How we take street lighting for granted these days. Looking back to the 1890’s, as Lanarkshire’s towns and villages began to get proper street lighting, this was a constant cry from residents for “more to be done”.
New lights coming to streets made the news and into the newspapers. In October 1892, as the darker nights arrived, Bothwell and Blantyre folk were asking for more to be done. The road leading to Blantyre village from Bothwell, by way of the Suspension bridge at Blantyre works was becoming busier. Over 70 miners had weekly tickets for the bridge, whilst a large number of travellers and residents also crossed often.
The road at night however, was most dark and dangerous and no lights existed on the Blantyre side once factories had closed for the day, for a full half mile up to the road (presumably Station Road). There were many hidden corners , winding passes, dark twists and turns. The newspaper commented at the time, “If there was one place in the County where the Council should attend to lighting, it is this one where the Council should be erecting lamps”.
This was a time before electric lighting, the lamps referred to were a need for gas lights. As an observation during October 1892, looking at other research there were 17 “outrages of women” which took place in Bothwell, Blantyre and Uddingston. The significant number of these type of attacks were suggested as being caused perhaps by a couple of men (or even the same man!) using the darkness for their crimes. Newspaper reports blamed the poor lighting. Not something I wish to dwell on.
