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Prior to 1928, if you wanted to cross the first Suspension Bridge spanning the River Clyde you would need to buy a ticket or token which cost a halfpenny. These were sold by Blantyre man, Jock McBain who lived at Waterloo Row. I’ve been looking at the life of this man. John (Jock) McBain was […]
Eric Hodge has sent these photos in of a “coin” marked “Blantyreworks”. These coins are Mexican 8 Reales (Dollars) and were used at a time when coinage in Britain was scarce (possibly due to the wars with France). These coins are silver, and were overstamped with usually the 5/- mark and used at New […]
The British Workmen’s Public Houses, perhaps designed in the 19th Century to offer an alternative to the rowdy drinking dens of working classes. British Workmen’s Public Houses offered something else other than the bar. The had free reading rooms with newspaper and magazines and there were lots of the them about Central Scotland. At least […]
Gordon Cook and Alex Rochead have kindly shared here their photos of their respective Suspension Bridge Tokens in their collections of Blantyre Memorabilia. The bridge was built by Henry Monteith to allow people to cross the Clyde from Bothwell to Blantyre and these tokens were issued to allow passage across. They date from 1853, an […]
Thanks to Yosef Sa’ar who sent in this photo of the Blantyre Suspension Bridge token from 1853. Actually this one is quite rare, dating to 1853, just a year after the bridge opened. The token would have been collected at the toll booth and would permit the crossing of one side of the bridge […]
A communion token is a metal token issued to members of Presbyterian churches in order to provide them entrance to the Lord’s Supper. There were many types issued in Scotland in the 18th and 19th centuries, but they were largely superseded by communion cards. These two are Blantyre tokens. The first is from High Blantyre Parish Church, dated 1718. This was […]
Most of the Blantyre Colliery owners liked to exercise a fairly rigid social control system over their workers, especially if it lined their pockets even more. The colliery managers were usually pillars of the local church as religion was a very real factor in community life and it led to collieries being positioned beside churches […]