On 25th into 26thOctober 1919, homeless miner John Ryan broke into Fagan’s pawnbroking establishment in Blantyre. He made off with quite a haul taking over 80 items of gold and silver jewellery! However, police caught up with him in December that year and he was sent to prison.
April 1980 saw an increase in the amount of vandalism all over Blantyre. One weekend, vandals broke into Blantyre Nursery Centre on Glasgow Road, which had been poised and ready to receive a huge modernisation and upgrade. They smashed windows, ripped toys and tore apart play equipment. They even killed the children’s goldfish by pouring […]
A miner named Andrew Cosh of 4 Cross Row, Low Blantyre, was sharply fined at Hamilton Burgh Police Court in March 1920 for a brutal and unprovoked attack on a tramcar conductress. According the statement of the Fiscal, the girl had been busily engaged in collecting her fares in a crowded tramcar, when Andrew, most […]
A riot broke out in High Blantyre Main Street on the night of Friday 23rd July 1920. Some of you may be thinking, “well, nothing new there then!”, but you would be wrong, for this was much more serious than any quarrel. On that evening, almost 100 years ago, angry men took to the streets […]
Christmas 1891, was something Blantyre lady Rose Ann Watson (nee McCourt) would likely not have enjoyed. The Auchentibber woman was jailed for 21 days over the festive period for stealing from a Blantyre shop, belonging to William Scott at High Blantyre Main Street. She had actually got away with stealing the items a couple […]
Who remembers Rennie’s Shop in Coatshill? Did you know in 1967, a massive quantity of cigarettes were stolen from the shop. In the early hours of Friday 19th May 1967, almost 26,000 cigarettes were stolen in an audacious heist! Two 20 year old young men from Burnbank, under cover of darkness broke into the […]
On Sunday 30th April 1967, a single decker old bus which had been used as a workman’s bothy burned down. The bus had doubled as a work hut and was being used by the many men employed in removing the Priory Bing at the former Priory Colliery, Low Blantyre. It is unknown how the blaze […]