A Quick Note

Hi Tom,

Thank you for your comment which is much appreciated. Good luck with your novel!

Chris

Hi Adam,

Thank you for your message and for sharing information about your interesting project. I had friends at Mount Florida Primary School who were the sons of refugees. You are welcome to use photographs from this website for your project and there is no licensing agreement.

Best wishes in your venture.

Chris

Hi Glen,
I’m glad you like the website and you are welcome to use the material as a resource. I’m presently overseas but expect to be in Glasgow this Summer.
Best wishes,
Chris

Hi Barbara,

Thank you for your comment and you’re welcome. You are correct in assuming that a Glasgow-bound passenger train from London Euston would arrive at Glasgow Central Station. The fact that the passengers were bussed to a hotel would rule out the Central Hotel as it is immediately adjacent to the station. Most of the centrally-located hotels in Glasgow are north of the river and so would be more convenient for quays and docks on the North Bank. The Grand Hotel at Charing Cross could have been a possibility and the ship could have sailed from Yorkhill Quay as some of the Anchor Liners had been requisitioned for war service.

The R.M.M.V. Warwick Castle was a Union-Castle liner built by Harland & Wolff in Belfast in 1930 and weighing 20,107 tons. In peacetime, she would sail between Southampton and the Cape but in wartime she was requisitioned for service as a troopship. The Union-Castle Line did not have assigned berths in Glasgow and neither did the Royal Mail Line which owned Union-Castle. One could speculate that the ship might have sailed from Yorkhill Quay on the North Bank or possibly from Prince’s Dock on the South Bank where the Canadian Pacific and Anchor-Donaldson Lines had berthage. Graham Lappin has suggested that you contact Clyde Maritime http://www.clydemaritime.co.uk as they regularly access the port records in the Mitchell Library. Or you could try the Mitchell Library directly.

Crossing the Atlantic in wartime was fraught with danger, both from U-boats and surface raiders. The presence of U-boats had been starkly demonstrated on the very first day of the war when the Anchor-Donaldson liner Athenia was torpedoed and sunk off the coast of Ireland while en route to Canada. The Warwick Castle herself was later torpedoed and sunk off the coast of Portugal in November 1942 when she was en route to the Clyde from Gibraltar.

Wishing you success with your book.

Chris

Hello Rosanne,

Thank you for your inquiry and for sharing this information about your great grandmother’s emigration. She could certainly could have crossed the Atlantic on the S.S. Furnessia or possibly the S.S. City of Rome which came into service on the Glasgow – New York route in 1891. At that time, both vessels were owned by the Barrow Steam Ship Company but operated by the Anchor Line and so would have been berthed at Stobcross Quay on the North Bank. There is a postcard showing the Anchor Liner S.S. Columbia at Stobcross Quay in the Chapter entitled Sailing Down the Clyde:”Doon the Watter”.

Your great grandmother would have taken some form of transport from her home in Dalmarnock Road to join the ship at Stobcross and may have engaged a carter to transport her luggage in advance. Depending on her financial circumstances she could have travelled with the carter, taken a horse-drawn tram operated by the Glasgow Tramway and Omnibus Company ( with some route changes along the way and some walking ) or possibly hired a cab. The latter would have been the most expensive but also the quickest and most direct way to the docks. A carter would also have taken her to the quayside. She would not have been able to take a Clutha river ferry from Dalmarnock but may have transferred to one further down-river and disembarked at the Stobcross Landing Stage. As you can see, there are many possibilities. She would probably have been accompanied to the quayside by family members and possibly friends who would come to see her safely on board. Do you know if she travelled to New York with other family members?

Good luck with your novel.

Chris

Hi Barbara,

You’re welcome and thank you for your comments. I don’t have any photographs of the interior of the Warwick Castle but perhaps you could try the builder, Harland & Wolff, in Belfast. They probably keep records of each ship they have built, including the specifications, floor plans and possibly some photographs of the interior of each vessel when completely fitted out. You could also try tracing the archives of the Union Castle Line as these may include interior and exterior views of the ships they operated. If I think of anything else, I’ll certainly let you know.

Best wishes,

Chris

Hello Reids of Milngavie,

Thank you for your interest and you are most welcome to use images for your website. I realize that you have a family connection with Reid & Todd of Sauchiehall Street.

Best wishes,

Chris

Hi Kathryn,

Thank your for your question. Do you have names and addresses for your ancestors on Elderslie Street and St. George’s Road? With this information, we could pinpoint the locations of their homes. Elderslie Street extended from Dumbarton Road in the South up to Sauchiehall Street, and St. George’s Road extended from Woodlands Road to St. George’s Cross and on to Garscube Cross, as shown in the Ordnance Survey maps of the period.

Best wishes,

Chris

Hi Veronica,

Thank you for your comment and you are welcome to use any of the photographs from my archive as backgrounds to the pages in your report. If you would like to use material supplied by a contributor then let me know and I will put you in touch with them.

Best wishes with your venture.

Chris

Hi Megan,

Thank you for your inquiry. I’m not sure what time period interests you. If it is the early years of photography then you could try the Mitchell Library. For more recent material, the newspapers may be able to help. Also, there are several books on Glasgow that feature photographs of the main thoroughfares and the sources of these are usually listed at the beginning as part of the acknowledgments. There are several archives. Of course, if you want current images and are living in or near the City then you could always take some high resolution pictures yourself.

Best wishes,

Chris

Hi Katya,

Thank you very much for your kind message and good wishes. Yes, you are most welcome to use any of the photos on this website in support of your endeavour. As an aside, I thought you might be interested in the fact that the Sauchie in Sauchiehall Street is the old Scots word for a place or field of willow trees.

With best wishes,

Chris