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kosbboy wrote:Hello Folks,
I am trying to locate the whereabouts of the old Army Recruitment Office in Glasgow (take a deep breath!) in and around 1919!! My father enlisted in the KOSB's in 1919 eventually becoming a Pipe Major. I would like to find our where the office would have been located in Glasgow. If you either know, or know where I could find out, I'd appreciate hearing from you. As a matter of interest, he was from Duntocher and I was born in Radnor Street, Clydebank.
kosbboy wrote:Thanks very much for taking the trouble to respond. He certainly would have gone to Berwick upon Tweed but, I assumed, that he enlisted in Glasgow. I know that there was an Army Recruiting Office in the centre of Glasgow for I rememember reading some years ago of public meetings being held "opposite" the Army Recruiting Office about that time. Whether they were anti war protests or Communist meetings I can't recall.
Thanks once again!
Kosbboy
Government concerns about industrial militancy and revolutionary political activity in Glasgow reached new heights after the events of 31 January 1919. Fears within government of a workers' revolution in Glasgow led to the deployment of troops and tanks in the city.
An estimated 10000 English troops in total were sent to Glasgow in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of George Square. This was in spite of a full battalion of Scottish soldiers being stationed at Maryhill barracks in Glasgow at the time. No Scottish troops were deployed, with the government fearing that fellow Scots, soldiers or otherwise, would go over to the workers side if a revolutionary situation developed in Glasgow.
Eventually there was a re-grouping and the workers began to move off from George Square to march towards Glasgow Green. At the front of this march were ex-servicemen who had returned from the war to "a home fit for heroes" and who were completely in support of the strike. When they reached the Green the police were waiting, ready to charge again. Undaunted the strikers, led by the ex-servicemen, pulled up the park railings and chased off their attackers.
kosbboy wrote:I think that the meetings I had read about were those mounted by the overwhelming response to John MacLean (A great Glasgow hero as far as I'm concerned) who had been treated abominably by the government and, in some instances, by local "dignitaries". Some of his meetings were anti war, or, as he would have seen it, anti-imperialist, and were held in Bath Street opposite the Army Recruiting Office on the corner of (as I have now discovered), Renfrew Street.
Dugald wrote:Dugald said: "Onny, from where were these "English" troops obtained? Were there any regiments in the British Army of 1919 which restricted recruitment to only English-born men? I doubt this very much. Oh yes, they may well have deployed British soldiers to Glasgow at the time of the 40 hours strike in 1919, but I doubt very much they were English soldiers."
Dexter said: "We need some evidence other than your usual eye witness reminiscences Dugald."
Dexter, I fail to see why you feel some evidence is required from me? What do i have to prove? As far as I can see from what I said to Onny, I made no claim at all. I asked two questions and expressed some doubt... but nary an assertion! Ah think maybe your 1919 eye witness reminiscences is a wind up!
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