Recording Your Heritage Online
Event ID 566753
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Recording Your Heritage Online
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/566753
THORNLIEBANK
The village of Thornliebank first developed industrially in 1778, when Robert Osburn, linen printer, leased land from Alexander, 11th Earl of Eglinton, to create a printfield, employing about 50 people. He expanded too fast and became bankrupt. By 1789 there was a street with a few cottages in the first hamlet of Thornliebank. The Glasgow printed calico merchant, John Crum, bought Osburn's premises, and his sons Alexander and James were soon employing 847 workers. The family continued to prosper and by 1819 Walter Crum, an internationally renowned chemist, was in charge. He concentrated the business on dyeing, especially Turkey Red. His son Alexander further expanded the business. Manchester became the headquarters but Thornliebank remained the Printing Works, employing up to 2,000 until a major trade depression caused their closure in 1929. The Engineering Works continued for a few years but also closed in 1940.
Thornliebank was a small suburban community of two-storey semidetached villas mainly to the east of Main Street until Glasgow Corporation built their large housing scheme of cottage flats across the road at Carnwadric in the 1920s. A little further out of Glasgow, the SSHA built the Arden housing scheme for Renfrew County in the 1950s. These flats were similar to Glasgow's Eastwood buildings but had better landscaping.
Taken from "Greater Glasgow: An Illustrated Architectural Guide", by Sam Small, 2008. Published by the Rutland Press http://www.rias.org.uk
