Pictures show the Glasgow schemes built by thousands of city men

Glasgow Corporation’s eventual solution was to do it in-house, which led to the formation of the housing department’s Direct Labour Organisation (DLO).

Glasgow received parliamentary approval for the Glasgow Improvement Act in 1866, and while its effects were beneficial, they were on such a small scale that they barely changed the overall housing situation.

The war changed politics and a consensus emerged about the need for a national housing policy to provide ‘Homes for Heroes.’

A UK Housing Act in 1919 required local authorities to provide working class housing with the government providing subsidies A further act in 1923 enabled a significant increase in the number of affordable homes.

A bricklayer at work (Image: Glasgow City Archives)

Glasgow, who had long struggled to improve the city’s terrible housing conditions, embraced the Government initiative enthusiastically and built many housing schemes under these acts.

In 1920 the tender prices received from private contractors for four three-apartment houses in a two-storey block increased, exclusive of cost of site, roads, and sewers, from £723 to £900. There was also general dissatisfaction about the standard of work produced.

The Corporation decided to look at whether costs could be reduced if the housing department used its own staff to build the homes. The Direct Labour Organisation was born.

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In 1921 the Corporation decided to begin the building of 318 houses at Drumoyne and the scheme was built by DLO, completed in September 1923. The actual cost of the scheme was much less than the approved estimate and the workmanship was of a higher quality than that of previous contractors.

Bellahouston houses built by the DLO (Image: Glasgow City Archives)

In 1922 the Corporation opened the process for 102 homes at Polmadie, inviting and accepting the lowest tenders for each of the trades from the contractors and from the housing department.

The latter won the contract for builder, slater and plaster work and it was all completed by the housing department by 1924.

Between then and 1936 the department won the contracts for roads, sewers and maintenance work on existing schemes and, after complaints about the quality of contractors in other trades, Direct Labour delivered this additional work.

This included the engineering work for the Pollok scheme, one of the largest in Glasgow. This work involved 24 miles of minor roads and three arterial roads (although it did not include the bridges required to cross rivers and burns.)

Staff canteen at Pollok scheme] (Image: Glasgow City Archives)

It was not until 1936 that the housing committee again allocated entire schemes to be constructed by Direct Labour. The first of these allocations were at Bellahouston and Queen Victoria Drive comprising 330 and 28 houses, respectively.

In 1937 it was agreed to form a new works building section of the housing department, under the supervision of a superintendent. From then until the outbreak of the war in 1939, the section expanded rapidly with a corresponding increase in housing output.

Lancefield depot (Image: Glasgow City Archives)

During the period 1936 to 1939, 2646 houses were completed by the new works section, and it contributed plaster work to the building of 308 others. The number of its employees rose to 3192. These men delivered the much-needed houses, together with all the infrastructure.

The beginning of the war saw a large drop in the Direct Labour group and by the middle of the war it had lost 50 percent of its pre-war strength.

From 1945 the Direct Labour workforce gradually increased, as did the number of completed houses. The Department was organised into five sections, responsible for: new works building; new works civil engineering; surveying section; clerical section.

Plant room (Image: Glasgow City Archives)

The housing department acquired various workshops, which were crucial to its Direct Labour operations, including the Lancefield Street woodworking factory and the plant workshop and depot at Tollcross garage.

During the Second World War, much of the department's plant was hired out to the Government for war contracts on sites as far afield as Orkney, Shetland and the Hebrides. It was quickly reclaimed and reconditioned once hostilities had ceased.