Here’s a great story which I hope you haven’t heard before. On 31st January 1905, three Blantyre boys were playing in a hayshed in Stonefield, Blantyre. On that Winter Tuesday afternoon, Robert Murdoch (17), Alsworth Laing (12) and Alexander Laing (11) were keeping warm by playing inside, when the two younger boys should in fact […]
Entrusted with a watch, albert and badge by a compatriot to keep for him whilst he underwent a 30 day prison sentence, Adam Brown a Polish miner of Broompark Place pawned the articles on the 4th February 1908. This was the very day after his pal had asked him to keep them for him. Adam […]
Don’t blame me for the title, this was reporters choice of words in the Hamilton Herald and Lanarkshire Weekly News in May 1908, reminding their readers of the old adage, “Better meddle wi’ the devil, than the bairns o’ Blantyre” in relation to a break in. It was said that in the first week of […]
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 […]
On Friday 19th December 1862, a week before Christmas, police constable Andrew Cooper was going about his rounds on Burnbank Road when he saw three well known characters of the same family. John Cook (the father), Sarah Cook (the wife) and also Sarah Cook (daughter) were in the dark street carrying something bulky, struggling […]
A remarkable case of juvenile precocity was heard in the Hamilton J.P. Court on Saturday 24th January 1925. Not yet nine years of age, a boy from Burnbank admitted the theft of tin of butter scotch from a confectioner’s shop at Glasgow Road in Low Blantyre. The wee eight year old boy incredibly had […]
Time and time again I find the 1920’s an era of great unemployment for Blantyre and a time when hardships drove men (and women) to do things that would normally be grossly out of character. One such story is that of Alexander Walker Hunter, whom, in 1925 was 31 years old, a married man who […]