The Hidden Glasgow Forums

The Victoria Motor & Cycle Manufacturing Company Ltd. of Dennistoun, Glasgow started out making bicycles in the late 1890’s, but diversified from about 1904 into making motorcycles. They were the most successful Scottish motorcycle ever made.
Little information is available about this company and I am trying with the help of the Internet to gather together any pictures or information I can about this piece of Scottish history. I am gathering this at http://www.bawdeswell.net/victoria where you can contact me if you can help.

Is that the place that had a penny farthin above the entrance on the Parade?

Thank-you Stuart for your reply. I don't know the answer to your question, but it cold mark the location of the Registered Office or factory which is not known to me. Was the penny-farthing bike anywhere near the junction of Alexandra Parade and Craigpark?
I like your website. The homepage reminds me of my son.

Sydney Rosewater wrote:Is that the place that had a penny farthin above the entrance on the Parade?

Rattray's more likely.

bawdeswell wrote:Thank-you Stuart for your reply. I don't know the answer to your question, but it cold mark the location of the Registered Office or factory which is not known to me. Was the penny-farthing bike anywhere near the junction of Alexandra Parade and Craigpark?
I like your website. The homepage reminds me of my son.

Ta!

Unfortunately, as pointed out in the post above, the shop with the penny farthing was Rattray's. I couldn't remember the name but that was it.

Hi, It would be worth your while contacting the Glasgow Museum of Transport and Technology. Ask to speak to volunteer archivist Bob James. Bob is a friendly, knowledgeable helpful guy. He may be able to help.

Ta. Will try that.

Thank you. Bob has been putting in a lot of time searching for information, for which I am very grateful.
One item says the Victoria Motorcycle was last made in a disused chapel opposite Alan Glen's School. Can somebody please pinpoint that for me as it is now closed.

Would that not be the furniture store (Mackays, Macdonalds or sumthin like that) on the corner of Cathedral and North Hanover Streets, directly North of the main entrance to the Metropolitan College (formerly College of Building and Printing)?

That location would tie up with the known addresses of the city centre shop/shops, not the Dennistoun factory.
There were shops at 71 Cathedral Street and 78-82 Hanover Street in the centre of Glasgow. Customers could watch their bicycles being made there.
Thanks for the information.

The Kelly's Directory of 1928 shows the Victoria Motor & Cycle Co. Ltd at the Victoria Works, Alexandra Parade. No number is given, but it appears to be a few doors west of the electricity generating station, which is still extant, and I think presently being used by a tyre repair company. This would therefore put the works on the site of the little modern industrial units here.

Thank you for that lead.

I now have a photo of the Victoria Motorcycle Works in Dennistoun taken in the 1970's - yes the building was still there then!
Can anybody recall it an let us know exactly where it stood?
The picture can be seen at http://www.bawdeswell.net/victoria/jcoxon.html

Thank you

I seem to remember the wall showing on the rhs of your picture standing after the building had gone, but that was a long time ago and my memory isn't what it used to be!

Perhaps somebody from that neck of the world will remember it?

bawdeswell wrote:I now have a photo of the Victoria Motorcycle Works in Dennistoun taken in the 1970's - yes the building was still there then!
Can anybody recall it an let us know exactly where it stood?
The picture can be seen at http://www.bawdeswell.net/victoria/jcoxon.html

Thank you

Don't remember this building but thinking of the Parade as it is today could it have been either where the Somerfield is now, across from Whitehill St or perhaps further up where the Arnold Clark car showroom is as there is a neat wee building up there where there is a car mechanics now.