In his book on the industrial archaeology of Glasgow, Professor John Hume recorded an office block fronting onto Finnieston Quay, next to the north rotunda, shown here in his 1968 photo:
The building visible to the right, one of those put up in the 1950s, was the Glasgow office of the National Dock Labour Board. This was abolished in 1989 but was a statutory scheme to regulate work in the docks: “Each local board was responsible for keeping a register of employers and workers, paying wages and attendance money, controlling the hiring of labour, and responsibility for discipline.” (source).
Here is the same view today, the modern building on the right being the Radisson Red Hotel:
Here is the reverse view in 1970, also by John Hume:
Hume’s book includes an entry for this building as it existed in the late 1960s:
“Offices, 4 Finnieston Quay, built 1863 for Robert Curle, marine engineer. A 3 storey, 7 by 2 bay red brick building, with sandstone dressings. The north wall is the only surviving part of an engineering shop built at the same time which was 11 bays long.”
This post addresses the following questions:
- What did the 1863 building look like?
- Who was Robert Curle and what was the building for?
- What happened to the 1863 building?
- What was on the site before 1863?
1 What did the 1863 building look like?
The earliest glimpse of the 1863 building is in the background of this one, date possibly around 1910 (dated on the basis of the posters plastering the rotunda, suggesting it was closed at the time, which would have been from 1907 onwards). This angle is very similar to the second of Hume’s photos above, from 1970:
For a photo of the whole building the first hazy one I can find is from 1928 (when it was already 65 years old):
The part surviving in Hume’s photos is at the left-hand end of the red circle. The rotunda is visible just above the red circle on the right; the cantilever crane that stands today was still three years in the future.
The next photo is clearer and can be dated with reasonable precision to 1931 (possibly 1932):
In the bottom left hand corner we can see the cantilever crane, now known as the Finnieston Crane, under construction. Above that is the North Rotunda with its two doors onto the street for passenger traffic (ticket required). Next to the rotunda is its accumulator tower to provide the power for the lifts that carried vehicles down to the tunnels, then comes the south end of Tunnel Street. On the corner is a simple white hut, then a yard and then the building we saw in Hume’s 1968 photo – although now it has the full workshop clearly visible. To the right of that is a parallel building, on the corner of Finnieston Street but there is no evidence it was ever linked to ‘our’ building.
And indeed the building on the corner of Finnieston Street did not survive for long because in this 1934 photo (three years later, at most) it is gone:
This is, of course, taken from the reverse angle of the previous one.
By 1948, the workshop had been demolished, leaving only the office block that we saw in the 1968 photo at the start of this post:
The Scruttons sign was still visible in this 1980 photo (credited to Chris Doak):
2 Who was Robert Curle and what was the building for?
Hume’s book says the building was commissioned by Robert Curle. Robert was born in St Quivox, just to the east of the modern racecourse in Ayr.
In 1844 he became a partner in an existing company created by John Barclay in 1818 building ships in Glasgow. It is often said the business was started at Stobcross but Dr Irene O’Brien of Glasgow City Archives says it was at Broomielaw, moving to Stobcross in 1823 (link). When John died, his son Robert took over (with his brother Thomas), and the company was named Robert Barclay and Co.
This was the company Robert Curle joined, this 1845 sketch showing the shipyard at Stobcross (link):
On the right is a hull under construction. Moving to the left there is a paddle steamer, then a sailing ship, and two other ships on berths at the far left of the photo. The three men on the rowing boat in the foreground may be setting traps for fish. We can also see bigger houses in the background (possibly Stobcross House or Finnieston House) but also factory chimneys as industrial activity spread to the area.
This is approximately the same view today:
In 1855 they opened a new shipbuilding yard at Whiteinch but it seems this was intended to extend the company rather than replace Stobcross. In 1857 the company started making ships’ engines, for their own craft but also for other companies. “From 1857 to 1861 the engineering department was carried on in a portion of the building yard at Clydeholm [Whiteinch]; but in the latter year pressure of work caused new and much larger premises to be secured at Finnieston Quay, where many marine engines of all kinds and sizes were made.” (link)
These new premises are the building we saw in Hume’s photo, commissioned by Robert Curle in 1862 with 19,000 square feet of space (very roughly 30 yards by 60 yards, 1750 square metres).
By 1871 across all its sites the firm (now Barclay Curle and Co) employed 1,323 men and 99 boys.
In 1874 the Stobcross shipbuilding site was sold to Clyde Navigation Trust as part of the development of the Stobhill Quay and the new Queens Dock. 22 sailing ships had been built at Stobcross and the shipbuilding department moved to Whiteinch; however, engine building and ship repair remained at Finnieston Quay. (Many sources I consulted suggest the company’s involvement in Stobcross ended in 1874, but this is only true of the shipbuilding arm.)
Robert Curle, who commissioned the 1863 building, died in 1879 and is buried in Sighthill Cemetery. However, the 1885 valuation roll specifies that 4 Finnieston Quay was the office of John Ferguson, one of the directors of the company. He was a draughtsman from Greenock (link) and lived at Larkfield in Partick. He died in 1887, aged approximately 64 and is buried in the Necropolis at Glasgow Cathedral.
The Stobcross works seem to have been for repairs rather than building by this time, as demonstrated by this advert (Lloyds List, April 1890):
Barclay Curle sold the building in 1893. The engine works moved to 36 Finnieston Street.
3 What happened to the 1863 building?
Glasgow Harbour Tunnel Company
The new owners of the site were the company that had been recently formed to finance, construct and run the tunnels under the river at this site, the Glasgow Harbour Tunnel Company. The northern lift shaft to take horses and carts down to the vehicle tunnels was immediately to the west of 4 Finnieston Quay; the rotunda building still visible today was built at the top of the shaft. The company also bought up surrounding properties, seemingly with the idea they might be redeveloped at some point.
In 1895 itself the records show the buildings on the site were unused. The rateable value had now fallen to £1000, reduced on appeal by the owners to £850. (The rateable value of the tunnels was £3570, reduced on appeal to £3070 – I have written about this company here and they were already in financial trouble).
Chadburn Ship Telegraph Company
It seems the first company to lease the site from the Tunnel Company was the Chadburn Ship Telegraph Company. They were based in Liverpool, so this seems to have been a new venture to the Clyde. Formed in 1848, the company produced communication equipment for use within ships from 1863, including the classic way to send an order from the bridge to the engine room (patented in 1870):
This equipment is said to have been so iconic that it was called ‘a Chadburn’ irrespective of who had made them. They also produced other instruments.
In 1905 the rateable value was £80 suggesting they were only in the single building fronting Finnieston Quay – the buildings behind previously used as an engineering workshop had been separately rented. (The records for 1915 and 1920 are similar.)
Mid 1920s: a time of flux
In 1925 the Glasgow Harbour Tunnel Company sold all of its assets to the Corporation of the City of Glasgow (the city council). Of the two companies we know were at the site:
- the Sunderland Forge and Engineering Company may have used the building as a Glasgow base for their main north-east England business. They made equipment for ships including the winches for RMS Titanic. They are recorded as renting the building in 1925 but were gone a few years later
- the chocolate manufacturer, Struthers and Melville, is only known from newspaper adverts for salesmen. There is no other record, and the business does not seem to have been a success.
In 1930, the 1863 building was unoccupied, possibly a victim of worldwide recession as a result of the Wall Street Crash of the previous year.
Sometime between 1935 and 1950 the buildings from the 1860s for the ship repair business were knocked down.
Main, Pearson and Co and Scruttons
The office building fronting onto Finnieston Quay was taken on by Main, Pearson and Co, a stevedore company from around 1935. It seems likely they remained here until the mid-1960s when they were (unwillingly?) merged with Scruttons, an Irish-owned rival, as part of the reduction in the number of stevedore companies in order to improve working conditions. Even up to the 1960s, dock workers were only paid when there was work. (Danny Mailer remembers his dad going out to look for dock work in the area and on some days being home again before Danny went to school – “work unavailable”.)
I have not been able to find a record, but I assume the 1863 building was finally destroyed in the early 1980s, at the venerable age of 120.
4 What was on the site before 1863?
At the time of this 1795 map, the area was still rural to some extent (Finnieston Quay shown by red circle):
The western edge of Glasgow is just visible to the right. The country houses (and farms?) gave their names to the areas and streets that we still use today. Note the line of modern Finnieston Street just to the right of the red circle – we can see it again, 33 years later, on the next map from 1828:
We’ve gone to a much larger scale, of course, and frustratingly the map only just squeezes our area into the bottom left-hand corner. However, it is clearly laid out as the Dye and Print Works, owned by Messrs Watson and Lennox (who had taken them over from Mr Glass that year). On the east side of the block is a weaving factory. (John Barclay’s early slips for shipbuilding are on the very edge of the map.)
The dye works were known as the Clydebank Print Works by the 1840s. In 1857 the owner of the business, William Smith, was declared bankrupt – in court he explained that the business had never paid (i.e. did not make a profit) but that the rent went up from £150 a year to £600. As a result, the business failed, and £1300 worth of chemicals used in the production process were auctioned off (Glasgow Herald 27th November 1857):
A second auction of equipment set for February 1858 was postponed, possibly to find another printer, but must have taken place because the following year, the whole works were sold off (Glasgow Herald 9th May 1859):
Here is a map of the printworks at that time (from 1857):
I don’t know for certain who bought the print works in the 1859 auction but my suspicion is that Robert Curle bought them to be knocked down and rebuilt. in the style seen on the 1894 map:
Summary
Farmland
Late 1700s: dye and bleach works established
1823 ship building business starts on river bank
1845 extends into repairs
1859 print works sold off, probably demolished
1863 new building on site to make engines for ships
1893 bought by Glasgow Harbour Tunnel Company
1890s to at least 1920: rented to Chadburn Ship Telegraph Company
1925 sold to Glasgow City Council
Mid 1920s: short-term rents to (first) the Sunderland Forge and Engineering Company, then to Struthers and Melville, chocolate manufacturers
1940s buildings erected in 1863 cleared, except for office fronting Finnieston Quay
By 1940: this office used by Main Pearson, stevedores. Later Scruttons, an Irish-owned stevedore business (by Alex M Hamilton and Co)
1950s additional buildings on site, the largest housing the office of the National Dock Labour Board
All industrial use ends by 1970s, the 1863 office is still visible in a photo from 1980 but was probably demolished soon after