Glasgow Life Research Articles

Sure as the sunrise: insights into the material culture of Albion Motors from Glasgow Life’s museums and archives collection

ABSTRACT Albion Motors Ltd was a large company based in Scotstoun, Glasgow, employing thousands over its nine-decades existence. Much is known about its manufacturing output of cars, lorries, and buses, so the purpose of this research was to investigate Albion-related archive material held by Glasgow Life and consider this within a social historic context. The paper is replete with evidence of the human experience of the company, obtained through various research methods including scrutiny of primary source material, site visits, and unstructured in-person and telephone interviews. Whilst containing some inconclusive elements, the personal testimony of one former employee, which so effectively brought the past to life, was a poignant reminder to continue this research. Thankfully, the local community centre in Scotstoun had a similar idea, to host an open day for former staff to share memories of working for Albion – proving there are many anecdotes yet to document.

Racial Microaggressions and Ontological Security: Exploring the Narratives of Young Adult Migrants in Glasgow, UK

This study investigates the lived experiences of racial microaggressions faced by young adult migrants in everyday life in Glasgow, UK. The personal stories reported in this study are a direct challenge to the dominant political narrative that Scotland does not have a racism problem. When faced with this discord between narrative and reality, young adultmigrants in Scotland must negotiate both their own lived experiences and biographical narratives to achieve a sense of security. A narrative enquiry methodology is used to explore mundane and everyday interactions for four young adult migrants who have settled in Glasgow over the last 10 years. These accounts of daily life offer a unique view into the everyday racism and racialmicroaggressions faced by this group. Additionally, the opinions of selected Scottish politicians have been collected to gather an additional viewpoint on racism in Scotland. A theoretical perspective stemming from ontological security theory contributes to the racial microaggressions literature in unpacking how individual migrants negotiate traumatic experiences of racism and manage their identities. The analysis explores how migrant individuals may employ coping mechanisms and adopt distinct behaviours to minimise the daily trauma of racism and microaggressions experienced in Scotland. This study, therefore, highlights the potential for interdisciplinary research on racism, narrative, and security studies, and the opportunities for bringing together these distinct perspectives.

Creating an Event Volunteering Legacy: The 2014 Host City Volunteer Initiative

This article examines why as part of the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Glasgow Life failed to achieve its aspired legacy of promoting further volunteering by Host City Volunteers (HCVs) despite the implementation of best practice. This practice included providing dedicated funding of a volunteer legacy program, supporting recruitment from groups generally underrepresented among regular volunteers, and the provision of a dedicated team to support HCVs before, during, and after the event. Drawing on research conducted at the time of the event and a follow up study 3 years later, the article suggests that the absence of such legacy arose because, although highly motivated by the one-off prestigious event, the event volunteers were less motivated by other opportunities, many of those involved as event volunteers were already committed volunteers, and were reluctant to take over responsibility for engaging with future volunteering opportunities. The article considers the wider implications for future event managers seeking to generate volunteering legacies as part of major events. In so doing, it underlines that despite the scheme being constructed around the key characteristics of the much-lauded benchmark model of event volunteering associated with the Manchester 2002 Commonwealth Games volunteering legacies cannot be guaranteed. Even when there is success in engaging with people markedly different to the common type of event volunteer in underrepresented communities, translating their enthusiasm into postevent volunteering is problematic.

Stay or Go? – Roma, Brexit and European Freedom of Movement

The spectre of Brexit has raised issues of concern for Roma communities living and working in Scotland and other parts of the UK. The effective ending of freedom of movement has produced new uncertainties and insecurities for people living outside their EU countries of origin, especially for those who are racialised and stigmatised by ‘hostile environment’ policies. Brexit is best understood as both a process and effect of everyday bordering as well as a continuation of historically embedded structural divisions. This paper looks at everyday Roma life in Glasgow, via the work of the NGO Romano Lav (Roma Voice), to assess how Brexit is impacting on people's lives. Further, the paper examines how Scotland can best move forward in terms of independence and the European project. It is argued that a second independence referendum that gives full political independence to Scotland is the only way to secure future EU membership and freedom of movement.

Critical success factors for facility management employer’s information requirements (EIR) for BIM

PurposeThis paper aims to describe the development and testing of an employer’s information requirements (EIR) template and guidance document designed to meet client and facility management (FM) needs in the building information modelling (BIM) process.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative design approach was used and triangulation of methods which included a focus group with the British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM), semi-structured interviews with the case study Glasgow Life Burrell Renaissance Project who trialled the EIR and peer-reviews and interviews with BIM/CAFM experts from the BIM Academy and FM180.FindingsSpecific guidance to help clients and facility managers prepare key BIM documents like the EIR are needed. They are aware of industry BIM standards and guidance but often not in detail. The Glasgow Life case study illustrated the EIR as a useful collaboration-tool to bring together stakeholders in early planning stages to understand client information needs.Social implicationsAssets and buildings account for most of the energy and material use in society. A well-structured EIR will help ensure the right information is available to enable optimisation of running costs and utility-use over their whole life, thus contributing to long-term sustainability.Originality/valueThis paper provides a new EIR template and guidance document ideal for practitioners in industry as a practical starting point to plan the client information requirements for BIM projects. It can be downloaded at www.bifm.org.uk/bifm/knowledge.

Gillon Caldwell Ferguson

Gillon Caldwell Ferguson was born and lived his early life in Glasgow. After attending Hutchesons’ Grammar School, he read classics at St Andrews, where he graduated with first class honours...

How much of the difference in life expectancy between Scottish cities does deprivation explain?

BackgroundGlasgow’s low life expectancy and high levels of deprivation are well documented. Studies comparing Glasgow to similarly deprived cities in England suggest an excess of deaths in Glasgow that cannot be accounted for by deprivation. Within Scotland comparisons are more equivocal suggesting deprivation could explain Glasgow’s excess mortality. Few studies have used life expectancy, an intuitive measure that quantifies the between-city difference in years. This study aimed to use the most up-to-date data to compare Glasgow to other Scottish cities and to (i) evaluate whether deprivation could account for lower life expectancy in Glasgow and (ii) explore whether the age distribution of mortality in Glasgow could explain its lower life expectancy.MethodsSex specific life expectancy was calculated for 2007–2011 for the population in Glasgow and the combined population of Aberdeen, Dundee and Edinburgh. Life expectancy was calculated for deciles of income deprivation, based on the national ranking of datazones, using the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation. Life expectancy in Glasgow overall, and by deprivation decile, was compared to that in Aberdeen, Dundee and Edinburgh combined, and the life expectancy difference decomposed by age using Arriaga’s discrete method.ResultsLife expectancy for the whole Glasgow population was lower than the population of Aberdeen, Dundee and Edinburgh combined. When life expectancy was compared by national income deprivation decile, Glasgow’s life expectancy was not systematically lower, and deprivation accounted for over 90 % of the difference. This was reduced to 70 % of the difference when carrying out sensitivity analysis using city-specific income deprivation deciles. In both analyses life expectancy was not systematically lower in Glasgow when stratified by deprivation. Decomposing the differences in life expectancy also showed that the age distribution of mortality was not systematically different in Glasgow after accounting for deprivation.ConclusionsLife expectancy is not systematically lower across the Glasgow population compared to Aberdeen, Dundee and Edinburgh combined, once deprivation is accounted for. This provides further evidence that tackling deprivation in Glasgow would probably reduce the health inequalities that exist between Scottish cities. The change in the amount of unexplained difference when carrying out sensitivity analysis demonstrates the difficulties in comparing socioeconomic deprivation between populations, even within the same country and when applying an established ecological measure. Although the majority of health inequality between Glasgow and other Scottish cities is explained by deprivation, the difference in the amount of unexplained inequality depending on the relative context of deprivation used demonstrates the challenges associated with attributing mortality inequalities to an independent ‘place effect’.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12889-015-2358-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Dorling, D.Unequal Health: The Scandal of Our Times. Bristol: Policy Press. 2013. 400pp £24.99 ISBN 978–1‐44730513–2 (pbk)Dorling, D.Inequality and the 1%. London: Verso. 2014. 234pp £12.99 ISBN 978–1‐78168585–3 (pbk)

Dorling, D.Unequal Health: The Scandal of Our Times. Bristol: Policy Press. 2013. 400pp £24.99 ISBN 978–1‐44730513–2 (pbk)Dorling, D.Inequality and the 1%. London: Verso. 2014. 234pp £12.99 ISBN 978–1‐78168585–3 (pbk)

Contested urban spaces: exploring the analytics of young persons’ experiences of living in Glasgow’s deprived zones

This paper reports findings from an exploratory study of mainly young people’s verbally articulated perceptions of urban life in Glasgow, Scotland. The focus is upon areas of deprivation where territory and social capital is contested and whose meanings are possibly only partially grasped by our informants. Their personal knowledge of violence and sense of oppression (fear of violence and constrained agency) are explored through qualitative data generated by means of semi‐structured interviews. Despite the qualified nature of our findings we believe they contribute to understanding a particular Scottish identity, one infused with notions of youth culture, community disorder and social exclusion. These results prompt us to highlight the need for more intense policy concern and interventions in order to address the mental health of young people whose lives are demonstrably blighted by poverty and its exclusionary material realities in a major twenty‐first‐century European city.

Chapter 15 Early publications (1905–10) and research activity while in Glasgow

First a summary and overview of the main activities Gregory undertook in the first five years after arriving in Glasgow is given with minimal references, and then follow, with full references, a detailed examination of his different society and research activities. Without the latter it is hard to appreciate the wide extent of his interests and the intensity of his dedication and productivity. Gregory's life in Glasgow revolved around teaching lectures, practicals, and excursions from October to late March, together with lectures given locally and elsewhere in the UK. In addition, he made visits abroad, usually in the summer, the first of which was to South Africa and Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in the summer of 1905, mainly in connection with the British Association (BA) and mining. This was followed by a visit to Norway and Sweden in the summer of 1907 to see the major SE-directed thrust nappes, iron ore and glacial deposits, and in 1908 to Cyrenaica (part of Libya), hitherto closed to geologists, which turned out to be mostly Eocene Limestone. In 1909 he returned to Australia, visiting both Queensland and Western Australia and probably Melbourne, returning to Scotland via the Pacific Ocean, and Canada with stops in British Columbia, central Canada and at the BA meeting in Winnipeg in late August. He also took ‘holiday’ breaks with Audrey in continental Europe. Unfortunately there is no record of the detailed personal incidents that must have taken place during the many travels he undertook both abroad and within the British Isles during his time in Glasgow. Already by 1910 he had marked himself out as a geologist with exceptionally wide experience of seeing rocks in North, South and East Africa, Australia, New Zealand, North America, the West Indies, Britain, Spitzbergen and various parts of continental Europe, at a …

‘Doing What is Right’: Researching Intimacy, Work and Family Life in Glasgow, 1945-1960

Understanding discursive shifts over the twentieth century in relation to family roles, paid work and care is essential to any critical review of contemporary family theory and policies. This paper charts aspects of these shifts. An analysis of case records of the Royal Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (RSSPCC), 1945 to 1960 is presented. Based upon these data we reflect upon the construction of the working-class family in the West of Scotland and draw upon one case study to illustrate issues further. This post-war period was one of rapid social and technological change. It is commonly perceived as a period of segregated gender roles, and in the UK a predominant male-breadwinner family model. The RSSPCC case records suggest that family lives and forms, particularly for those on low incomes, were diverse throughout this period. Although prosecutions for cruelty and neglect are dominant in perceptions of the society, most of its work was in material assistance, advice and surveillance. This latter aspect is considered in this paper.

Broadfield Revisited: Some Scottish Catholic Responses to Wealth, 1918–40

You do need to be very romantic to accept the industrial civilization’, wrote G. K. Chesterton. ‘It does really require all the old Gaelic glamour to make men think Glasgow is a grand place. Yet the miracle is achieved, and while I was in Glasgow I shared the illusion.’ The industrial dream suited the Scots. Here was a really romantic vista suited to a romantic people. On a visit in 1919, Eric Gill was far more pointed: ‘Love God and do what you will’ would never lead you to a life in Glasgow. On one of his many visits, Rev. Vincent McNabb, the Dominican, declared a walk through the Glasgow slums demonstrated the futility of the money standard of civilization. Only a return to the land could bring real wealth and contentment. In similar vein John Ruskin and his active local following in the city confidently awaited the collapse of industrialism. William Cassels, the President of the Glasgow Ruskin Society, championed these ideas in lectures, pamphlets, and reading guilds. Impressed by Rerum Novarum and associated with local Catholics in the Single Tax movement, he and a socialist friend had spent some time with Edward Carpenter’s communal land experiment. Glasgow, the Second City of the Empire and the epitome of the Victorian acquisitive society, had a remarkably prolific record in spawning alternative social visions. Catholics were to draw on these native experiences and their own traditions in founding the Scottish Land Colonisation Association. Rev. Professor John McQuillan was their inspiration. Their farm, Broadfield, Symington, Lanarkshire, was a practical statement about their attitudes to wealth.

Quality of Life in Glasgow: An Applied Geographical Analysis

The structure and distribution of quality of life forms a key area of research in human geography, with particular attention given to conditions at the disadvantaged end of the quality-of-life spectrum. To date, most work has focused on the national, regional, or interurban scale. However, whereas descriptive pattern identification and mapping is of value at the macroscale as a pointer to detailed work, policy-relevant quality-of-life indicators are more likely to be derived at the local scale and to be related to specific life concerns. In the present research, a multiscale multiindicator methodology is used to examine the structure and distribution of life quality in Glasgow. In a series of analyses in which objective and subjective indicators are employed at different geographic scales, the city-wide pattern of life quality is identified and a number of severely disadvantaged subareas isolated. Within one such subarea the quality-of-life experience of a particular social group, the elderly, is examined in detail. Application of the methodology in other cities could facilitate intercity and cross-cultural comparisons of quality-of-life variations within contemporary urban areas. Such investigations can also be of practical utility for decisionmakers seeking to define priorities for social policy.

The Vicarious Repentance of Christ in the Theology of John McLeod Campbell and R. C. Moberly

The name of John McLeod Campbell (1800–1872) is well-known among historians of Scottish church history. A pastor who spent most of his life in Glasgow, Campbell is remembered best for his deposition from the Church of Scotland in 1831 because of the preaching of unlimited atonement and of assurance as belonging to the essence of faith. Among historians of doctrine, Campbell's notoriety stems from his later work, The Nature of the Atonement. The book aroused controversy from the moment of its publication. Among the highly original themes set forth by Campbell, one continues to stand out as the most perplexing and controversial: Campbell's teaching on Christ as providing a ‘perfect response’, a ‘perfect repentance’, a ‘perfect sorrow’ and a ‘perfect contrition’ before the judgment of the Father on the sins of humanity.

David Herbert: Victorian Editor of Smollett

DAVID HERBERT (1830–99), classical tutor, journalist and aficionado of eighteenth‐century literature and history, was born on 15 April 1830 in Glasgow, at the home of his parents on Castle Street. He spent his early life in Glasgow where his father, James Herbert, worked in a shop.

Glasgow Family Planning Service

Sir--Dr. Elizabeth Wilsons report (18 December p. 731) on the first year of a domiciliary family planning service in Glasgow calls for comment on many counts but I will offer only two. It is my opinion but an alarming development when a doctor justifies her work in terms of saving money for the community. To go into the homes of people who live with poverty unemployment overcrowding alcoholism debt and disease and offer only contraception suggests that 1984 is nearer than (we had thought). I cannot be alone in taking exception to Dr. Wilsons statement situation in Glasgow is complicated as 27% of the population are Roman Catholic and to the devout contraception presents an immediate dilemma. This applies. . . also to their medical advisers who on conscientious grounds may feel unable to participate in any family planning programme. Passing over the unsympathetic description of Catholics as complications of a well-ordered society let me record that the Catholic Marriage Advisory Council in Glasgow has taught and supervised the use of the temperature method of identifying the infertile phase of the female menstrual cycle in over 400 couples in each of the last four years. The services if its 12 medical adviser/health visitor teams are given free and our clients pay only for thermometers and charts. This service (unknown to Dr. Wilson?) reflects the Catholic attitude to responsible parenthood and family life in Glasgow and throughout the country. --I am etc.(Full text)

Dr. Albert A. Gray

DR. ALBERT A. GRAY, who died in London on January 6, at the age of sixty-seven years, spent his active professional life in Glasgow, where he held the post of lecturer in otology in the University and of aural surgeon to the Infirmary.

XVI. On Things New and Old from the Ancient Lake of Cowdenglen, Renfrewshire

For several years before I left Glasgow, in 1868, one of my favourite resorts for fossil-hunting was Gameshill, in the parish of Dunlop, Ayrshire. It was reached by railway to Crofthead, and thence by road through the pass in the Fereneze hills to Lugton, and onward by the Stewarton road—in all about 8 miles beyond the railway. The scenes passed on the way were often the chief attractions of my visits, the aspects of the hillsides and of the bright sheet of Lochlibo at the head of the glen, which varied with the seasons, giving me much pleasure at the time, as well as in after recollection when I contrasted them with the hard and dry scenes of my daily life in Glasgow. In 1867 other attractions were, however, added. The glen had been chosen as the best route for a direct railway to Kilmarnock, and so through the workmen's operations became nothing more than a long quarry with all its uncouth sights and sounds. But my consequent anathemas were suddenly changed to blessings on the Fair Saturday of July, 1868, when I found the navvies busily engaged in cutting through a bed of clay and peaty mud, bringing back to the light of day the remains of a long-buried Lochlibo. This deposit had evidently been laid down in a deep lake formed by a ledge of rock which stretched across the glen and which the workmen had cut through before reaching the clay. Samples of this clay which I This 250-word extract was created in the absence of an abstract

CITY OF GLASGOW LIFE ASSURANCE COMPANY,: 30, Renfield street, Glasgow, and 12, King William-street, London

CITY OF GLASGOW LIFE ASSURANCE COMPANY,: 30, Renfield street, Glasgow, and 12, King William-street, London

City of Glasgow Life Assurance Company

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