Kinning Park question

[WilmaM]

I lived for several of my 'growing up' years in Plantation Street, and I am pretty sure that it ran from Govan Road to Paisley Road West.
I always understood that Paisley Road was before 'The Toll' when coming from the city and Paisley Road West was after it.

I Could be wrong of course!
Ann

That is true now Ann,
but when Kinning Park & Plantation/Govan were distinct from Glasgow [1905, 1912]
then Paisley Road ran the whole way to Paisley.

Saying that I don't know how numbers went after the change?

[Wee Ann]

Thanks for that clarification Wilma, I can only speak from the early nineteen fifties, and only for a few short years.

It's all changed now though isn't it! I went for a look last time we were back in the UK. The only recognisable bits were the Presbyterian Church at the Paisley Road West end of what was Plantation Street and the Harpur Memorial Baptist Church on what used to be the corner of Plantation and .. .and... Mind's gone a blank.

That is so annoying! The only one that will come to me is Eaglesham Street, and I know that's not right!

Oh well! It will come to me...

All the Best

Ann

[WilmaM]

It's all changed now though isn't it! I went for a look last time we were back in the UK. The only recognisable bits were the Presbyterian Church at the Paisley Road West end of what was Plantation Street and the Harpur Memorial Baptist Church on what used to be the corner of Plantation and .. .and... Mind's gone a blank.

That is so annoying! The only one that will come to me is Eaglesham Street, and I know that's not right!

Oh well! It will come to me...

All the Best

Ann

Craigiehall Street, Anne,

[speleobat2]

Hi all,

Just an update on the family which got this started: My grandmother's uncle George Cadenhead was a fairly successful rag and waste merchant in Glasgow, but he died of pneumonia at the age of 48 in 1883 leaving wife Helen with 5 children ages 3-11 years old including twin boys. After debts and funeral expenses, he left 378 pounds and a bit of change. Helen and the children were still in Kinning Park on the 1891 census, but by 1901 she and daughter Helen were in Eaglesham. The oldest and youngest boys went to Canada and the twins both became stablemen around Glasgow and remained single. The youngest, James Williamson Cadenhead seems to have disappeared after he got to Canada and he may have had a reason. He married in 1908, then on the 1911 passenger list he is single!

Helen died in Eaglesham in 1923 and daughter Helen headed for Edmonton, Alberta, Canada to her oldest brother John's indicating on the passenger records that she intended to stay in Canada. However, a year and a half later she returned to Scotland to marry 67 year old Thomas McMillan, a joiner, who was living at 3 Montgomery St., Garden Cottage, Eaglesham which just happens to be where Helen was a housekeeper according to one of the records! Helen was 48 when she married. Thomas lived to 1950 when he died at the age of 92. The informant on his death certificate was his business partner! Apparently, he worked right to the end! Helen died in 1966 in Eastwood and Mearns, but I can't get the details unless I order the certificate because her death falls under the 50 year privacy law. I'd like to think that they had 25 good years together!

All of this was a surprise to my sister and I. Neither of us remembers Dad talking about relatives in Canada. Of course, I found out yesterday that his mother also had relatives in South Africa and we never heard a word about them either!

Carol

[kennethm]

Carol,

I noticed your post about about your relatives moving to Eaglesham. By chance I have a photo on Geograph that shows no. 14 Polnoon Street:

http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1450275

It's the white cottage with black surrounds to the windows and door beside the second car on the left-hand side in the middle of the photo.

Kenneth

ps The Swan Inn in a good local pub!

Thanks Wilma and Andrew!

With all the rest of my family in Aberdeenshire and there abouts, I just have spent much time on Glasgow so this is all new. I was guessing that if Paisley Road was a toll road, it had probably been expanded since my relatives lived there so I didn't expect to see their houses! I'm striking out in Eaglesham tonight too. George Cadenhead's widow and daughters moved to 14 Polnoon street some time after 1891. I got my hopes up because the historical commission has written up Polnoon Street for it's architechtural elements, but no picture of # 14. Even the real estate ad that mentions #14 has "no image"! It's just a few doors up from The White Swan Inn which is #23. Eaglesham looks lovely anyway!

Carol

[speleobat2]

Kenneth,

A million thanks!!! Your pictures are terrific! That one is so clear that it feels like I'm right there. I bet that sidewalk is a challenge in the winter though!

Carol

[Montrose Budie]

Be very careful when looking at old photos about assuming that the numbers remained unchanged over time.

The Post Office together with the local authority regularly decided to make life difficult for us by deciding to renumber properties.


The other day I was trying to find out who was staying at a certain place in Renfield Street in Glasgow in the early censuses and it proved to be impractical on ScotlandsPeople or, for that matter, Ancestry. I'll need to have a look at the microfilms. Not sure if they can still be viewed during a visit to Edinburgh but many libraries and FHS research centres have the microfilms.

mb

[kennethm]

That's a good word of caution. It used to be the convention that numbers ran consecutively up the left hand-side of the street, changed-side then ran back down the other side. This appears to have been somewhat confusing when trying to find a particular address, sometimes involving a rather long walk. In 1825 there was consideration to adpot the Paris system; i.e. odd numbers on the left-hand-side and even numbers on the right. There's an article about this in an edition of the Glasgow Mechanics' Magazine from the time: pages 83 & 84.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LA4A ... is&f=false

I don't know however in what year the Paris system was adopted in Glasgow or elsewhere. In Eaglesham there's been some number changes. The 'weavers' cottage' in Montgomery Street used to be two cottages (nos 50 and 51) but has since changed to no. 50 but not too many changes from what I can see.

Kenneth

Be very careful when looking at old photos about assuming that the numbers remained unchanged over time.

The Post Office together with the local authority regularly decided to make life difficult for us by deciding to renumber properties.


The other day I was trying to find out who was staying at a certain place in Renfield Street in Glasgow in the early censuses and it proved to be impractical on ScotlandsPeople or, for that matter, Ancestry. I'll need to have a look at the microfilms. Not sure if they can still be viewed during a visit to Edinburgh but many libraries and FHS research centres have the microfilms.

mb

[Currie]

Hello Kenneth,

It look as though Glasgow took up the odds and evens numbering system in 1826 but this was long after London and Edinburgh. From what I saw, here and there, in the newspapers, there seems to have been a very slow take-up of the system by other Scottish cities and towns and some appear to have been still talking about it many decades later. As usual, not everyone was happy. Here’s some bits and pieces from the newspapers.

Caledonian Mercury (Edinburgh), Thursday, March 7, 1811
We are glad to find the subject of numbering the houses in the New Town, as well as the Southern Districts of Edinburgh, is about to be taken up by the Commissioners of Police; and that there is some prospect of that very necessary business being effected on a systematic plan. We beg leave to recommend a plan lately adopted in London, which is attended with the best effects.—All the even numbers are used on one side of the street, such as 2, 4, 6, 8, &c. and the odd ones on the other, 1, 3, 5, 7, &c. so that it can be ascertained at once on which side of the street the house wanted is situated.

Glasgow Herald (Glasgow), Friday, May 26, 1826
An advertisement inserted by the Clober Bleachfield Office informing the public of a change of address from 51 to 76 Bell Street “in consequence of the mode now adopted in numbering the Houses in the different Streets of this City”.

Glasgow Herald (Glasgow), Friday, May 26, 1826
To the Editor of the Glasgow Herald.
Sir—I shall feel much obliged if you, or any of your numerous readers, can tell me the method to be pursued in tracing out or following the successive numbers in our streets, upon the new plan now adopting. For my part, I have tried it repeatedly by myself, as well as with several others who pretended to know the system, but all to no purpose. In fact, to find out a given number seems almost impossible; and unless those who have taken the business in hand make it public by the newspapers, or hand-bills, to enable the population to understand it, not one in a hundred will know how to find out a place from the present mode. I was informed that all the odd numbers are on one side, and the even numbers on the other; but if so, there seems often a number omitted on both sides, for what reason I know not. This new plan, then, is the same as in London, Edinburgh, &c. I am sorry our authorities are at any time led away from their own superior system, merely for the vanity of having it said we are like our great neighbours in this respect; and sure I am this is the very reverse of an improvement, and objectionable for many private reasons, which it is now needless to offer when the plan is gone into. The object of the present is positively to get some instructions how to find out any place by the present numbering.—I am, Sir, A well-wisher to the City.
[We understand that the blanks in the numbers are not only where new buildings may be erected, but where shops or counting-houses are intended to be struck out in the present buildings.]

Hope that’s interesting,
Alan

[kennethm]

Hello Alan,

Thanks for the very interesting information about the numbering system. The Glasgow Mechanics Magazine mentioned the odds and evens numbering system in 1826 but I hadn't read anything else about the way in which streets were numbered. Probably not unusual though that there was a very slow up-take by other cities and towns and not everyone was happy. It would be interesting to know if there's anywhere that the traditional system is still in use. The numbering system was never a problem in Eaglesham though. The numbers just ran consecutively as the village was planned on the letter 'A' shape. The buildings were only on one side of the streets with a village green in the middle.

Kenneth

Hello Kenneth,

It look as though Glasgow took up the odds and evens numbering system in 1826 but this was long after London and Edinburgh. From what I saw, here and there, in the newspapers, there seems to have been a very slow take-up of the system by other Scottish cities and towns and some appear to have been still talking about it many decades later. As usual, not everyone was happy. Here’s some bits and pieces from the newspapers...

Hope that’s interesting,
Alan