34 Hospital Street, Gorbals

[RJ_Paton]

Hi,

thank you for the link - it's wonderfully  interesting to see all these photographs.  What kind of place was The Gorbals?  After talking to friends they said it was a very rough (can I say that without offending anyone?) area.  I would imagine the people who lived there worked hard and long hours - a very industrious area in it's time!

I know I have a little reading to do but can you shed a little light please?

many thanks,

Pip

The Gorbals got a largely undeserved reputation for gang violence primarily through the fictional book and film  "No Mean City" which portrayed an area where extreme violence was the norm.

That said it was a tough area - just like many overcrowded working class areas in other cities but really no more than them and probably less than some.

The Gorbals has also become a byword for poverty class housing - this came about primarily due to unscrupulous landlords who failed to invest in their properties over the years and who took advantage of the lack of available housing as Glasgows population exploded to cram as many into these properties as they could.

[David Currie]

Traced my family back to 24 Hospital Street in 1857 not somewhere i would have liked to live.

[Stairheedrammy]

If you join the Old Gorbals Pictures group on Facebook you will get access to many photographs and experts on an area a lot of people, including myself, will always consider home ground.

[Skoosh]

The Gorbals was a large parish but a small district, it was the refuge of those fleeing the Irish Famine & the Jews fleeing the Russian Pogroms. choice didn't come into things, people worked their way out to a better life. Maybe we take too much for granted now!

Skoosh.

[pharmaT]

IIRC 20 years ago there used to be a small section of street, at the entrance to parking for new flats that still had the sign for hospital street showing.  I haven't been down that part of Gorbals recently.

[Skoosh]

Pip,  cotton spinning & weaving were concentrated in Anderson & particularly the east-end districts of the Calton, Bridgeton, Dalmarnock, Barrowfield, Mile-End & Parkhead, all within reach of the Gorbals where there was also cotton finishing works in Ballater Street.

Skoosh.