During the cold winter’s of the last few years of the 1890’s, a theft was committed in Blantyre. Mr Peter Clark, a local miner decided to try to cheat the newly established residential gas network throughout Blantyre and between the 13th December 1896 and 26th May 1897 admitted to stealing almost 4000 cubic feet of […]
This next story is from 1908, but before anybody says anything, the photo is much later from 1977 for illustration only, showing Broompark Road at Larkfield in the exact spot of where this happened. On Saturday 22nd August 1908, a miner Mr William Devlin had been enjoying a few drinks in Grace MacCallum’s Pub at […]
By the 1900s, miner’s working conditions saw them working in shift patterns of no more than 8 hours underground. Still horrific, given the conditions down pits. It was an early ‘human rights’ law brought in by Parliament and at first contested by Coalmasters. More time in the mines, meant more coal brought up and therefore […]
In December 1980, there was still the question of what businesses would move into the new flat roofed shopping units at Larkfield. Owner, Jaquib Ali came under fire from residents nearby when he announced he was planning on letting to an arcade company. People were up in arms that gambling machines would be installed in […]
1921 saw significant pressures on employment of miners in Blantyre. On Saturday 2nd July 1921 a notice went up in the Craighead colliery reading, “This colliery will not reopen for work, but will be dismantled. No. 2 workmen who have their graith underground may lift this on Monday. No. 1 workmen will get theirs as […]
William Dixon and Co narrowly avoided another major catastrophe in 1921, when the shaft of their Larkfield Pit 4 collapsed. The question arose immediately as to whether it was an accident or another outrage. That was the problem which mining experts faced when they examined the enormous havoc wrought at the Blantyre colliery, a task they […]
Taken from high above Burnbank Hillhouse, this aerial photo from 1961 looks back towards High Blantyre. At a time before the EK Expressway, you can see the relatively new Kirkton Avenue and Waverley Terrace in the Housing Estate in the foreground, which had only been constructed a few years earlier. The fields to the […]