WHEN World War One was declared on August 4, 1914 Glasgow, the Second City of the Empire, was determined to transfer its success in municipal government to the war effort.
It ran its own recruiting campaign,s appealing to both civic duty and the defence of the empire ‘for their own credit, for the good name of our city and the honour and safety of the empire’ and quickly became a major military recruitment centre, with 22,000 volunteering in first week.
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James Dalrymple, manager of Glasgow’s world-renowned Tramways, took up the drive with such zeal that he was described as the ‘greatest recruiting agent the war ever produced’ with 4000 of his men serving.
The Corporation organised and equipped HLI battalions: 15th (Tramways), 16th (Boys’ Brigade) and 17th (Chamber of Commerce). It was responsible for managing local tribunals and was appointed as the distributing centre for Scotland for Belgians escaping the German invasion of their country.
Alongside support for the war in the city, there were voices of opposition led by the ILP, other left-wing parties and various peace organisations.
On August 9, 1914, the ILP organised a massive Peace Demonstration of 5000 people on Glasgow Green. James Maxton returned from Europe to attend the meeting and John McLean also attended. These demonstrations continued throughout the war. There was little coverage of the peace movement in the mainstream press, which generally took a patriotic pro-war position, although it was reported in some of the left-wing press.
Glasgow was a vital centre of the war economy. Its shipbuilding and heavy engineering industry was directed overwhelmingly towards the war effort with 43 percent of tonnage of warships being produced on the Clyde. It was also the centre of a massive munitions output. In 1917, George V paid a morale-boosting visit to Glasgow and the West of Scotland visiting a number of companies supporting the war effort, meeting injured servicemen and presenting medals.
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Women had always worked of course, but as many men went to fight, labour shortages meant that women increasingly took on the jobs of men.
They replaced men in the Tramways (1180 conductresses and 25 tram drivers in 1916) and 20,600 women worked in munitions/shipbuilding. They fired the imagination and were generally popular.
Most employers were happy, but I absolutely love the initial response by the Clyde Shipbuilding & Engineering Employers who were ‘inclined to think that women ‘en masse’ would be worse to deal with than men… We would suggest that in lieu of women the government should bring in natives of Ireland or even India…’
There is no answer to that....
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