NEXT spring marks the 50th anniversary of Glasgow’s newly renovated Stock Exchange opening its doors.

It was the result of two years of painstaking work and the Evening Times reported, under the headline ‘Stock Exchange Latest – It’s Luxury!’ that “the modernised premises will provide more spacious and comfortable accommodation for the staff and workers and create a freer market with the business of all the stock exchanges in Scotland being concentrated in one building.”

It added, delightfully: “The building will also benefit as a new viewing gallery has been included with a press-button tape recording of the BBC’s Mary Marquis explaining the procedure.”

Glasgow Times:

These photos were taken more than a decade earlier, in 1959, when the pace seems very sedate. There is only one phone in view, for a start, and this was long before computers and mobiles had been invented.

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Then there were many listed Scottish companies whose shares were traded, but as they dwindled, the exchanges in Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Dundee and Greenock closed. The Glasgow exchange for a while became the Scottish Stock Exchange – before it too closed in 1973.

The building, erected between 1875 and 1877 on the corner of Buchanan Street and St George’s Place (now Nelson Mandela Place, renamed to embarrass the South African embassy upstairs) is now home to shops.

Glasgow Times:

*Do you remember the old Glasgow stock exchange?

Did you work there, or visit to hear the soothing tones of Mary Marquis? Get in touch to share your memories and photos.