes, letters, election leaflets, newspaper and magazine articles and other ephemera relating to Robert Shanks, founder of the Study Circle, 1894-1921.

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Springburn women oral history project
GB 249 SOHC 45 · Colección · 2014

Oral history project conducted on 1st and 8th October 2014 by Rebekah Russell for her history honours dissertation entitled 'Deindustrialisation in Springburn and the impacts on women's lives in 1960-1990' at the University of Strathclyde. The project aimed to gather information as to the nature of working life and the impact of local factory closures on women who lived or worked in the Springburn area of Glasgow during the period 1960-1990. 8 retired women were interviewed at the Alive & Kicking Project, Springburn: Betty Long, Catherine Rogers, Isabella Martin, Joan Pollock, May McAleese, Molly Roy, Margaret Cullen and Susan McFarlane. Topics covered in interview included descriptions of daily life during the period, details of job losses, redundancies, health issues, gender stereotypes encountered in the workplace, struggles for equal rights and equal pay with male work colleagues, and the effect upon the women, their families and their community of local factory closures in Springburn during the Thatcher Government of the 1980s. Some transcripts are incomplete.

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Singer strike, 1911
GB 249 SOHC 2 · Colección · Original recordings, 1988

Conversations between members of Glasgow Labour History Workshop and former Singer employees, discussing working conditions and the strike at the Singer sewing machine plant in Clydebank, Scotland, March / April 1911.

Clydeside industrialists began to introduce scientific management practices in 1910. The Singer sewing machine plant in Clydebank became the site of the first explicit confrontation between capital and labour in Scotland resulting from the ensuing reorganisation of work processes. Within two days of twelve female cabinet polishers going on strike, the Singer works became paralysed as the majority of the 11,000 workforce joined in.

Sin título
Scottish Hotel School records
GB 249 OF/26 · Colección · 1944-2007
  • Management committee papers
  • Annual reports
  • Financial records
  • Estates and buildings records
  • Certificates of accreditation of courses
  • Prospectuses
  • Course leaflets
  • Handbooks for international students
  • Examination papers
  • Awards ceremony programmes
  • Student records
  • Prize and scholarship records
  • Uniforms
  • Student memorabilia
  • Group photographs
  • Internationale Kochkunst Grosser Preis medal
  • Function menus
  • Visitors' books
  • News cuttings books
  • Year books and newsletters
  • Teaching aids
  • Published articles about the Scottish Hotel School
  • Corporate merchandise
  • Board game entitled 'Who wants to be a hotelier'
  • Certificate of corporate membership of Hospitality Action
  • Scottish Hotel School Library records
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Robertson collection
GB 249 SC Robertson · Colección · 1678 to date

Collection of material on the history and description of Glasgow, industrial archaeology in the West of Scotland, Scottish topography and travel history. Also includes a collection of ephemera, notes and articles.

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GB 249 SOHC 20 · Dossiê · c. 2004

The Scottish Women's Oral History Project was undertaken in Stirling, Scotland, between 1987 and 1990. The aim of the project was to record the lives of women in Scotland in the first half of the 20th century, including a specific objective to record the experiences of working-class women.

The project was established in December 1986 by the Women’s Committee of Stirling District Council. The impetus for the project was part of a wider promotion of women's interests, as well as a need to address a perceived lack of women's voices in the historical record. Sponsored by the Manpower Services Commission (MSC), the project set out to record the personal testimonies of local women living in the Stirlingshire area of Scotland about their life in the decades before the Second World War. Based in Spittal Street, Stirling, the project was coordinated by Jayne Stephenson, who, with a team of fellow interviewers, interviewed around 80 local women, between 1987 and 1990.

The testimonies cover all aspects of women’s experiences, from childhood to adulthood, through to the Second World War. The interviews are loosely structured into sections covering childhood, leisure, work, marriage, children, community and social class (the interview questions are based on the model questionnaire devised by Paul Thompson (1978)). The project explicitly aimed to cover a representative sample of female occupations, and the material contains recollections of a wide variety of occupational experience - including textile workers, waitresses and hotel staff, domestic servants, factory workers, teachers, nurses.

The publication contains written transcripts of 77 interviews (anonymised), together with an index and an introduction by Callum Brown.

Temporally, the material relates to women born in Scotland between 1894 and 1926, and the interviews cover the period up to World War II.

Geographically, the material covers the Stirlingshire and 'central belt' area of lowland Scotland, including extensive material on life in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

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GB 249 OP · Colección · 1792 to date

Black and white, sepia and colour photographic prints and negatives, including glass negatives; transparencies; postcards; sketches and artists' impressions.

Photographs of people are mainly individual and group photographs of staff and students. Images of machinery and equipment include slides used for teaching purposes, and an early photograph of an Argyll motor car on the ramp in the Mechanical Engineering Laboratory. Photographs of University buildings include Anderson's University, the Mechanics' Institution, the Weaving, Dyeing and Printing College and Allan Glen's School, in addition to the later buildings of the Royal Technical College and the Scottish College of Commerce and the modern buildings of the University. The visit by HM King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, and the laying of the foundation stone of the Royal College Building in 1903 is also represented in the collection. There are also aerial photographs of the campus at various periods of development. Photograph albums preserve the memory of honorary graduations, VIP visits and other events.

GB 249 SOHC 32 · Colección · May - September 2018

Oral history project, conducted in May - September 2018 by Rory Stride, with women formerly employed at James Templeton & Co., carpet manufacturers, between c. 1960 and 1981. A total of six women were interviewed. The interviews last approximately between 45 minutes and 1 hour 15 minutes and were conducted at a variety of places across Scotland. The interview questions were semi-structured and largely directed by the responses of the participants.

The interviews focus on the women’s working lives and their first experiences of employment after secondary school but specifically exploring their experience of work at James Templeton & Co., the preeminent carpet manufacturers in Glasgow during the 1960s and 1970s. The company had seven factories, located in the east end and southside of Glasgow with the company’s Crown Street factory being the last to close in early 1981 when Templeton Carpets amalgamated with Stoddard Carpets. Topics discussed include trade unions, working conditions, gender divisions in labour, staff camaraderie, management and staff relationships, and periods of redundancy, unemployment and re-employment after leaving James Templeton & Co. The interviews also cover the women's feelings and opinions regarding the gentrification and redevelopment of the former headquarters and factory of James Templeton & Co. located at Templeton Street on the north eastern edge of Glasgow Green.

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GB 249 SOHC 39 · Colección · 2013 - 2014

Oral history project, conducted in 2013 and 2014 by Andrew Kendrick, Angela Bartie, Moyra Hawthorn and Julie Shaw, researchers at the University of Strathclyde. The project's aim was to record the personal experiences of residential workers and children's social workers who worked with children in residential services in the period 1960 – 1975, exploring their views on the experiences of children and standards, and their reflections on changes over time. 22 people were interviewed.

The interviewees include house parents, residential care workers, social workers, childcare officers and teachers. They worked in a range of care environments including residential care homes and nurseries, group homes, and List D schools. These were located across Scotland including Edinburgh and the Lothians, Glasgow, Aberdeenshire, Stirlingshire, Ayrshire, Argyll, and Angus.

Topics covered in the interviews include working roles, daily routines, the backgrounds of the young people coming into care, social and economic conditions at that time, and standards of care within different care home environments. The interviews also discuss child abuse, use of corporal punishment, relationships with colleagues, education, dealing with challenging behaviour, the introduction of the Social Work (Scotland) Act and the children’s hearing system, and thoughts on developments in residential care.

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GB 249 SOHC 38 · Colección · 2019

Ongoing oral history project being carried out by Stellar Quines, a Scottish theatre company.

In the autumn of 2019, Stellar Quines created and toured 'Fibres', a play by Frances Poet about the impact of the shipyards and asbestos on a Glasgow family. It was inspired by a true story and mirrored hundreds of similar stories in Glasgow and the rest of the UK. In addition to producing the play, the company collaborated with Clydeside Action on Asbestos, one of Glasgow’s primary support services for those impacted by asbestos, to undertake an oral history project to gather some of those Glasgow stories .

The interviewer is Rosie Priest, Creative Learning Associate, Stellar Quines.

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