Here’s a little story next, which made the Blantyre news in July 1896. Although a minor incident, I found it interesting enough to include here on Blantyre Project, if only to show how things were so clearly different 127 years ago.
1896 was a big year for Blantyre. Many of Glasgow Road’s tenements were built including a start made on Rosendale and other major houses and shops. Going back to this era, you have to understand that there were still large pockets of very rural land alongside the Glasgow Road. Farmlands which were being sold off to line either side of the road, to be developed with new homes and shops.
By June 1896, work had been done in some of this land, with labourers collecting large stones from the fields, to level the land in readiness for foundations. ‘Cairns’ of collected stone piles adorned the edge of the carriageway, stacked in piles, awaiting later uplift and clearance by cart.
On 18th June 1896, five young boys set off from their homes at Dixon’s Rows, Stonefield and mischief was at hand. Patrick O Brien, Peter McInally, Alexander Hutcheson, Henry Houldsworth and Samuel Coffie saw fun in picking about one cwt of these stones up and throwing them back into the fields. However, they were caught and a month later in July, the boys found themselves in court.
Coffie, being the youngest by far was dismissed with an admonition and the rest were fined a rather hefty 5s or 3 days imprisonment! This was just high jinks by some lads, clearly no major crime, but the judge obviously didn’t take kindly to what happened.
The story is imagined by AI suitably illustrated.
