We are really excited about a new project that is just starting up in Dennistoun, thanks to funding from the Glasgow City Council Local Area Fund. GWL will be working with local women and organisations to uncover some of the history and heritage of Dennistoun women. We’ll be looking at some of the women who worked in Dennistoun’s industries, such as breweries and cigarette factories. We’ll be looking at the history of Duke Street jail, at the women who worked on the trams and buses and also at the lives of working class women who moved to the area during or after the Second World War. Dennistoun has grown over the years to be a hugely diverse area, from the grand old terraced houses of Anfield Square to the tenements and bustling businesses in Duke Street.
We’ll be offering the chance for women to share their stories and memories, develop their skills in historical research and take part in fun creative activities responding to what we discover. The project will also be looking into Glasgow based archives and also our own archive at the women’s library, where we have discovered photographs and letters from two sisters and their family who lived in Dennistoun and attended Golfhill School, so we can’t wait to investigate and find out more about their history!
In 2024, we will be publishing a short walking trail map and a booklet about Dennistoun’s women, past and present. Doreen, who is in our project group, wrote this:
“Hi, I’m Doreen, one of the cleaners at Glasgow Women’s Library. Back in 2018 or 2019 I helped to research two suffragette trails at the library. I have decided to get involved in the Dennistoun history project because I would like to learn about Duke Street prison. I have been fortunate to never have been in prison – I have Asperger’s Syndrome and dyslexia and I have heard many times that a large proportion of the prison population is neurodiverse. Suffragettes such as Helen Crawford (Anderson), Ethel Moorhead and Dorothea Chalmers (Smith) served sentences in Duke Street prison. We have an umbrella stand on display in the library that was rescued from a skip outside Duke Street prison when it was getting demolished and word of mouth has it that in was painted green, white and pink by suffragette prisoners. I spoke about it in my appearance BBC Radio 4’s Caretakers programme.
“During my involvement in helping with planning GWL’s Open the Door festival, one of the featured writers was Wendy Wood who was a campaigner for Scottish Independence. I read that she was Auntie Gwen on Jackanory in the early 1970s (according to www.clan-woodsociety.co.uk) and served 60 days in Duke Street prison because she refused to pay her National Insurance. I also read that Susan Newell was executed at Duke Street prison in 1923 – she may have been the last woman to be executed in Scotland. During its last years of operation from around 1882 to 1955, it was a women only prison. I’m looking forward to researching these fascinating women.”
As well as looking at Dennistoun’s rich past, our project will also look at women and new communities who have moved there from elsewhere. One of those women is Dennistoun businesswoman, Lewa Thomas, owner of Akara Bakery on Duke Street.
Lewa was brought up in the West End of Glasgow but she has had a long connection to Dennistoun through her church, which is based there, and is now a Dennistoun resident. Lewa started her bakery business making and selling cakes in her mother’s kitchen and opened Akara in 2019 just a few months before the Covid crisis. She quickly began focusing on cakes and takeaway so that the business survived lockdown and Akara is now thriving. Lewa hopes that she may expand in the future to open other bakeries. I asked her if she had a woman who was a role model for her and she said without hesitation, “My mother. I really respect her experience and she brought me up to not see limitations to my own potential and to never let barriers stand in my way.” I asked Lewa what one of her favourite things about Dennistoun was and she said, “People are really friendly and chatty: New and old communities in Dennistoun get on well. People want to make connections in their community here and are passionate about keeping the spirit of Dennistoun alive.”
If you’d like to help or find out more, you can come along to Culloden Street Hall on Friday mornings, starting 9th June 9.30 to 11.30 am and get involved in the project.
Event Page: Discover Women’s History in Dennistoun
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This project is supported by Glasgow East Local Area partnership and the Scottish Government.
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