Duke Street Prison

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Postby escotregen » Sun Jan 02, 2005 3:23 pm

Gordon even more superb than the first set. A couple of immediate points. Do you know if the first plate shows the famed IRA bullet holes in the perimeter wall? On the final plate... I think they might be staring at (and smiling at?!?!) the sump beneath the execution scaffold? A great start to 2005.
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Postby gordonuk » Sun Jan 02, 2005 3:38 pm

That is the wall with the bullit holes. and the last pics is the trap door in the execution block
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introduction and reply re Duke St prison

Postby irnbru » Sat Jan 08, 2005 11:54 pm

hi there,

I am a new user to these forums, though I have been lurking for many many months now. In regards to the Duke St Prison thread- superb ! I remember my father telling me the story of the IRA attempting to free one of their own in the 1920s as told to him by his father. I think it was 1926? I am probably mistaken.

My present occupation is within Glasgow Museums and so l am able to look at a lot of things within the collections. One of the objects that I see on an almost daily basis is one of the actual door grills from the condenmed prisoners cells. It is quite a moving experience to look at and hold this object and think of the all the times that the prisoner looked through this and though of their death....

Anyways thank you for a wonderful website and I will be posting a similar hello and thank you in the main forum as an introduction...

cheers
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Postby lordsleek » Wed Feb 16, 2005 9:01 am

i worked in Barlinnie in the eighties and in "B" hall the ground floor had Duke St. doors which still had blocked up feeding hatches.

There is a happy land
down in Duke St. jail
where aw the prisnors hing
hooked on a nail
bread an watters a' they see
dirty watter fur ther tea

Does anybody know any more :)
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Postby escotregen » Wed Feb 16, 2005 1:37 pm

irnbru I have only just picked up on your posting. I'm glad your liking this thread as I'm always keen to get into Duke Street prison (if you see what I mean). I drafting up a short piece on it for a radio spot just now, so, given your existing work we can maybe do something together on this.

Lordseek. I'd like to know if you come across anything about the legend of the Sparrow Tree and the condemned man in Duke Street prison.
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Postby lordsleek » Wed Feb 16, 2005 2:34 pm

escotregen wrote:Lordseek. I'd like to know if you come across anything about the legend of the Sparrow Tree and the condemned man in Duke Street prison.

Sorry I first heard the story on this forum. I do know that it was a bridewell prison to start with hard labour machines called the crank. More can be found in Dr. Andrew Coyles book on Scottish prisons. If I think of anything else let me know. I know quite a bit about Barlinnie and Dungavel and some though less about saughton. Hope this helps. :D
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Postby lordsleek » Sun Feb 27, 2005 12:59 am

Yeah Duke st. became the womans prison in Scotland until the 1970's when the prison moved to Greenock.
when the prison moved he regime changed,
Nowadays the prison is mostly those awaiting deportatiopn
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Postby cumbo » Sun Feb 27, 2005 1:18 am

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi will be delighted that after 4 years he is getting deported back to Libya :D
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Re: Duke Street Prison

Postby HollowHorn » Thu Feb 21, 2008 8:10 pm

Susan Newell, hanged by John Ellis at Duke Street prison, Glasgow on Wednesday, the 10th of October, 1923.
Susan Newell, aged 30, strangled newspaper boy John Johnston who would not give her an evening paper without the money. Having killed the boy, she wheeled his body through the streets on a handcart accompanied by her 8- year old daughter, Janet, whose evidence helped to convict her.
She was the first woman to hang in Scotland since Jessie King in 1889 and on the gallows, refused the traditional white hood

http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.uk/susan.html

Total executions in Scotland during the 20th century : 34.

http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.c ... ttish.html

Patrick Leggett:
http://www.weetoddy.com/thewhiteinchmurder.htm

John McLean:
Wednesday 27th of October 1915 MacLean was brought before the Summary Court in Glasgow charged under the "Defence of the Realm Act" with "uttering statements calculated to prejudice recruiting", and remitted to the Sheriff on the 10th of November. He was brought before Sheriff Lee and defended by Mr Cassels. Long before the proceedings were due to begin a large crowd of workers from all over the Clydeside had assembled in support of MacLean. The Sheriff and Officers were overwhelmed by the numbers and the proceedings had to be suspended for ten minutes to allow the crowd to settle. Dispensing with court formalities, MacLean loudly stated, "Do you want me to repeat again what I said at the meeting. I have been enlisted for fifteen years in the socialist army which is the only army worth fighting for; God damn all other armies! I have already said so, haven't I? Did you not hear me? The Sheriff sentenced him to a £5 fine or five days imprisonment. After the case MacLean was dismissed from his post as a teacher. On his day of release from Duke St. Prison, a large crowd gathered to greet him, the authorities however, to avoid a demonstration had released him earlier. A delegation of South Lanarkshire miners arrived at Central Station and marched through the streets, on learning of his early release they marched to Pollokshaws to make sure for themselves. Later they made their way to Fairfield Shipyard where a massive workers meeting was held.

http://www.gcal.ac.uk/radicalglasgow/ch ... clean.html

Cathedral House Hotel 28/32 Cathedral Precinct
Established in 1877 as a hostel for prisoners being discharged from
the Duke Street Prison. The prison stood where we now see a
modern housing estate. Cathedral House was a hostel for both men
and women for more than 80 years and contained murals painted by
the ‘Glasgow Boys’. When the Duke Street Prison closed, so did the
hostel and the murals were moved to the new prison, Barlinnie,
where they were subsequently destroyed in a fire.
Not surprisingly, this building is believed to be haunted.

http://www.glasgowmerchantcity.net/merc ... gefont.pdf

No one else was ever tried over the Battle of Rottenrow. But 85 years on, there are still bullet holes high up on the old prison walls - a sad reminder of the day Glasgow’s streets ran red with blood.
http://saoirse32.blogsome.com/2006/04/2 ... rottenrow/

A possibly exaggerated account of conditions at Duke Street Prison is commemorated in a Glasgow street song:
There is a happy land, doon Duke Street Jail, Where a' the prisoners stand, tied tae a nail. Ham an' eggs they never see, dirty watter fur yer tea;There they live in misery - God save the Queen!

http://www.eastendconnected.org.uk/pcpa ... prison.htm

William Harkness:
http://www.fmap.archives.gla.ac.uk/Case ... _File2.htm

The first prisoners were incarcerated at the House of Correction in Duke Street in 1798, and various extensions were built between then and 1872. Conditions were notoriously poor with chronic overcrowding. The Prisons (Scotland) Act of 1877 transferred responsibility for prisons from local authorities to the State. Although Barlinnie Prison, opened in 1882, was intended to supersede Duke Street Prison, the latter remained open until 1955.

http://www.theglasgowstory.com/image.php?inum=TGSG00016
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Re: Duke Street Prison

Postby escotregen » Thu Feb 21, 2008 8:57 pm

HH in amongst these various sources is included what is described as the list of executions in Scotland. When I first came across this a couple of years back I had serious doubts about the accuracy of this list. I noticed that it shows no executions throughout the entire 1930s and this is wholly at odds with the fairly steady legal killing rates over all the other decades (making adjustments for the two world wars). When I queried this at the time with Richard Clark he was unable to help with this.

I just don't think that somehow Scotland became all peaceable-like in the 1930s and that no murders or executions place before normal business restarted in the 1940s.

I'm also afraid to say that my searches for more material on Duke Street remained stuck in what we now know to be fairly readily available. I can't help thinking that there is a huge rich archive waiting somewhere to be discovered.
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Re: Duke Street Prison

Postby HollowHorn » Thu Feb 21, 2008 9:14 pm

I know it's not new stuff, Scotty, I'm just gathering together some of the available sources into one place :D

Crawfurd, Helen (1874-1954)
Copies of the as-yet unpublished manuscript of Helen Crawfurd are held in the Gallacher Memorial Library at Glasgow Caledonian University and in the Marx Memorial Library, London. The 90,000-word work, written towards the end of Crawfurd's life in the early 1950s, includes details of her suffrage activities and her imprisonment, including major acts of militancy such as her journey south as part of Scotland’s window-smashing cohort in spring 1912. The People’s Palace collection includes some papers relating to Crawfurd. Her WSPU illuminated address is with Argyll & Bute Council archives. Details of her convictions in 1913-14 are in the NAS criminal case file HH 16/45, which includes reports, correspondence, newspaper cuttings and Temporary Discharge documents, mostly relating to her 10-day sentence in Duke Street Prison, Glasgow for breaking two windows of the local army recruitment centre. It also includes a typically-worded letter from Mary Allen of the WSPU demanding to know if Crawfurd was being forcibly fed.
http://www.womenslib.org/index_files/Page338.htm


Wendy Wood:

At this time the National Insurance Board was moved from Scotland to Newcastle and Wendy refused to pay her National Insurance and was duly charged. She was offered sixty days in prison or a £15 fine. Wendy returned the £15 cheques that supporters were sending in and chose to go to Duke Street Prison in Glasgow. On leaving prison, Wendy set to work on the Prison Commissioners and she eventually received a letter saying that Duke Street Prison was to be demolished and that a new Womens Prison was to be built at Greenock.
http://www.siol-nan-gaidheal.com/wendy.htm


Dr. James Devon:
http://www.cjscotland.org.uk/index.php/ ... age/?id=31


William Brebner:
It was almost by chance that William Brebner came into contact with this unfortunate section of the community when he took a post as clerk at the South Prison (now demolished) in Glasgow. What motivated him to a lifetime of dedication none can tell for sure, but contemporary society owes a considerable debt of gratitude, not only for his pioneering works in prison reform but for the inspirational example of humanitarianism with which he carried out his work. Of his passing, undoubtedly he was held in the highest esteem. The Glasgow Herald of Friday 10th January 1845 reported him as being fondly addressed as Maister and that, "He was regarded not as jailer and taskmaster but as a father and friend".
http://www.electricscotland.com/history ... rebner.htm

The prison regimes in the so-called "developed world" have much to thank the city of Glasgow for and more specifically one William Brebner (1783-l845) who hailed originally from Huntly in Aberdeenshire. Brebner put into practice a system at the Bridewell, on Glasgow's Duke Street, which was to spread quickly through Europe and North America. The Bridewell, governed by Brebner from 1808 until his death, was regarded as a model institution, indeed a House of Commons Select Committee on Scottish Prisons reported in 1826 that "The prisoners are kept silent, and at constant work from six o'clock morning till eight at night."
http://www.variant.randomstate.org/8tex ... guson.html


Mary Jane Walsh 63
11 August 1905
Larkhill, Lanarkshire, Scotland
Mrs Walsh was seen being attacked by Negro Pasha Liffey, a circus boxer from South Africa. He cut her throat from ear to ear. He narrowly escaped being lynched by local women the next day. During the trial witnesses described him as "drunk with uncontrollable excitement." The prosecutor described him to the jury as "practically of savage race." Found guilty he was hung by Henry Pierrepoint in Duke Street prison, Glasgow.


MCDONALD,Sarah
-female-24.Died March 12, 1855 at North Prison, 72 Duke
Street, Glasgow of Typhus Imasculated-ill 11 free days as cert by David
Gibson MD. Buried Sighthill Cemetery, Glasgow as cert by Thomas Cowan,
Supt. Signed June (El?), Nurse, North Prison
http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/SC ... 1027887714


John Ellis:
Image
John Ellis was a notably mild mannered man who ultimately committed suicide possibly through the stresses incurred by his job as hangman and possibly through the effects of the slump on his business as a barber. He had a particular dislike of hanging women for reasons that will become apparent.
Ellis and Baxter also hanged Susan Newell at Duke Street prison Glasgow on the 10th of October 1923
http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.c ... ngmen.html


Martin Scott & Henry Mullen

In February 1883, a farmer's wife taking a short cut home through a field at Port Glasgow, discovered the bodies of two gamekeepers. They had been shot dead at such close range that there were powder burns on their faces. Many local poachers were questioned before one. a man named Kyle, turned informer. On his evidence Henry Mullen and Martin Scott were soon arrested and charged. They were convicted at Glasgow Circuit Court on 25th April, and sentenced to be hanged on 17th May. The executions had to be put back until 23rd May because Marwood had an engagement in Dublin with the Phoenix Park murderers. They were the first men to be hanged in Glasgow at Duke Street prison. The sentence was carried out on the 23rd May 1883.
http://www.real-crime.co.uk/Murder1/PARTNERSHIPS.HTML
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Re: Duke Street Prison

Postby escotregen » Fri Feb 22, 2008 5:29 pm

HH don't you go thinking, I'm thinking 'thats all old stuff' :wink: Excellent work of yours bringing it all together.
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Re: Duke Street Prison

Postby HollowHorn » Sat Apr 26, 2008 9:14 pm

Glasgow Police Museum:
Image

Image

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Re: Duke Street Prison

Postby Riotgrrl » Sat Nov 22, 2008 7:36 pm

Question.

We went a walk down Duke Street today from the city centre to the Louden Tavern (whereupon we cut down, and walked back along the Gallowgate, stopping for a drink at Bairds. Crikey, there are some amount of lunatics in this city, but never mind.)

As you go down Duke St from the city centre there is a big piece of waste ground, but with old walls at the pavement . . . are these the old walls of Duke Street Prison?

(Also, as you go back down the Gallowgate, there are old facades of building, but with completely new, modern flats built behind them. What are these facades and why have they been preserved? - photo of facade with modern flats behind below. Sorry, no photos of the walls we thought were where the old Duke St Prison was.)

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Re: Duke Street Prison

Postby scottland » Sat Nov 22, 2008 8:05 pm

I think the facades are the old meat-market,probably listed status.
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