Determined, committed and inspiring WOMEN’S WEST END women have shaped Glasgow’s history from its beginnings, but their story is HERITAGE WALK not often told. Glasgow Women’s Library made history itself by creating this guided walking tour in 2007; the fi rst one to focus on the pioneering women of the city. Join us on a journey to celebrate some of their achievements. This walk offers a unique and inspiring insight into the hitherto unsung women who made the West End. Walk in the footsteps of protesting activists, rent strikers, and the fi rst female students of the University of Glasgow. Our walk begins in the shadow of Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery (1). The museum houses works by the Glasgow Girls, women working in art and design between 1880 and 1920. If you complete the loop, you can return to the museum and look inside. For now though, let’s walk from here along Argyle Street with the tower of Glasgow University on your right. Use your imagination to go back in time when the red trams rumbled their way along this street. Glasgow was the fi rst city in Britain to recruit female conductors and drivers in the place of men during World Front Cover: Votes for Women banner, created by Valerie War I. Women provided a fl exible and Gauld, on the Su rage Oak, 2018, Photography by Rebecca cheap workforce in a time of austerity. Jones. University Women, Glasgow University Archives. These women were the forerunners The 1870s was when educational of the inimitable force that was the opportunities for girls and women started to UniversityUniversity Glasgow ‘Clippie’. open up. In 1876 parliament passed an act University Avenue which allowed universities to grant degrees Let’s wander on and look at some to women. The University of London was AvAv 9 es Road enue 9 signifi cant buildings on our route. Firstly, the fi rst to act upon it but the Scottish es Road enue 66 8 you’ll pass the Maggie’s Centre (2) on universities were very slow. Professor Byr Byr 8 Byres Road 8 your right. When Maggie Jencks su ered Milligan, of the University of Aberdeen a recurrence of breast cancer in 1993, thought that women were biologically too 5 1010 she was given a short time to live. In weak to take the strain of constant study! 5 77 10 her remaining months, she realised how Women were not allowed to matriculate at 7 important it was for people to have an any Scottish university until 1892, some 400 environment where they would be seen years after Glasgow University was founded. eet as individuals rather than cancer patients. Trailblazing Marion Gilchrist was the fi rst eet She put all her energy into making such woman to graduate from Glasgow, doing h Str h Str a place happen. The fi rst Maggie’s Centre so in 1894 with a high commendation in 4 1111 opened in Edinburgh in 1996. This one medicine. Marbai Ardesir Vakil was the 4 4 11 Churc opened in 2002, and since then has had fi rst Asian woman to graduate from the Churc tens of thousands of visitors. University in 1897; she was also a doctor. Church Street y y Continue past the former Western Return to Dumbarton Road. Even the noise 3 3 RiverRiver Kelvin Kelvin Wa Infi rmary on your right, after which you’ll of today’s buses bumping along the road 3 2 2 River Kelvin Wa come across a set of gates. If they are wouldn’t have drowned out the sounds 2 Kelvin open, use the opportunity to get away coming from the shipyards. In peacetime Kelvin Kelvingrove Park Kelvin Way from the bustling road. Look above the the yards were generally a male domain, Ar Kelvingrove Park Ar gyle Street Kelvingrove Park modern glass entrance and you’ll see with one unforgettable exception. gyleArgyle Str Street faded lettering. You can almost make out the name – Anderson College (3). The Pipe smoking Rachel Hamilton was a well eet Anderson was initially founded to rival kent face in Partick. Rachel Hamilton was 6 1 Glasgow University with the aims of feet 4 inches, weighed 17 stone and smoked 1 1 making education more accessible. In a pipe. She broke boundaries by working the fi rst 3 years of the college almost half as a labourer in the shipyards and helped of the 1000 students were women. police as a special constable during the riots here in Partick in 1875. 3 3 1 1.6km/1mile 1 The terrain is mostly fl at with a gradual hill on University Avenue and the route follows pavements throughout. Partick saw more dissent during the Great She made a rousing speech on the issue, War. Not only against the war itself, but and described how “the fi ght was essentially also against unscrupulous landlords trying a women’s fi ght”. to squeeze more money out their tenants. Helen Crawfurd played a major role in Turn right up Church Street. The red both protest movements. As Secretary of sandstone building on your left is one of Tram Drivers, Glasgow Museums Photo Library. the Glasgow Women’s Housing Association the many monuments to education in Tram Ticket, Glasgow Museums. Marbai Ardesir she was instrumental in rallying and co- the West End (4). Church Street Primary Vakil, Courtesy of Glasgow University Archives. ordinating support for those who were at opened in 1903. In the same year, Laurel risk from eviction because of rent increases. Bank, a private school for girls, was 3 10 6 Rachel Hamilton, Glasgow Museums Photo Library. Anti-Su ragette Postcard, circa 1908, GWL 7 Helen Crawfurd, Gallacher Collections. Anti-Su ragette Postcard, GWL Memorial Library, Glasgow Collections. Isabella Elder on the University Caledonian University Gates, Photography by GWL. Newspaper Archives. Hunger Strike clipping, Glasgow University Archives. Medal, Glasgow Museums Photo Library. established on nearby Great George Street. other dedicated su ragettes were honoured also honoured on University buildings Continue down University Avenue and In addition to the ‘three Rs’, (reading, writing including Dr Dorothea Chalmers Smith. on International Women’s Day 2000, make your way to the bottom of the hill. and ‘rithmetic’) which were taught at both alongside su ragettes Flora Drummond Across the road is the Glasgow University schools, Church Street expected girls to Dr Dorothea Chalmers Smith was one of and Marion Dunlop. Union (10), which was the last union in learn domestic skills such as laundering, the fi rst women to graduate from Glasgow the UK to have single sex membership. It sewing and cookery, while Laurel Bank in medicine in 1894, after which she worked Continue up University Avenue until was not until 1979 when students from the o ered Art, Music and French. at Glasgow’s Royal Samaritan Hospital for you are outside the University gates (7). Queen Margaret Union voted to accept women where she did pioneering work in Isabella Elder is the only woman men that the men’s union reluctantly Let’s continue up Byres Road (5). Whilst child care. She became involved with the commemorated on these gates. She reciprocated, but only after the University researching for this walk we looked at militant su ragettes in 1912, and in 1913 was one of a trio of women who had threatened to withdraw funding in fear businesses owned by women on this West was caught red-handed trying to set fi re contributed to opportunities for Higher they would be liable for a breach of the Sex End thoroughfare around 1900. Mrs McHoul to a house in Park Gardens. She was Education in Glasgow. Along with Jessie Discrimination Act of 1975. ran a laundry at number 83; Miss Robson sentenced to 8 months in Duke Street Campbell and Janet Galloway, Isabella was a stationer and tobacconist at 101; and Prison where she went on hunger strike. helped found Queen Margaret College, Now, onto our fi nal stop. Turn right onto Mrs and Miss Simpson had a dressmakers at Dorothea’s husband was the minister of by donating North Park House in Queen the leafy Kelvin Way, and continue for 50 115. This is interesting not only in showing Calton Church in the East End and the Margaret Drive in 1883. All three women yards or so. On your right you will see a the examples of businesses that women church demanded that he should control are commemorated on the memorial mighty oak (11). This is the Su rage Oak, ran, but also in demonstrating how the his wife or divorce her. In the end, Dorothea window in Bute Hall, and in 2015 the planted by su rage organisations in 1918 to type of business changed as you went up left him and they divorced, but as a University named a building after Isabella. celebrate some women’s fi rst opportunity to Byres Road. consequence she wasn’t allowed to see her vote in a general election. Women over 30 sons. Dorothea’s story speaks of the many Opposite the gates, you can see the who owned property were given the vote in Bear right along University Avenue and sacrifi ces su ragettes were forced to make round reading room. Interestingly, parts 1918, and in 1928 the vote was extended to stop opposite the Boyd Orr Building (6). in their fi ght for the vote. of it were still gender segregated until the women on the same terms as men. On International Women’s Day 2000, 1950s. The street to the right of the reading the Student’s Representative Council In the campaign for su rage, hunger room is Southpark Avenue.