History of Science & Engineering in Scotland

Scotland's economy had a huge basis in science and industry, in particular in the West of Scotland but elsewhere too.

I would like to collect links to show this. There was a huge interest in learning more as well and people used to attend chemistry evening classes in huge numbers as they tried to learn more in order to work in these industries and to discover how to develop new products.

Maryhill Stained Glass Windows

Here are stained glasses commemorating the trades in Maryhill, many of which grew up in this area based on the ready supply of water from the canal :
http://www.maryhillburghhalls.org.uk/panels/  which show :

  • Turkey Red dye-ing
  • Zinc spelters - David Swan Junior, Glasgow's only spelter in the 1870s, had his works near the Kelvin Dock on the Maryhill canal.
  • Iron Foundries
  • Glassworks - Murano road is named after the Murano Glass works in Venice. In 1878 Maryhill had two large-scale glass works, both in Murano Street : The Caledonia Glass Bottle Works (owners, Gibson and Scott), were operating since 1874 and produced blown glass. The Glasgow Glass Works was also established on the canal banks in 1874, and produced rolled plate glass. Both these works had closed by 1973.
  • Engineers
  • Chemical workers - you can see distillation in this stained glass panel
Loads of information on this link:
https://www.scottishcorpus.ac.uk/cmsw/document/?documentid=44