This photo is of Dalsholm Paper Mill on 19th June 1934 and this is approximately the same view on Google Earth, just over 90 years later:
Pulling back gives a little context:
So that’s Maryhill Road running across the bottom of the picture, we’re looking west with Bearsden to the right and Maryhill to the left.
“It consisted of two ranges of buildings parallel to the river. A mill lade ran between the buildings and there were three small reservoirs to the west.” (railscot.co.uk (ref)) Here’s a map from 1971:
The photo at the start of the post would be taken from the top-right corner, looking south-west across the bridge. The next photo is said to be from 1891 and is mainly focused on the bridge and river but catches the nearest building:
Here’s another view of the bridge but showing both the mill building nearest the river as well as what was then Dawsholm Road, now a footway, leading towards Maryhill Road:
The oldest map I could find was from 1859:
This shows the mill race referred to by railscot which had vanished by 1971. Just above the red rectangle I have added to highlight the mill’s location you can see the word ‘Dam’ and a thin channel coming from the river, running parallel to it, under the road, through the mill buildings and out the other side to go back into the river.
In addition, you can see three reservoirs or ponds of water just to the left of the mill.
The 1859 map also shows the rural nature of the area at that time, with farms at Dawsholm just south of the mill, and further to the west at Netherton and Temple of Garscube (thought to be the origin of the name Temple for this area). It’s also interesting to note that the paper mill is called Dawsholm, not Dalsholm.
By this time there had already been a paper mill on the site for around 75 years. There may have been a mill here before then. Ninian Bryce (approx. 1701-1775), who had been a mariner (captain of a sailing ship going back and forth to America) was the owner and it was a snuff mill i.e. tobacco was ground up to make snuff – this was then sniffed directly into the nose.
Taking snuff, around 1827
Bryce is said to have run the mill for many years before seeking a location closer to Glasgow (possibly Townhead) – see this reference for more information. While Bryce’s mill was said to be on the Kelvin three miles from Glasgow, I have not seen anything that says it was at Dawsholm – for example there are also references to snuff mills at Kelvindale and Calypoles on the Kelvin.
But irrespective, in 1783 Dawsholm was a paper mill owned by William MacArthur, and his family was involved for about 90 years. I can find references to Russell and MacArthur (1825), and James MacArthur (1832) who died in 1847:
The new company was called James MacArthur and Co (from 1847 to 1871), with Alex MacArthur’s interest extending into the 1860s.
Other names involved around the 1850s are David Russell and Adam Roxburgh.
Of the workers in the mill and the nature of the business we can get some idea from the excellent page by North Lanarkshire Council (link) to show work at their local paper mills at Caldercruix and Moffat (the one by Airdrie, not in South Lanarkshire):
This photo shows workers sorting rags in the 1920s but we can imagine not much had changed from 100 years earlier.
If you’re thinking of a ‘rags to riches’ pun at this point, you won’t be the first (sorry) as the online history of papermaking in the UK is full of them! But I was pleasantly surprised to find this connection (with thanks to Ivybridge Heritage (link)):
Please click the link to the Ivybridge website as it has a good series of photos that show the process. My understanding is rags were cut up into small strips, then put into a boiler to reduce them to a sort of ‘mush’ which, with liberal quantities of water, could be made into paper.
This photo from Ivybridge shows the ‘mush’ (probably not the right term!) being moved around the mill.
This was still dangerous work. On 16th June 1882 the North British Daily Mail reported:
This is about two times average annual earnings at the time so a figure of £75,000 in 2025 may be appropriate.
Another interesting aspect is that the process was water-powered at the time. I’ve referred to this above but this 1938 map shows the elaborate management of the river in a bit more detail:
The map marks a weir, the mill lade (main channel), a sluice, as well as the reservoirs previously referred to (presumably these were fed by a stream as there does not seem to be any channel to the Kelvin).
This postcard is credited to Maryhill Burgh Halls via eHive and the postal date is 1910:
Not that being by the river was an unmitigated blessing:
From the North British Daily Maily, 3rd February 1868
The mill must have been producing some good quality paper as the business had a shop on Glassford Street in Glasgow at number 82:
Bacchus is now the occupant but could this be the building from the 1850s? This photo from the 1950s (photo credit to the excellent Facebook page The Glasgow Chronicles):
In the papers of Lord Kelvin, the mathematician and physicist, for 1871 there is a payment to John MacArthur and Co of Glassford Street for supplying paper.
There was a second showroom at 26 St Enoch’s Wynd, a thoroughfare now lost to us but located just south of Argyle Street and seemingly a victim of the creation of St Enoch’s Station:
The map is from around 1860.
We’ve seen the MacArthurs owned the mill from around 1783 up to the 1870s. I cannot find a date when their involvement ended but by 1879 the owner is recorded as being John Craig and he or his family (in the name of John Craig and Sons continued their interest until 1914. This may well have been part of a group of paper mills as the Craig family also ran the mills in North Lanarkshire that feature on the website I mentioned earlier.
We do know a little more about John Craig, as he was born at a paper mill, Auchenuby at Leslie, Fife in 1818. He married Rachel Stewart Mason and they had three daughters and five sons, although which of the sons were involved in the family business is not known. John seems to have been a paper manufacturer all his life and in the 1851 and 1871 Censuses he is recorded as living at Moffat Mill, near Airdrie. He retired sometime in the 1880s and lived out his days at Lorne Terrace which I suspect (but cannot prove) was at the west end of Sauchiehall Street, in the block commemorating the name as The Lorne Hotel.
The shop/showroom at Glassford Street was still listed in the Post Office Directory for 1888. In 1890 John Craig and Sons became a private limited company, which might suggest the need to bring in more money to buy machinery. Times were not easy at the mill, with fire (Milngavie Herald 1st August 1902):
and flood (Daily Record 11 February 1903):
For whatever reason the company was getting into difficulties and by 1913 they had reached the brink of financial collapse. A new company was formed, retaining the name, but with capital from manufacturers in Birmingham (from the Birmingham Post 3rd February 1914):
That seems to have been the end of local or Scottish ownership.
Around 1918 to 1919 there are many newspaper adverts for the collection of paper to be recycled and remade into paper, posted by the new company. This was a wartime advert (Edinburgh Evening News 21st January 1918):
And here is a post-war example (from The Glasgow Story website, link, although I believe it was originally in a Post Office Directory):
Again, the business faltered, whether as part of a generally poorly performing economy or for specific reasons, and production at Dalsholm seems to have halted around 1926. Easy as this is for me to type, I suspect several hundred people would have worked there and the consequences for them in terms of unemployment are difficult to recreate 100 years later.
In 1934 the mill re-opened with a prospectus published in the Daily Record to attract people willing to invest (25th June):
Note one of the Directors listed is John M Watson of Utica, Bearsden – it was still the habit at this time to only refer to a villa name in the address but we now know this as 7 Thorn Drive.
The mill buildings were described in the prospectus as follows:
The accompanying story in the newspaper is worthy of a modern press release, such are the gushing tones:
But just at the end we finally have a glimpse of one of the hundreds of workers, Mary Blackburn. She was born Mary Cameron on 23rd September 1856, married Peter Blackburn and had four children. The journalist said she looked years younger than her age and this must have denoted a healthy body because she lived to 95, dying in 1952. Her childhood memories of the mill correspond almost exactly with the older map used at the start of the post.
Around the 1950s the mill seems to have been prospering. In 1955 when Edinburgh University sought funding for a new chair (Professor) in Chemical Technology, the Dawsholm Paper Co Limited was a contributor (The Scotsman 26th April 1955):
In a speech, a representative of the paper makers said they regarded it as an investment as the post should help train the skilled workers they needed.
However, the threat of foreign competition, especially from Scandinavia with their access to vast amounts of low-cost wood for paper-making was an issue. In a debate in the UK parliament in 1959 the local MP said (Hansard 2nd July 1959):
Safety was also an issue with newspapers reporting fires in 1948 and 1949 including the injury of two firemen (Daily Record 14th February 1948):
The industry appears to have tried to amalgamate companies to survive, with Dalsholm passing to the Associated Paper Group and finally to Alliance Alders Paper and Packaging, who took the decision to close it in 1970. Curiously, I can find no newspaper account of this in newspapers covering the area or for Glasgow more generally.
The following photos show the site at the time, using the bridge as a reference point that can still be seen today, and are credited to the Trove website, © Copyright: HES (Aerofilms Collection):
