North of the railway bridge, the eastern side of Whitecrook Street was built first as Braemar Terrace (in 1941 much of it belonged to the estate of William Gaul, who was a plumber working in Clydebank in the late 19th Century).
The western side was added later by John Brown’s shipbuilders as homes to rent to workers and their families. It does not feature in many photos, but its proximity to the shipyard means we can pick it out in the back ground of several aerial photos. For example here it is before the Blitz:
And here is a page from the Valuation Roll (for local government taxes) for 1940:
You can see for these addresses the proprietor is John Brown & Co. Ltd in each case. Then the tenants have jobs that seem typical of the yards.
I could not find a clear account of what happened, but the record of one person who died refers to blast and the collapse of an air raid shelter, located at the rear of number 59. This would have been a communal shelter, designed for 30 people or more. I don’t know about the construction in Whitecrook Street but in other areas of the UK, these were built in a hurry, of brick and with a concrete slab on top. They offered some protection, but could not withstand a direct hit (or near miss) with the added threat that if the walls collapsed the roof slab fell.
Through the records of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission I can identify 18 people who died here. This gives an address where each person died although I am not sure how accurate this is as it requires accurate information of where each person died.
At 57 Whitecrook Street
John and Georgina Borland, aged 44 and 43. John, who was born in Kilbarchan, is named on the 1940 Valuation Roll living at number 57 and he worked as a fitter. Georgina’s maiden name was Robb. They had a daughter, Marion, born 1927; she survived and married John Gudgeon Ritchie in Paisley in 1949..
Janet France, 54. Janet is named on the 1940 Valuation Roll living at number 57 and was a widow. Also her daughter, Catherine Bradley, 24. She lived with her husband at 7 Somerville Street, at the junction of Kilbowie, Glasgow and Dumbarton Roads.
John Furmage, 33. John was married with two young sons, and lived in Bute Street, Falkirk.
Martha Galloway (nee Thomson), 55, and her son Thomas, 22. They were the wife and son of James Galloway, who was a brassfinisher. Martha was injured and died at Blawarthill Hospital on 15th March.
Elizabeth Given, 30. Elizabeth lived at number 57 with her husband William, who was an electrician.
James McIntyre Lawrie, 26, was from Appin in Argyll. In the Old Dalnottar burial record his address is given as 51 Whitecrook Street.
Susanna Peddie, 74. Named Susan in the 1940 Valuation Roll, she lived at number 55 and was a widow.
Jessie Wade, 13, and her step-brother, William Geddes, 15. Their mother, Helen, had married Robert Wade and lived at 51 Whitecrook Street; Thomas Geddes, a joiner, and presumably William’s father lived at number 57. Jessie was put in an ambulance at the scene but was found to be dead when she arrived at the hospital.
Charles Edward Waite, 34. It’s unclear where he lived but the record of his death was witnessed by James J Bradley who was also the husband of Catherine Bradley who also died here. James describes himself as a friend of Charles.
At 59 Whitecrook Street
Grace Dunn (nee White), 43. Grace’s home was 74 Second Avenue ad she plays an important part later in this article. Her husband was John Dunn and he was also present but survived.
Charlotte Reavey, 46. She lived at number 59 with her husband David.
Jeanie Sharp, 48, single and working as a packer in a threadmill. The record of her death was witnessed by W.G. Reavey, the brother of David Reavey whose wife, Charlotte. died at the same address.
Annie Jamieson Walker (nee Brown), 45. She lived with her husband, David, who was an engine-fitter. According to the CWGC record, their address was 21 Aberconway Street, a short distance away on the north side of Whitecrook Park; however, in the cemetery burials book for Old Dalnottar, David’s address is given as 59 Whitecrook Street. She was born in Killewers in Argyll and her father (John Brown) also worked as a fireman in the shipyard.
At 61 Whitecrook Street
Peter Marks, 61. He lived at number 61 and was a riveter.
Here is a photo of the street after the end of the war:
The red circle highlights a gap in the buildings. The 1949 map shows the same gap was at the site of numbers 59 and 61:
This clip is taken from the Google Street View of 2021, number 57 on the left:
For the timing of this incident I had relied upon “The Clydebank Blitz” by IMM MacPhail (1974) lists three candidates for the dubious honour of being the first major incident on the first night of raids (13th/14th March) – Beardmore’s Diesel Works, Second Avenue at Albert Road (link), and 57-59 Whitecrook Street.
McPhail is a name (probably) unknown today, but he lived through the war, in bomb disposal work in England and was (in later years) the principal history teacher at Clydebank High School, author of many books and papers. He was also writing for an audience that remembered events (then 33 years distant) when he published his book.
Then, Ian Welsh contacted me to say his mother and her family lived at 59 Whitecrook Street and that the bomb had fallen on the second night, the 14th/15th, not on the first night (as I had stated following MacPhail). Had this been all, I would have thanked him for his interest and assumed the family memory had been garbled in the 80-plus years since the event. However, Ian had supporting evidence. One of the people who died at Whitecrook Street was Mrs Grace Dunn, aged 43. Her home was at 72 Second Avenue but this had been bombed around midnight on the first night (the 13th/14th March)and her husband, John, had got shelter for the following night with his friend William Robertson at number 59. They must have been very traumatised because apart from losing their home, 61 people died at 72 to 80 Second Avenue (link), including John’s sister in law, Mary, and her daughter, Grace, a nurse.
To try to resolve this, the only other source I could imagine was the Scotland’s People website which has a record of when and where people died. This was less robust than I had hoped – three people were said to have died at 9.40pm on the 13th (matching MacPhail), 6 at 9.45pm on the 14th, 2 at 10.30 pmon the 14th, 1 at 10.50pm on the 14th, 2 at midnight on the 14th and one at 1am on the 15th. Of the others, two died in hospital at later times and one is recorded as being found dead on the 17th March.
While this was far from unanimous (possibly reflecting the uncertainty in the wake of the raids), a clear majority were attributed to the second night (the 14th-15th).
So it seems like the accepted version told by MacPhail is contradicted by the evidence – but what explanation could there be?
The first and simplest is that MacPhail got it wrong. I believe (but am not certain) he was not in Clydebank at the time – certainly none of the book is written from a first person point of view – and the people who passed information to him may have got it wrong. But many of his readers would have vividly recalled events – why did no-one correct him? Maybe someone did but in an age of internet-based sources we do not have access to it. I notice that on the first night, MacPhail quotes a fireman as saying they had to leave an incident on Second Avenue to go to another incident at 57 Livingstone Street. Is it possible that in the mind of someone somewhere several decades after the event remembered the events of 57 Whitecrook Street and the timing of 57 Livingstone Street and erroneously put the two together?
The second explanation is that MacPhail is right – but how to explain that the contemporary records on the Scotland’s People website attributing the event to the 2nd night? And how do we explain the presence of Grace Dunn, away from her home, and also providing strong supporting evidence for the memory in Ian Welsh’s family that this took place on the second night? There were others who died here away from their homes who could have been bombed out on the first night, most notably Catherine Bradley from Somerville Street at the foot of Kilbowie Road. For MacPhail to be right, Mrs Dunn (and others who did not live here) would have had to have been visiting friends in Whitecrook Street and still been there at 9pm on the first night when the sirens sounded and taken shelter. The subsequent records of date and time of death could be explained by the confusion surrounding the details in the immediate aftermath.
A third explanation could be that Whitecrook Street was bombed on both nights, the 13th and the 14th. This is not totally far-fetched – I know of one incident in the London Blitz where rescue workers were killed at the scene of a bombing earlier that night when a second bomb fell very close to where they were working, for example. As noted Whitecrook Street was close to John Brown’s plus bomb aimers in planes flying several thousand feet up and unable to clearly identify any target may have aimed for things already on fire. We also have some evidence from the list of bombs in an appendix to MacPhail’s book which includes Whitecrook Lane (351), junction of Whitecrook Street and Stanford Street (352), and rear of Whitecrook Street (354). There were also bombs on Stanford Street (353, 354, 357, 358). However, none of these involved any deaths, so far as I know. All the people who died can be linked to 57.59 or 61 Whitecrook Street and the balance of probabilities is heavily in favour of them all having died at the same time.
I therefore conclude, with regret, that MacPhail got this wrong.
Footnote
As I have said before the main books I use in researching the Clydebank Blitz include MacPhail and “In Time of Crisis” by Andrew Jeffrey. Another book, “River of Fire” has won popular acclaim and has its merits but on this occasion when I consulted it I found the following (page 140 of the hardback edition published in 2020):
“On one Clydebank street, aghast ARP workers saw a terrified girl – a young girl, perhaps seven years old – standing, screaming, in the high window of a blazing building. They had no ladders. Long moments later, the roof fell in and she was gone. One of the earliest bombs of the raid fell on the tenements of 57-59 Whitecrook Street, with many casualties and deaths. One man had lost both his legs; he was being borne to an ambulance, gobbets of blood dripping on the road behind him, when still another bomb went off close to hand, at the entrance to Stanford Street, and blew off the legs of the ambulance attendant. So side-by-side they lay, helpless and barely conscious on the street, and quietly there, together, they bled to death.”
Compare this to page 64 of Andrew Jeffrey’s book, published in 1993, page 64:
“The scenes of appalling horror in Clydebank continued through the night … ARP workers, not having a ladder, were unable to help a young girl standing at the window of a burning house. The roof caved in an she was gone. One of the early bombs of the raid had fallen on tenements at 57-59 Whitecrook Street killing and injuring a large number. A man who had lost both legs was being carried to an ambulance when another bomb exploded nearby at the end of Stanford Street and blew the ambulance attendant’s legs off. Both men lay side by side in the street and bled to death.”
My comments.
First, it’s true that MacLeod acknowledges Jeffrey as one of his main sources, but surely a direct quotation from the earlier work would have been more appropriate? As written, it appears to be MacLeod’s original work.
Second, MacLeod embellishes what Jeffrey wrote in various ways: the girl was perhaps seven years old (Jeffrey says she was young); she was terrified and screaming (Jeffrey does not say this; the ARP workers watched for long moments (Jeffrey does not say this); the man being carried on the stretcher was dripping gobbets of blood in the road (not in Jeffrey); the two injured men were quiet, barely conscious and helpless (all from MacLeod’s imagination). The pathos. layering on the human tragedy, may have a role in a work of fiction but not in a history.
Third, there is no record of an ambulance attendant being killed anywhere near Whitecrook Street on either night. Maybe it was a civilian carrying the stretcher? But if it happened, why were they left to bleed to death – there is no suggestion the ambulance was damaged and there must have been people in the street who could have carried them to it?