Periods
Clydebank, 1914-1945
By Carrick Watson
The First World War had a major impact on Clydebank. Many men volunteered for service in the armed forces in the first years of the war, and many more joined up after the introduction of conscription in 1916.
Clydebank and the First World War
Those left behind in the town played a significant part in the British war effort. The main employers, John Brown & Co, William Beardmore & Co and the Singer Manufacturing Co, became important manufacturers of war supplies. John Brown's launched forty-five warships during these years and the firm's total production of over 150,000 tons of war-related shipping was the highest of all the Clyde yards. Beardmore's was third in this league table with almost 120,000 tons, but it also diversified into the production of aircraft, tanks and submarines among other things. Meanwhile, Singer continued to manufacture domestic and industrial sewing machines while producing large quantities of munitions.
War work created a considerable demand for labour in Clydebank's shipyards and engineering works and there was mounting anger among the town's skilled workers when employers and the government responded to shortages of vital skills by employing partly-trained or unskilled labour. The "dilution" issue resulted in strikes at Beardmore's in 1915 and 1916. In addition, the influx of workers and their families to the area created housing problems. Most houses in the town were rented from private landlords and the soaring demand for accommodation encouraged them to raise rents. This in turn provoked anti-landlord agitation (which was not confined to Clydebank) until the government acted to control rents in late 1915.
The Inter-war Years
The rapid rise of Clydebank's population was arrested in the inter-war years. The Census returns for 1921 and 1931 showed an almost static population of just under 47,000. By 1938 population figures given in the local police census and by the Registrar General suggest only a slight increase to about 48,000, despite the extension of the burgh boundaries and the construction of many new houses.
There was little slum housing in Clydebank by the standards of the day, probably because the housing stock was relatively new. However, there was a serious shortage of accommodation. This shortage, and the attempts of private landlords to raise rents after the war-time freeze, brought Clydebank to national attention in the years when thousands of tenants took part in a Rent Strike, 1920-1927. Meanwhile, the Town Council acted under the various inter-war Housing Acts to add to the housing stock which, until then, had been overwhelmingly privately-owned. By 1939 it had built over 2,000 new council houses in areas such as Kilbowie, Whitecrook, Parkhall and Mountblow. These houses were often bigger and of a higher quality than the older houses in the Burgh, and were let at rents which put them beyond the reach of poorer inhabitants. On the other hand, as better-off families moved into council accommodation the private housing they had vacated became available to others.
In 1939, as in 1919, the main employers in Clydebank were in the shipbuilding and engineering sector. Yet the economic difficulties of the inter-war years had brought changes. Of the trio of major firms, John Brown's and Singer survived, although they were forced to reduce their workforces in hard times. Indeed, the Clydebank Shipyard virtually closed between 1931 and 1934 when work was suspended on Cunard liner 534, the Queen Mary. Beardmore's shipyard was forced to close permanently in 1930, though the engineering works remained for a few more years. A number of smaller companies such as Aitchison Blair and Dawson & Downie continued in the engineering sector, and a small number of new businesses moved into the town in the 1930s such as Arnott Young, Clyde Blowers and the Turner Asbestos Cement Co. However, none of these was a major employer of labour.
Unemployment
For many, unemployment is the abiding symbol of inter-war Clydebank. Certainly, the earlier part of both the 1920s and of the 1930s saw very large numbers of people lose their jobs: unemployment reached a maximum of over 5,500 in 1922 and in 1932 a staggering 12,545 (or 50.4 per cent of the insured population), making Clydebank one of the worst-affected towns in Britain. However, the high levels of unemployment were not sustained throughout the inter-war years. Improving economic conditions in the latter part of each decade resulted in jobless rates falling to lows of 4.8 per cent in 1928 and 10.8 per cent in 1939.
National unemployment benefit was available to the majority of Clydebank's unemployed at this time, though the rates were hardly generous. Under the Poor Law, additional local support was available to some claimants from the Parish Council and later from the Town Council Public Assistance Committee (PAC). Such assistance was means tested and, for most, was replaced in the later 1930s by benefits paid by the national Unemployment Assistance Board.
The Town Council tried to help the unemployed and their families in other ways, such as the provision of a Maternity and Child Welfare Scheme and the introduction of public works schemes. It made efforts (largely unsuccessful) to attract new employers to the town. Council leisure provision for all townspeople was developing in the inter-war years and concession schemes for the unemployed were introduced where possible. A yachting pond was built in 1923 and new municipal baths opened in 1932. An eighteen-hole municipal golf course opened in 1928 and facilities were provided for various sports at Mountblow in 1937.
All Bankies could also make use of leisure facilities provided by commercial, voluntary or charitable organisations. They could watch or play for football teams, some of which were connected to local employers; go to the greyhound racing at Yoker or visit one of seven local cinemas which had opened by 1939. The Mutual Service Association, established in 1932, aimed to serve the needs of the unemployed more directly. Within three months it had over 600 members and offered a variety of activities - some purely recreational, such as football, choirs or badminton; some educational such as mathematics or French; and some of more direct practical value to the unemployed such as dressmaking, allotments and boot repair.
The Clydebank Unemployed Workers' Committee in the 1920s and the local branch of the National Unemployed Workers Movement (NUWM) in the 1930s existed partly to lobby local and central government on behalf of the unemployed, by meetings, marches and demonstrations. The direct involvement of the unemployed was one of a number of developments in local politics in this period, when Clydebank gained a reputation for being radical and left wing. In part, this was a result of the publicity generated by the Rent Strike in the 1920s, but both the Independent Labour Party and the Communist Party came to the fore in local politics. There had been labour unrest in Clydebank during the First World War and the town was also part of the "Red Clydeside" which in 1922 sent to Westminster a group of Labour MPs described by many of their opponents as revolutionaries. The MP elected for Dumbarton Burghs, the constituency of which Clydebank formed the larger part, was David Kirkwood (1872-1955). Kirkwood had been prominent in the Clyde Shop Stewards Movement during the war (which he had opposed) and, in 1923, threatened that the Socialist republic would be established at the point of a bayonet!
However, the town's reputation for radicalism should be set against the fact that the Town Council remained under Moderate/Independent control throughout the 1920s. When Labour took control locally in the 1930s, it continued its Moderate predecessor's policy that, where possible, the council should give support to the unemployed but not break the law, for example by refusing to operate the Means Test. Even David Kirkwood became less radical - he opposed Communism, spoke against the communist connections of the NUWM in the 1930s and was created 1st Baron Kirkwood of Bearsden in 1951. It would seem that the town's reputation for political extremism was exaggerated.
Clydebank and the Second World War
By the later 1930s war seemed likely, and the rearmament of these years helped to reduce the number of unemployed in the town. Yet anti-war feeling was strong in the Burgh and, despite the likelihood of hostilities with Germany and her allies, the Town Council initially refused government requests to make preparations to deal with its likely effects. This became compulsory under legislation introduced in 1937 and an Air Raid Precautions (ARP) Committee was set up the following year.
By 1941 there were some 460 ARP wardens, though there was concern that the council's, and the public's, preparations were not as effective as they might have been. The events of 13 and 14 March 1941 put preparations to the test. Over 200 German bombers attacked Clydeside in what became known as the Clydebank Blitz. More than 500 Bankies died, many more were injured and 75 per cent of the town's houses were destroyed or made unfit for habitation. For a time, Clydebank's population dropped to around 2,000 as refugees sought shelter and security in nearby areas. Yet the effect on the Germans' main target, local industry and its war production, was much less severe. There was little damage to John Brown's yard and the Singer factory had returned to pre-Blitz war production levels within a few weeks.
Repairing and rebuilding the town began immediately and went on well beyond 1945. The town which emerged from the Second World War showed similarities but also many differences from that which had entered the First in 1914.