Flash_Andy wrote:http://www.theglasgowstory.com/imageview.php?inum=TGSA00526
What happened to the wee island in the Clyde?
I was wondering that myself.
It looks like it's called "Point Isle", although I can't find any information on it.
Tim
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Flash_Andy wrote:http://www.theglasgowstory.com/imageview.php?inum=TGSA00526
What happened to the wee island in the Clyde?
As early as the 1700s there used to be a weekly Saturday night stonefight across the river Clyde. There used to be a small island in the middle of the Clyde, just where Calton Place runs next to the river. Gangs of boys and men used to gather at the foot of Stockwell Street, and a similar sized gang on the Gorbals side. Stealth was used to reach the island, and fighting at close quarters was common on it's banks. It was only when a boy was killed that the fights began to die away.
In the late 1700s, the students of the College in the High Street used to wage stonethrowing battles with the uneducated youth of the city. After the founding of Wilson's Charity School in 1778, the pupils there used to regularly battle with the students of the Grammar School. In those days there was no police force to counteract these disturbances.
There had been gangs in Ireland since the early 1700s, many of them fighting gangs in the Glasgow tradition, such as the Shanavists, the Caravats, and the Ruskavallas. It is probable that a lot of the rise in gang activity in Glasgow can be traced to the 1840s and 1850s when shiploads of Irish immigrants, fleeing the potato famine, landed in the west of Scotland. The catholic and protestant divide arrived in Glasgow, a facet of Glasgow life which persists to this day.
The first gangs which come to the newspapers attentions were the Penny Mob gangs of the 1870s. These gangs would ask subscription from their members to pay the fines of anyone jailed by the police, a penny a head, thus Penny Mob gangs. In 1883, one of these gangs, called the *Ribbon Men, blew up a gasometer in Tradeston.
As the century drew to a close, the courts began to stop offering fines as an alternative to jail, and the penny mob gangs died away. The small gangs began to group together for mutual protection, and thus the rise of the large area gang. These gangs were huge, and commanded the whole of a district - they were made up of many smaller gangs who fought under a common leader aff.
crusty_bint wrote:there were a number of islands, on 'inches' along the length of the clyde but were dredged out at various stages of the city's development and expansion of the shipping trade. I imagine the Point Isle was removed round the same time the first weir was built very near to that point on the river.
I remember reading about a weekly, Saturday night stone battle (altho im sure theyd have called it a stane fight) in the 1650's between two gangs, one from Glasgow and one from the Gorbals that took place on an island beside Glasgow Bridge (the site of the present Stockwell Bridge) ::):
crusty_bint wrote:Falkyrn you alright there?
Nice find John! I had an image of a little section of an old map (pre OS) showing various different inches along the length of the Glasgow and upper stretch of the Clyde but damned if I can find it Anyway, cheers, very nice
Alan L wrote:
Bloody hell!
That map, more than anything else I've seen, gives you an idea of how overcrowded Glasgow must have been in the 1930's. There were, what, 1.1 million people, living in a city possibly half the size it is today?
scallopboy wrote:Aye, but they were underfed and smaller in those days, so they took up less room
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