Who Belongs to Glasgow E-Book

Mary Edward

• Herausgeber: Luath Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 300

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Why are there so many Italian hairdressers and Chinese restaurants in Glasgow? Who's more Glaswegian: an Irishman, a Highlander or a Pole? Whos city is this anyway? For the past 200 years, immigrants to Glasgow have found prosperity and poverty in its streets and closes. Mary Edward investigates their history, and the contribution they have brought to the city. With clear-sighted social analysis and an impressive assembly of historical evidence, Edward weaves a vivid tapestry of the many peoples and cultures that have created contemporary Glasgow. The staggering diversity of languages, religions and ethnicities is no new phenomenon in this city on the Clyde. Today's Glasweigans are the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of yesterday's incomers, all of whom have chosen this great Scottish melting pot as their own. This book will be an education and a delight to generations of Glasweigans - and all those proud to belong to Glasgow.

Leseprobe

MARY EDWARD grew up in Glasgow and has never lost her affection for the city of her birth. A former teacher and educational development officer, her work in multi-cultural/anti-racist education, combined with degrees in History and Education from the University of Glasgow, engendered her interest in Glasgow’s continued ability to absorb minorities from other lands and locations, and brought attention to the history of a changing community. Mary Edward now writes novels, short fiction and articles.

First published 1993 by Glasgow Libraries

New revised and expanded edition 2008

Revised edition 2016

ISBN 978-1-910745-66-3

The paper used in this book is recyclable. It is made from low chlorine pulps produced in a low energy, low emissions manner from renewable forests.

The publishers acknowledge the support of

towards the publication of this volume.

Printed and bound by

Bell & Bain Ltd., Glasgow

Typeset in 11pt Sabon by 3btype.com

© Mary Edward

Contents

Preface

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Introduction

CHAPTER 1 Glasgow and Slavery

CHAPTER 2 The Glasgow Highlanders

CHAPTER 3 The Irish in Glasgow

CHAPTER 4 Glasgow Jewry

CHAPTER 5 The Glasgow Italians

CHAPTER 6 The Glasgow Polish Community

CHAPTER 7 The Chinese in Glasgow

CHAPTER 8 The Asian Community

CHAPTER 9 Asylum Seekers

CHAPTER 10 The Changing Scene

Bibliography

Preface

MIGRATION AND POPULATION movements have been a feature of Scottish life since time immemorial, and the documents and text presented in this book will, it is hoped, tell at least a part of that story. Some, such as the Romans and the Vikings, came to conquer; others, in later centuries, came to settle, often driven by poverty or persecution from the lands of their birth. In the last century, also at the invitation of the British government, some came from the countries of the Commonwealth to make a needed contribution to the labour force in the years following the Second World War.

With few exceptions, the history of Glasgow has reflected these movements, as it grew from being the medieval village on the banks of the Molendinar to the industrial cesspool of the late 19th century and, not without pain, to the ‘new’ Glasgow of the late 20th century. And while it is true that the experience of immigrants is frequently that of intolerance, prejudice and discrimination, it would be an unwarranted distortion of that experience to suggest that it has been equal in kind, or in degree, for all groups or individuals whom chance, or plan, have brought to settle in Glasgow.

What I set out to do, therefore, was not to describe a common experience for Irish, Jewish and Asian immigrants, but rather to emphasise what has been a constant element in the life of the city, as people from diverse backgrounds have made their homes in Glasgow over the past two centuries or so. Indeed, many Glaswegians today can trace their roots to other times and other places, perhaps almost forgotten except by family name. For those Glasgow people of more recent origin, however, who for example emigrated during the post-war years from the Indian sub-continent or Hong Kong, they are now a visible minority. And, however painful to acknowledge, this fact alone can pass the experience of rejection and discrimination on to subsequent generations, to be visited upon Glasgow children born and bred.

Thus, when the first edition of this book produced, it was with a view to providing teaching material for Glasgow schools; perhaps as a point for starting some children towards recognising their own identity, and developing a more informed understanding of others among whom they live, or, in their adulthood, may work alongside. The material is, and will continue to be, used in the classroom, but the rich deposits of the history of Glasgow’s population have barely been mined by my efforts, and if the wider publication of this selection encourages further and deeper study by others then it will have served a useful purpose.

In support of the original manuscript for publication to Glasgow City Libraries I must thank Glasgow Division, formerly of Strathclyde Region Education, since it was as a teacher belonging to that authority through which I was encouraged and supported in researching and writing this text; particularly by Keir Bloomer, the then Education Officer, and Philip Drake, Divisional Education Officer.

For material and assistance with this book I have a great many people to thank who have given generously of their time, interest and their own work, and I trust that my gratitude will be apparent in the revised acknowledgements.

Finally, may I emphasise that Who Belongs to Glasgow? does not aspire to be a definitive or exhaustive account of such a long and vibrant period in the history of the city. Moreover, in this revised edition, it will be apparent that trying to capture the constantly changing demographic of the city in a single portrait must be likened to pushing water uphill – the words no sooner committed to paper than the events they describe are moving on. (For example, more than 100 first languages are spoken by pupils in Glasgow’s schools at the present time.) And it remains to say that while many people helped and encouraged me in this new edition – particularly Gavin MacDougall, Director of Luath Press – if there are errors in the text presented then these are mine alone.

Mary Edward

Glasgow, November 2016

Foreword

THE TITLE OF Mary Edward’s admirable book is Who Belongs to Glasgow?. In it, she seeks to answer the question with a comprehensive account of the backgrounds of the people of our wonderful city. As the direct descendant of Irish immigrants, I am personally aware of, and of course proud of, the way in which my family background reflects this rich diversity.

Mary Edward’s new edition is notable in that it includes accounts of the two most recent sets of new Glaswegians: those people who have chosen to come to Glasgow to work from Poland and the other new Member States of the European Union; and the many asylum seekers and refugees who have arrived from a wide range of troubled countries. In the case of asylum seekers, in particular, it cannot be claimed that every arrival leads to a happy outcome. But I hope for a time when every person arrives they will know that they are welcome in Glasgow; to live here, to work here, to educate their children here.

Our city provided the opportunities and the means to succeed to my grandparents and to all of the new arrivals from the communities so well set out in this book. I look forward to a position whereby I can be proud that we continue to do so into the 21st century. After all, when we are asked the question ‘who belongs to Glasgow?’, the answer is already: ‘the world belongs to Glasgow’.

In informing us so well about ourselves as Glaswegians, this book provides a vital service. I would commend it to all who are interested in their own past and predecessors, and even more so to those who wish to know more about those of their neighbour and their fellow citizen.

Rt Hon Liz Cameron

Former Lord Provost of Glasgow (2002–7)

Acknowledgements

THANKS ARE DUE to the following for assistance in provision of materials and for kind permission to use documents, photographs or illustrations.

The proprietor of the Amber Restaurant; the proprietor of Asha Fabrics; Daily Record; The Herald; The Glaswegian; Evening Times; Hong Kong Government Office; Ezra Golombok, proprietor of The Jewish Echo; the proprietor of the Koh I Noor restaurant; New Statesman and Society; the proprietor of the Oriental Pak; People’s Palace, Elspeth King; San Jai Project; Scottish Field; Scottish Geographical; Scottish Immigrant Labour Council; A Scottish Shtetl; Strathclyde Community Relations Council; A & C Black, publishers of The Phoenix Bird Takeaway, by Karin Mackinnon, with photographs by Jeremy Finlay; Glasgow University Library Special Collections; the proprietor of the Sun Restaurant.

J. Singh Bedi, Wladyslaw Bednarek, Diane Edward, Harvey Kaplan, Leon Koczy, Bashir Maan, Gurmeet Mattu, Chai Ken Pen, James McArthur, Karin McKinnon, B. Saggu, Tania Sannino, Martin Shields, Ellis Sopher and Alma Woolfson.

In addition, I would like to thank Alison Grey of SRC Archives, the staff of the Glasgow Room, the Mitchell Library; and for typing the original manuscript, Alice Pickering, Glasgow Division Education.

Additional thanks must go to the following: Hilary Bell, Luath Press; David Cameron, photographer; Pat Malcolm, Clydebank Central Library; Boyd Robertson, Reader in Gaelic Education, Strathclyde University; Rona Macdonald, Gaelic Arts Development Officer; Tom Main, Tir Connaill Harps; Tony Cimmino, O Sole Mio Restaurant; Harvey Kaplan; Fiona Frank; Sharon Mail; Paul Harris, Editor, Jewish Telegraph; Leandro Franchi and Massimo Franchi of Franchi Finnieston; Bartek Korzeniowski, Polish Taste; Mohammed Sarwar MP – Consituency Office; Finola Scott; Robert Perry (photographer) and Scotsman Newspapers; Liam Stewart and Catrin Evans – Village Story Telling Centre; and Jason Bergen, Oxfam; Office of Humza Yousaf MSP.

Introduction

GLASGOW IS A ‘multicultural’ city: a home to many cultures. To speak of ‘cultures’ in this sense is simply to use one word to suggest the diversity in ethnic origins, language, customs or religion that is found among the population of present-day Glasgow. The diversity is not new; Glasgow also has a multicultural past. For almost 200 years the population of Glasgow has comprised people from other parts of Britain or further afield. Many are the descendants of people who came to Glasgow from the Highlands or from Ireland in the 18th and 19th centuries; today, many are the children or grandchildren of people who came from other European countries or who have come from India, Pakistan or Hong Kong. Or more recently, as asylum seekers or migrants from the European Union. Now they are all Glaswegians – the people who, in the words of the famous song, ‘belong to Glasgow’.

Long before it was possible to ‘belong to Glasgow’, however, when the city did not yet exist, the population of Scotland was already of mixed origins. No less than five distinct ethnic groups occupied or invaded what was then North Britain in the centuries after the Roman occupation. These different peoples were Picts, Britons and Angles, and a tribe called the Scotti, who invaded from Ireland in the 5th century AD. The last, at the end of the 8th century, were Scandinavians occupying much of the north and west of the country. For several centuries, ‘Scotland’ consisted of these groups, each occupying a distinct territory and each with their own language and traditions. Only gradually did these groups come together in some loose allegiance to the kings of a united Scotland.

Following the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, Norman influence reached Scotland, particularly during the reign of David I. Norman ways in law, civil administration and in the development of burghs, together with common worship in the Western Christian church, also helped, in time, to dissolve the distinctions between Angle, Pict and Briton. (Robert Bruce, one of Scotland’s most famous kings, was of Norman origin, and names such as Bruce or Sinclair remain today to remind us of this Norman element in the Scottish people.) Thus, the Lowland Scots gradually emerged, a people eventually speaking a common language. Partly because of the geography of Scotland and the difficulty of communications, the northern and north-western parts of the country retained a separate identity in the person of the Highlander, with his Gaelic language and culture.

In later centuries, moreover, the frequency of wars between Scotland and England also had a part to play in reducing earlier differences and drawing Lowland Scots closer together towards a common identity. The English and Scottish crowns united in 1603, followed by the Union of Parliaments in 1707. Scotland was, by this time, the country that we recognise today, with Edinburgh as its capital – but what was happening to Glasgow?

The small village of Glasgow – believed to have been founded in the year 550AD by her patron, St Mungo – became a ‘city’ when the cathedral was raised on the site of St Mungo’s wooden church. Between 1175 and 1178 Glasgow also became a burgh and began to develop as a market town, but it was as a church centre that the town would grow in importance, progressing steadily until it was the city described by Daniel Defoe when he visited in 1727:

Glasgow is a city of business, and has the face of foreign as well as domestick trade; nay, I may say, ’tis the only city in Scotland, at this time, that apparently increases in both. The union has, indeed, answered its end to them, more than to any other part of the kingdom, their trade being new formed by it; for as the union opened the door to the Scots into our American colonies, the Glasgow merchants presently embraced the opportunity; and though, at its first concerting, the rabble of this city made a formidable attempt to prevent it, yet afterwards, they knew better, when they found the great increase of their trade by it; for they now send near 50 sail of ships every year to Virginia, New-England and other English colonies in America.

It was after the Union of 1707 that Glasgow really began to ‘flourish’ as a centre of trade and commerce, and the 18th century saw the transformation of Glasgow from a small town of 12,000 inhabitants into a rising industrial city. As Defoe noted, the Union was unpopular at first but it brought a new prosperity to the city by enabling her merchants to trade with England’s territories in America. Glasgow ships were soon sailing to America with manufactured goods and were bringing back raw materials such as sugar, tobacco leaf and, later, cotton.

Glasgow was growing in prosperity and in population: when the first official census took place in 1801 the population had risen to 77,000, but only 100 years later the figure was ten times greater, and Glasgow had a population of three-quarters of a million! Some of this growth was due to surrounding districts, such as the Gorbals and Anderston, becoming part of the city, but much more of the dramatic rise in population was the result of people coming from other places, seeking to earn their living in the industrial city and often driven by poverty, hunger or persecution from the land of their birth.

Glasgow continues to attract people from other parts of the world, and many nationalities are found in the city, including those who came in the later decades of the 20th century from countries as diverse as Chile and Vietnam.

The 21st century, however, has dawned to the accompaniment of significant migrations from Europe and many countries further afield. The expansion of the European Union to 25 countries in 2004 has opened the doors of the United Kingdom to migrants from former eastern bloc countries such as Lithuania, Ukraine, and, in particular, Poland. For the most part, these migrants are young people looking to advance in education or employment. Many will return to their home countries, but many will choose to remain, thus alleviating, to some extent, the declining population of Scotland.

Less happy, perhaps, are those who find themselves in the city as asylum seekers or refugees. Glasgow City Council, to date, is the only local authority outside London to have accepted asylum seekers under dispersal arrangements, which have been in place since 2000. Many of the immigrants of the last two centuries are the subject of this book – men, women and children who have fled their own country in search of the freedom to live without fear. At no time has this been more poignant than in the Spring of 2016, when a massive crisis of refugee and migrant movements from the Middle East is currently taking place. (See Chapter 10)

The Scottish Government, mindful of the need to promote a harmonious society, conducts the campaign ‘One Scotland: No Place for Racism’. The campaign is designed, amongst other things, to raise awareness of racist attitudes and recognise the valuable contributions that other cultures have made to our society, and in effect looks to ‘a Scotland at ease with its diversity’ (Malcolm Chisholm, Minister for Communities, 2004).

More recently the Scottish Government has committed itself to an extensive new approach in the ‘Race Equality Framework for Scotland – 2016–2030.’ Working in partnership with a number of organisations this policy was launched in March 2016.

In an age of instant and all pervasive social media, which can be a powerful force of racial harassment and bullying, particularly for vulnerable young people, no formal or informal organisation can afford to conduct its affairs in ignorance of these important issues. It is to be hoped therefore, that this revised edition of Who Belongs to Glasgow?, by making a further contribution to the literature of migration, also serves to generate a better understanding of our multicultural society.

CHAPTER 1

Glasgow and Slavery

BY THE EARLY 19th century, Glasgow people were proud of their city and the way in which it had grown from a small village. By this time, there were a number of rich Glasgow merchants who were the owners of thriving export and import businesses, and who built grand establishments in the city to demonstrate their new wealth. Known as the ‘Tobacco Lords’, these men had captured more than half of the tobacco trade on the other side of the Atlantic and they paid for the tobacco imported by sending over all kinds of manufactured goods.

Several Glaswegians wrote histories of the city that tell us much about these wealthy merchants and the streets that bear their names, such as Glassford Street, or the names of the places with which they were associated, such as Virginia Street and Jamaica Street. The histories also give detailed information about the types of goods sent, the quantities and their value; but something they almost never mention is that much of the wealth of these Glasgow merchants was made from trading, not only in sugar and tobacco but also in human beings – slaves from the west coast of Africa. One writer described it as ‘a magic money machine’, as slaves were shipped out to America and the West Indies to work the plantations which sent back the tobacco, sugar and cotton for Glasgow’s manufacturing industry. It has been estimated that Britain’s slave merchants (in Bristol, Liverpool and Cardiff, as well as Glasgow) netted a profit of about £12 million on the two million Africans they bought and sold between 1630 and 1807, the year in which the British trade in slaves was stopped by an Act of Parliament.

Because most of the Glasgow histories were written after the abolition of the slave trade, the writers do not mention Glasgow’s part in this shameful ‘Triangular Trade’ as it was called. One modern Glasgow writer, Jack House, is much more frank, and has said that the Glasgow Tobacco Lords were among ‘the biggest slave traders in Britain’. Slaves were not known to have been marketed in Glasgow as such, in the way that they were in Liverpool or Bristol, but there is plenty of evidence to show that Glasgow did have fairly strong connections with slavery in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Earlier, there is known to have been a small black community centred on the King’s court as far back as 1500. In 1505 the records show payment for ‘Moors’ included in other cargo from Portugal, where trading in blacks was common, and in 1513 the King authorised a New Year’s gift to ‘the twa blak ladeis’. Glasgow’s connection with black people came later, however. There is, for example, the evidence of one William Colhoun, who wrote a number of letters to his sister, Miss Betty Colhoun, who lived ‘opposite the New Wynd, Trongate, Glasgow’. One of his letters, written from Senegal in West Africa in July 1770, tells his sister about his first experiences aboard a slave trader:

We shall sail tomorrow with a hundred and 50 slaves for Potuchan River in Virginia in a very fine vessel which I am chief mate of… it is a very precious cargo as for me it is the first time… plenty of noise and stink.

William’s next letter, dated October 1770, tells Betty that the slaves were sold in Maryland in America and that the ship is returning loaded with tobacco. Over the next few years, William made several voyages with the slave traders, and kept in touch with his sister Betty, who, in the meantime, after writing to William for advice, married a Glasgow merchant, Mr Archibald Peterson. After this, William wrote to his new brother-in-law about his dealings in slaves.

Writing from Sierra Leone in April 1775, William wanted to find someone who he could trust to deliver ‘three prime slaves’:

Let me hear your opinion in this affair and I will remit three prime slaves which will amount to 120 pounds sterling.

If this transaction is successful, William intends to take ‘every opportunity’ to lay up some funds for his eventual return to Glasgow. Captains, ships’ mates, surgeons and other officers were allowed a few ‘privilege negroes’ [sic] from the cargo as a kind of bonus for their services in addition to their wages, and William Colhoun was putting his profits in the bank to save for his future. At the same time, he would use some of the money to buy the most ordinary things. He wrote to Peterson to ask him to send some shoe brushes and polish, thread for shirts, and some new jackets and trousers:

I have sent likewise by Captain Richard Wilding of Liverpool two fine slaves to be sold at the West Indies and the money or bills to be remitted to you, which out of the first part you will pay yourself what I owe you and likewise pay for those things that I require. The slaves will come to about 80 pounds sterling – and put the rest in the bank.

The purchase of domestic trifles from the sale of human beings is callous and inhumane to modern opinion. To the 18th-century slave merchants, however, black Africans were in fact regarded as objects, to be valued only in terms of profit or loss.

Nonetheless, not all of William Colhoun’s slaves were to be sold:

Sir, I have a very fine girl about 12 years of age. I have had her 18 months with me. She is very smart and will learn anything that is shown her. I have a great regard for the girl and I don’t mean to sell her if my sister Betty will accept her I shall send her home, she can speak good English and I was the first white man she ever saw. If Betty will not have her you may ask Janet if she will be of any service to her and she shall have her. If not I know not what to do with her as I never shall sell her. She has been more service to me than any white woman that I ever knew except Mother. If it please God to spare me my life for two or three years until I come home she will be more careful over me in my old age than any white I can get.

Some things in this letter suggest that William Colhoun had treated this particular slave with a certain degree of humanity and had taught her to speak English. But she was a slave and his property, and so he was free to dispose of her in any way he wished. He is proposing to give the black girl to his sister as if she were a toy or a puppy. Slaves were not regarded as having the same kind of human feelings as white people, and so it seemed perfectly acceptable to Colhoun that this girl should have been taken from her parents when she was only 10 years old to be sold to the first white man she had ever seen. However kindly he refers to the girl, she does not seem to have a name; and if she does, William Colhoun will not use it in a letter to his family.

William Colhoun’s letters end around 1776, so we do not know if the young black girl ever came to Glasgow. We do know of several others who did live in or around Glasgow as the human ‘property’ of their masters. We also know that these domestic slaves frequently tried to escape. It was commonplace to see advertisements (see p.6) searching for runaway slaves in the newspapers of the day.

Some rich people liked to have black slaves, who they would dress up in fancy livery, and it became something of a status symbol to have a servant whom you had actually bought. Many of these were children, like William’s servant girl, and if it had not been for the powerful anti-slavery movement, we would have been able to see how one Glasgow master dressed his black slave. The Glassford Portrait, which can be found in the People’s Palace in Glasgow, is a very large painting and depicts prominent merchant John Glassford with his wife and children at some time around 1767. The picture was painted at their home, the magnificent Shawfield Mansion in Trongate, which was demolished in 1792 to make way for Glassford Street. If the painting is examined closely it is just possible to make out, behind John Glassford’s chair, that there has been another person portrayed. This was the figure of the Glassford black slave, which is believed to have been removed from the painting when the anti-slavery movement was at its height in Glasgow.

Letter by William Colhoun dated 6 April 1776. He writes to his brother that he has given to Captain Richard Wilding ‘two prime slaves which he was to dispose of in Jamaica and he was to remit the Value in a Bill to you’.

By the end of the 18th century, the belief that slavery was an evil practice was ever growing, but there are records of a few of the slaves who came to Scotland. One of these was Joseph Knight, who had been bought from a cargo of slaves put on sale in Jamaica. A Mr John Wedderburn bought the boy, then aged about 13 years old, around 1766, and gave him the name Joseph Knight, thus obliterating his African name for all time. Mr Wedderburn took Joseph into his family and trained him to be his personal servant, providing him with some education. Around 1771, Joseph was brought to Scotland and baptised a Christian. Some time later, Joseph, having been taught to read, put his education to good use. Having read of a case in England, in which a black slave called Somerset had gone to the House of Lords in an attempt to be declared a free man, Joseph concluded that he himself was now free and declared his intention to leave his master. Mr Wedderburn took Joseph to the Justices of the Peace in Glasgow, who ruled that Joseph was not free to leave his master. Joseph went to the Sheriff Court and finally the Court of Session, where it was declared after a long debate that Joseph was a free man:

In this portrait of the Glassford family, the black slave would have been seen standing behind the members of the family seated on the left of the group.

Reproduced by kind permission of the People’s Palace, Glasgow.

Whether a British subject having acquired the property of a negro [sic], under the authority of British statutes, shall lose the property by the mere circumstances of his bringing the said negro to Scotland.

The anti-slavery movement, which fought against the practice of buying and selling human beings for profit, also fought against the conditions in which slaves were kept at home and abroad. Slaves were often beaten, kept in appalling living quarters and shackled with chains if they tried to run away, which many of them, quite naturally, tried to do. In 1807 trading in slaves was abolished in Britain by law: this may have put an end to the buying and selling of slaves, but it did not free those who were already enslaved on the plantations of the West Indies and America.

Advertisements like this would not have been uncommon in Glasgow newspapers in the 18th century.

In any case, it is apparent that owning slaves who were well out of sight on the other side of the world troubled the conscience less. One Glasgow merchant, J. Cunningham of ‘Craigend’, now the name of a housing estate in the East End of Glasgow, owned a sugar plantation in Jamaica worked by slave labour. In May 1812, Cunningham wrote to his plantation manager, a man called Taylor Cathcart:

Eding

29th May 1812

Dear Taylor

I have had the pleasure of receiving yours accompanied by a list of negroes and stock on Grandvale – I am happy to observe that the increase in births is likely to keep pace with the decrease occasioned by the deaths of the old and infirm people and I am so pleased to see that you afford every comfort to the women in a state of pregnancy. Indeed, I suppose you will always be disposed to do everything in your power for the comfort of all the slaves. It will be a very satisfactory and consolatory reflection to you after you have relinquished the management and retired from that situation in life.

It is clear that Cunningham did not wish his manager to suffer from residual guilt about the treatment of the slaves in his charge once he had left that occupation and returned to Glasgow. It does express some kind of concern for the slaves, but less than is shown further in the letter when he refers to one of his own children being unwell. Cunningham also writes in a casual way about Cathcart’s family and so on; like William Colhoun’s ‘shopping list’, there is no indication that it might be, at the least, insensitive to discuss domestic trivia in the same letter that concerns his human property. The slaves, after all, were a simple part of the ‘machinery’ of the plantation business.

Cunningham does not appear to have been the worst of slave owners, nor Cathcart the worst of overseers – many of whom were brutal almost beyond description.

The Anti-Slavery Committee had branches throughout the United Kingdom, including Glasgow. In 1823, it circulated a publication which stated that:

In the Colonies of Great Britain there are at this moment upwards of 800,000 human beings in a state of degrading personal slavery.

These unhappy persons, whether young or old, male or female, are the absolute property of their master, who may sell or transfer them at his pleasure, and who may also regulate according to his discretion (within certain limits) the measure of their labour, their food, and their punishment.

Many of the slaves are (and all may be) branded, by means of a hot iron, on the shoulder or other conspicuous part of the body, with the initials of their master’s name, and thus bear about them, indelible characters, the proof of their debased and servile state.

The Slaves, whether male or female, are driven to hard labour by the impulse of the cart-whip, for the sole benefit of their owners, from whom they receive no wages; and this labour is continued, (with certain intermissions for breakfast and dinner) from morning to night, throughout the year.

It was not until 1838 that the movement’s aims were achieved, when an Act of Parliament abolished slavery throughout the British Empire.

Following abolition, a number of black people began to come to Britain to fight for the abolition of slavery in America. The American colonies had been lost in the American War of Independence between 1775 and 1783. Some of those who came were free men but others were slaves who had run away from their owners in America. A small group of these people made their home in Glasgow between 1830 and 1860: these were, for the most part, articulate, well-educated people, who fought for their cause from their base in Glasgow and took part in the Glasgow Emancipation Society. Among these people were William and Ellen Croft (Ellen was light skinned and the couple made their escape from America with her husband posing as her black servant); Sarah Redmond, a black sculptress; William Wells Brown, a literary man; and James McCune Smith. James was born free and educated in New York City in the African Free Schools. A talented young man, James was refused entry to American medical schools because he was black. He came to Scotland and was accepted by Glasgow University, where he gained the degrees of BA (1835), MA (1836) and Doctor of Medicine (1837). Dr Smith later returned to America and was active in movements for the abolition of slavery and the improvement of conditions for free blacks, as was Frederick Douglass, perhaps the most famous of runaway slaves.

James McCune Smith, who wrote the introduction to this autobiography, was a black American who graduated as a doctor of medicine from Glasgow University.

Frederick Douglass also came to Glasgow and purchased his freedom from slavery with the help he received here. Between 1845 and 1847 he travelled all over the country, lecturing and raising public opinion on the fight for the abolition of American slavery. On his return to America, he was to publish his autobiography in 1855, with an introduction written by Dr James McCune Smith.

Just after Douglass returned to America, another man, whose experience had been that of the slave ship and the marketplace, died in a quiet little village in Dumbartonshire. His grave stone is there in the village churchyard of Rosneath, carefully tended and kept clean so that the inscription is easily read. Robert Story was in fact owned by Robert Storey, who gave him both his name and his freedom, though he remained his servant.

IN MEMORY OF

ROBERT STORY,

a native of Western Africa

In early life

torn from home & sold in

Rio de Janeiro as a slave:

there for his good fidelity

he was set free by his master.

Whom loving

he followed to this Country

and who retains the most

grateful remembrance of his

faithful services.

In this Parish

He dwelt for many years,

an example to all servants for

honesty, sobriety and truthfulness.

Ever reverent to his superiors,

obliging to his equals,

kind and courteous to all

his most blameless life

after every suffering meekly endured

through faith in a Redeemer’s love

was closed in peace and hope

in the thirtieth year of his age

on 4th day of August

1848.

Most of the people who emigrated to Britain from the West Indies after the Second World War landed at ports in the South of England. Many of them were heading for London and jobs with London Transport, who had asked them to come and fill the desperate labour shortages created by the war. Likewise, the industrial cities of the Midlands were crying out for labour, as was the newly formed National Health Service. The jobs filled by the immigrants were often those with low wages and long, unsocial hours, which the post-war population of Britain did not want, since there were plenty of other jobs to choose from.

As British citizens, moreover, thousands of West Indians had served in the war, and many of them had spent time in this country, so that when recruiting schemes were set up in Barbados and Jamaica to bring workers to Britain there was a ready response. These people were British citizens who, as there is much evidence to suggest, regarded Britain as the ‘mother country’. There is now a whole generation of the children of West Indian parents who have been born here. This new generation is not West Indian, but British, just as the children or grandchildren of other immigrant groups who have settled in this country since the Second World War are also British, and sometimes Scottish, or even Glaswegian.

The gravestone of Robert Story in Rosneath churchyard.