The oil painting Adam’s First Sight of Eve (2570) by John Martin was presented to Glasgow on 4 October 1946 by the Imperial Chemical Company, Ardeer, through Lord McGowan and the Local Secretary Ms. Pitceathly. 1 It had been discovered in the Kilmeny Hotel in Ardrossan by Evelyn Waugh when he was stationed there during WW2.
Since the donor’s history is well documented it seemed more interesting to research the provenance of the painting and how it came to be in a hotel in Ardrossan, Ayrshire.
What Was Known?
Adam`s First Sight of Eve was completed in 1812 by John Martin. It is signed J. Martin, 1812. He sent it to the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1813 where to his delight it was displayed in the Great Room. It was accompanied by a quote from Milton’s Paradise Lost,
‘Nature herself, though pure of sinful thought, Wrought on her so, that, seeing me, she turned’.
It was purchased, probably from the exhibition, by ‘Spong, a rich Kentish collector’ for seventy guineas. 2, 3, 4
What Is New?
A search of the census records suggested that the ‘Spong’ in question was Thomas Spong who was born in Aylesford, Kent in 1780/81. He was christened on 6 January 1781. 5 He is recorded in three census records where he is described as a ‘merchant’ aged 60 (1841), a ‘coal merchant’ aged 69 (1851) and a ‘retired gentleman’ aged 80 (1861). In 1861 he was living at 2 Albion Terrace, Faversham next door to his son William. 6
The painting seems to have remained in the possession of Thomas Spong for forty years as the next we hear of it is when it was advertised for sale by Christie and Manson in a collection of English pictures which was held at their Great Room, 8 King Street, London on 30 June 1853. 7 The sale catalogue listed
‘Lot 81, Adam’s first sight of Eve. The celebrated work, exhibited at Somerset House about 1813’.
Unfortunately, the painting failed to sell. (No buyer to take the story forward!) The reserve on it was £50 and the bidding went up to £47. The seller, whose name was not disclosed at the time of the sale was a Mr. Walter Tebbitt, of 3 Union Crescent, Wandsworth Road, London. 8 Walter Tebbitt was born in 1827/8 in Surrey. On 5 February 1850 he was elected to the Linnean Society. Their records give his address as Cottage House, Clapham Common, London. His main interest was botany. On 5 May 1850 he co-presented a portrait of Edward Stanley (1779-1849) to the Society. 9 In the 1851 census for St. Giles in the Fields he is listed as aged 23, unmarried with his occupation ‘Mother of Pearl Works Ornamental’, born Surrey and employing one servant. His address was 4 North Crescent. 10On 28 April 1852, in Aylesford, Kent, Walter Tebbitt married Grace Nash Spong who was 19 and the daughter of Thomas Spong. 11
Walter Tebbitt left the Linnean Society on 1 November 1860. On the 1861 census he and Grace and their two children were living at Martinhoe, North Devon, Wooda Bay. He was now a ‘fundholder’. 12 Thomas Spong died at Canterbury on 15 August 1865. He was survived by his wife, Mary Eliza Spong who inherited most of his effects. There was no mention of the painting in his will. 13 Walter Tebbitt died on 24 March 1893 at Marlborough House, Tunbridge Wells. The painting is not mentioned in his will, but he did leave his pictures to his widow. 14 Grace Tebbitt died on 4 December 1924 in Tunbridge Wells. 15 It seems that she did not leave a will. From 1853 to 1942 the whereabouts of the painting are unknown.
In April 1942 Evelyn Waugh, then a captain in the Royal Marines, was posted to Glasgow and then to the Special Services Brigade in Ardrossan. He had earlier undertaken commando training on the Isle of Arran. Later in the year, on 28 September, when visiting Diana Cooper in Bognor Regis he told her that there was a small painting by John Martin in the Kilmeny Hotel in Ardrossan. 16
Kilmeny Hotel
Kilmeny* House (later the Kilmeny Hotel) was built in South Crescent, Ardrossan for John Galloway between 1885 and 1888. John Galloway was born in Glasgow in 1829. In the census of 1861, he was aged 31 and living at 55 Clarence Street, Glasgow with his wife Margaret and two daughters. He was a ‘Clerk Cashier in a Shipping Insurance Broker’s Office’. 17 He moved to Ardrossan shortly after and in 1865 was the tenant occupier of a house in Countess Street. 18 He was employed by the firm of Patrick (Paddy) Henderson ship owners and eventually was appointed its managing director. In 1874 he became a member of the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce. The following year he was the proprietor/occupier of a house and offices in South Crescent and the occupier of a house in Raise Street, Ardrossan. 19 In 1885 he was elected a Director of the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce. The first mention of Kilmeny appears on 22 September 1888 when an article in the Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald notes that ‘Mr. John Galloway (of Messrs P. Henderson Ltd.) who resided at Kilmeny, Ardrossan, placed a memorial stone in the Free Church’. In the 1895 Valuation Roll for Ardrossan, he is listed as Proprietor, Kilmeny House Offices and Garden, South Crescent. He was also a tenant at 2 Manse Street, Church Place suggesting that he may have been using Kilmeny House as offices only. He was re-elected Chairman of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce in January 1899. In the census of 1901, he is listed as a ‘retired shipowner’. John Galloway passed away on 25 September 1904.
‘John Galloway, Homehill, Bridge of Allan, (formerly of Kilmeny Ardrossan), died. He was head of Patrick Henderson shipowners before his retirement. His estate was valued at £53,613, 16s. 6d.’20, 21
His death and an appreciation of his service was noted in the minutes of the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce. 22
From his death certificate his father George Galloway was an artist. Could he have acquired the painting?
The next proprietor of Kilmeny House in 1905 was James Cant, a timber broker with premises at 52 St. Enoch Square, Glasgow. 23 On 4 October 1907 he was elected president of the local branch of the National Bible Society. 24 He was still proprietor in 1915 but by 1920 ownership had passed to Major Frederick Charles Gavin. On 12 April 1922 North Ayrshire Licensing Court granted a certificate by 7 votes to 3, for an inn and hotel for Kilmeny House, South Crescent, Ardrossan. The licensee was Charles F.O. Lee the keeper of the nearby Eglinton Arms Hotel. ‘Kilmeny House is a private residence, containing 30 apartments, and had not previously been licensed, and objections were stated against granting a licence, on behalf of a number of persons owning and occupying property in the vicinity’. 25
ICI
Following his invention of ‘dynamite’, Alfred Nobel formed the British Dynamite Company Ltd. In 1870. He purchased land on the Ardeer Peninsula in Ayrshire to set up a plant to manufacture dynamite. Its relative remoteness and substantial sand dunes made it suitable from a safety point of view. The company, renamed as Nobel’s Explosives Company Ltd. In 1877, became the largest explosives factory in the world. 26
Harry Duncan McGowan was born in Glasgow on 3 June 1874. He attended Hutchesons’ Grammar School and Allan Glen’s School, Glasgow but left at age fifteen to join Nobel’s Explosives Company eventually becoming manager. During the First World War he was able to merge most of the British explosives industry, and by 1920 he had become Chairman and Managing Director of the resulting Nobel Industries Ltd. In 1926 this company merged with other chemicals-based industries to become Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI). McGowan became Chairman and Managing Director in 1930 and remained Chairman until 1950. He was made Baron McGowan of Ardeer in 1937. Ardeer, which is about three miles from Ardrossan, became the Nobel Division of ICI after the merger in 1926. 27
ICI began using the Kilmeny Hotel to entertain and accommodate guests from 1929 28 and Charles Lee remained the proprietor until at least 1940 and probably till 1945 when it was taken over by ICI. The painting was found in a dirty state and was cleaned and restored under the supervision of Mr. F. C. Speyer who was the Controller of the Industrial Ammonia Division at ICI. 29 On 4 October 1946, the painting was donated to Glasgow. When ICI moved out of Kilmeny in 1949 a report in a local newspaper opined that ‘in the last twenty years it has looked more like a mausoleum than a hotel’. 30 This might account for the state of the painting.
(In the Object File there are two references purporting to be referring to the sale of the painting.
A Christie’s sale on 7 August 1855. Christie’s could find no trace of this sale. In fact, the date in incorrect. It should be 7 August 1875 – The Hooton Hall Sale.
Lot 850 – Adam and Eve Praying at Sunset by John Martin- sold by Naylor and bought by Fitzhenry
On 3 May 1879 – Nield Sale – lot 59 – Adam and Eve with an angel in the Garden of Eden by John Martin, bought by Fraser.
Both refer to different John Martin paintings).
* Kilmeny may derive from a poem by James Hogg.
.. Bonnie Kilmeny gaed up the glen; But it wasna to meet Duneira’s men, Nor the rosy monk of the isle to see, For Kilmeny was pure as pure could be. It was only to hear the yorlin sing, And pu’ the cress-flower round the spring; The scarlet hypp and the hindberrye, And the nut that hung frae the hazel tree;
etc.
Figure 2. Bonnie Kilmeny by John Faed. Public Domain.
References
Glasgow Museums, List of Donors, Glasgow Museums Resource Centre
Equivalent to about £5,500 today
Pendered, Mary, John Martin, Painter – His Life and Times, Hurst & Blackett, London, 1923 pp 61, 77, 79,
Balston, Thomas, John Martin 1789 – 1854: His Life and Works, Gerald Duckworth, London, 1947 p36,
Old Parish Registers, Kent, Family Search
Ancestry.co.uk, Census Records, England
The Morning Post, 20 June 1853
Information from Lynda McLeod, Archivist, Christie’s Archives, transcribed from sales’ catalogue and sellers’ list
Information from Luke Thorne, Assistant Archivist, Linnean Society
Ancestry.co.uk, Census Records, England
Old Parish Registers, Family Search
Ancestry.co.uk, Census Records, England
Will proved at HM Court of Probate, Canterbury, 8 September 1865
Will probate granted to his widow and three other executors. 27 May 1893
Ancestry.co.uk, Grace Nash Spong family tree
Page, Norman, An Evelyn Waugh Chronology (Author Chronologies), Palgrave Macmillan, London, September 1997 (also on Google Books)
Thomas Ranken was born on the 18 May 1875 to Robert Burt Ranken and his wife Mary nee Dunlop in Edinburgh . His father was a Writer to the Signet. (1) It was a prosperous household. In the 1881 census he lived at 8 Learmonth Terrace, Edinburgh with father, mother, 2 siblings and household staff which included a cook, 2 housemaids, laundress, 3 nurses and a kitchen maid. (2) His brother, William Bruce Ellis Ranken (3) was to become an artist and his sister, Janette Mary Fernie Ranken was to become a well known actress and socialite, marrying Ernest Thesiger. (4) Their father rented a country house in the Borders, Cringletie Manor and in the census of 1891 (5) two of the children are there but not Thomas. This was because he was educated at Eton and then at Balliol College. (6) In 1896 , when he was 21 years of age and had reached his majority, The Edinburgh Evening News reported that the tenants and employees of the Cringletie Estate had presented him with a rose bowl to mark the occasion. (7)
He graduated BA in 1899. During his time at Balliol he was a Lieutenant in the 1st Oxford University V.B. Oxford Light Infantry and it was there that he began a lifelong involvement with rifle shooting. He was president of the University shooting committee and of the Small- Bore Club. (8)
He returned to Edinburgh and was apprenticed to his father in1899. The apprenticeship was for two/three years because he had graduated from Balliol. In 1902 (9) Thomas was accepted as a Writer to the Signet and in the same year his father died. (10) This was the beginning of his professional life and he continued to practise until his death.
He had another interest which continued successfully for many years and this was small-bore rifle shooting. There are many references in the press about his success in his chosen pastime. Indeed when he died his obituary in the Scotsman (11) is headed ‘Champion Rifle shot . Death of Major T Ranken’. He competed in the 1908 Summer Olympic Games. (12) He won a silver medal in the Single Shot Running Deer event and in the Double Shot Running Deer event (both now discontinued) and came fifth in the 1000 yards free rifle event. He was also in the team which won the silver medal for the team prize. He took part in the 1924 Olympic Games but won no prizes. (13)
He served as a member of the council of the National Rifle Association and was a member and sometime Captain, of the Scottish Twenty. Among the many prizes he won were the Prince of Wales Prize, The Association Cup for Match Rifles and the Scottish Champion Cup at Barnley in 1906. He was often in the final stages of the Queen’s and Kings Prize at Bisley. (14)
He served in the First World War, rejoining the 8th Royal Scots from the T.F. reserve in 1915. He acted as a Musketry Officer from April 1915 to June 1915 and then Brigade Major to 2/1 Lothian Infantry Brigade. He was thereafter attached to the General Staff Scottish Northern Command until 1919. (15)
In 1920 he married Marion Bruce, daughter of the Hon F J Bruce of Seaton House, Arbroath. (16) They had two sons. (17) He died on 27 April 1950 and is buried in the Dean cemetery in Edinburgh (18) (19) and his gravestone reads:
Maj. THOMAS “TED” RANKEN
Remember TOM RANKEN a large lovable personality.
18 V 1875 -27 IV 1950
Acknowedgement
I have to thank the Archivist of the Library of the Signet in Edinburgh for his help with my researches. It was much appreciated.
Paintings
In 1948 Thomas Ranken wrote to the keeper of the Art Galleries in Kelvingrove offering several paintings. The following were accepted: (20)
Having presented his portrait, Mr Welsh suggested that it might hang in the People’s Palace, Glasgow in view of his association with the East End of the city.[3]
In the 1946-47 minutes of the Corporation of the City of Glasgow Art Gallery and Museums [1], it was minuted that the Ex Lord Provost, James Welsh, had presented an oil portrait of himself painted by Joseph Ancill (1896-1976) who was born in Leeds and attended the Glasgow School of Art.[2] He specialised in portrait painting and engraving.
Shortly after writing an earlier draft version of this blog, it was discovered that Dr James Welsh’s grandson David Welsh had already written his grandfather’s biography for his family and after corresponding with him, he suggested that he could give me a wider perspective of his grandfather’s life as well as earlier relatives, information which is not available in the public domain.
Theearly Years of Welsh Family
To give an overall picture of the beginning of the life of the Welsh family in Scotland, it will be appropriate to start with the great-grand parents of our donor, James Welsh. Sometime before the 1841 Scottish census, our donor’s great-grandfather Michael Welsh and his wife Elisabeth McCulley came across to Scotland from Ireland.[4] Both, Michael Welsh and Elisabeth McCulley were born in Ireland in about 1790. According to the 1841 Scottish census [5], their four children were all born in Low Glen Cairn, West Side, Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, Scotland. They were listed in the census as: William (18) a carpet weaver, Robert (15) a calico printer, Cathrine (12) and Michael (10). There is no record of Michael Welsh in the next census in 1851. Therefore, it is assumed that he died sometime before then.[6] Michael’s eldest son, William, was married to Agnes Johnstone on 3 January 1851 and they were living at 92 Sanbed Street, Dickiesland, Kilmarnock together with William’s mother Elisabeth and his father in-law, William Johnstone (57, also born in Ireland).[7]
William, the grandfather of our donor, continued with his profession in Kilmarnock where they had settled and had their six children. The first two were born in Kilmarnock. After his second child William was born in 1854, he and his family moved to the Paisley area where he started a quilt making business and where his other four children were all born.[8] The 1861 census records all the family’s address as 64 Love Street. William and Agnes settled in Paisley where they were to live for the remainder of their lives. By the time of the 1881 census, William (junior) had left the family home after having married Mary Ann Young on 1 April 1875. In 1881, William and Mary Ann were living at 18 Causeyside Street, Paisley where James was born on 29 January.
Although 1882 was just like any other year for the happily married couple living with their four children, William, our donor’s father, decided to pay a visit to Boston, Massachusetts where his uncle was living. He boarded a Boston-bound ship on 23 February 1882 to see him. However, after receiving a short note from his home, in reply to his own letter in June, and learning that his young son William, who was born in 1876, had died from scarlet fever on 16 June 1882, he sailed for home. Soon after this tragedy, William Welsh and his family including our donor James, who was one year old, moved from Causeyside Street, Paisley to Queen Mary Street in Bridgeton, Glasgow.[9] Perhaps one of the reasons for this move was that the textile industry, aided by the mechanisation of cotton spinning, prospered and the associated trades such as 15 bleach works and dye works were also thriving.[10] The Industrial Revolution took hold in Glasgow at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The manufacture of cotton and textiles, chemicals, glass, paper and soap increased rapidly. Immigrants from the Highlands in the 1820s and later from Ireland in the 1840s formed the workforce.[11]
Early Life of Our Donor
Our donor, James Welsh, was born on 29 January 1881 in Paisley, Renfrewshire as the fourth child of Mr. William Welsh and Mrs Mary Ann Welsh, who went on to have two more children David (born in 1882) and John (born in 1887). Young James had his formative life in Bridgeton.[12] Although, there is very little known about young James’s first few years there, it is known that he went to his first and only school, Hozier Street Public School in 1886 at the age of four and a half years. He did very well at school and was permitted to leave two years early (at the age of 11 rather than 13 according to the education legislation of the day). The only leavening of the school day was a limited amount of singing, drawing, woodwork, cookery and drill. Much of the time was spent learning tables by rote, copying from the board and facing oral tests in English Grammar and arithmetic, allowing little or no opportunity for self-expression. There was also little or no secondary education; the leaving age at the elementary (primary) school being 13 with a mere handful of pupils staying on beyond that birthday. Young James was an exceptionally good pupil and won a prize for being punctual which is still in his family’s possession today. [13] He was allowed to leave at age 11 indicating that he had attained a high standard of achievement.
It didn’t take long for James Welsh to find work after leaving school. His first job was as a message boy with W & J Martins of Brunswick Street, Glasgow.[14] James stayed with Martins for two years and in 1894, at the age of 13, he was taken on as an office boy with James Templeton & Co., the famous carpet makers with several factories in the Bridgeton area. By the time James started work with the firm, the factory beside Glasgow Green, (the Doge’s Palace), had been built, had collapsed and had been re-built. [15] But it was the Crownpoint Road factory that saw James rise from the position of office boy to assistant-foreman during his fourteen years with the firm. A newspaper article, written about him some years later, stated that five of the Welsh family were employed with Templeton’s. He certainly made a name for himself in the firm and proved to be a highly respected member of the workforce. When he left the firm in 1908, he was presented with a magnificent roll-top desk which he kept and used all his life.[16]
Political Life and Civic Career
After leaving Templeton’s, James Welsh was now to move in a completely different direction when he became an agent for the insurance company, Scottish Legal Life, where he stayed for four and a half years. The times spent at Templeton’s and Legal Life were James Welsh’s formative years. It was during this period that he attended night school and evening lectures, developed his musical interests, became heavily involved in politics, enjoyed the fellowship of the Clarion Scouts, and became generally involved, as he said later, in the ‘progressive and humanist movements’. He also witnessed the beginnings of the cinema revolution and saw its potential, experiencing at first hand the tragic consequences of alcohol abuse. It was during this period, in 1896, that the family moved from 41 Queen Mary Street, the short distance to 40 Dalmarnock Road, a stone’s throw from Bridgeton Cross, where father, mother and five growing young adults were to be found in the 1901 census.
The year 1910 was a highly significant and pivotal year in James Welsh’s life for three reasons:
His name was to be included for the first time on the electoral register for 1909 -10 and he was entitled to vote in the two General Elections of 1910, helping Labour to achieve its best results up till then, 40 seats in January and 42 in December.
Along with his friend and partner George Smith he was to take the first tentative steps in the cinema world when they converted an empty hall in Alexandria Parade into The Parade Cinema.
But the most important change was to take place on 7 July 1910 – the day of his marriage to Helen Greig in Anderston Registry Office, Minerva Street, Glasgow.[17]
At the age of nearly 30, James Welsh married Helen (Nell) Greig, who had been born on 22 May 1881 in the township of Skene, north of Stonehaven and a few miles to the west of Aberdeen. Her father, Frederick Murray Greig, whose family was very much centred in Stonehaven, was a saddler to trade.[18] Helen retained a warm affection for the villages and the countryside of the North East coast throughout her life. Both before and after their marriage, Mrs Welsh was interested in theatrical entertainment and she was known under the name of Nell Greig as an accomplished actress and elocutionist. In her stage career she appeared in a number of plays some of which were written by her brother Frederic Greig, with whom Nell came to Glasgow around 1901. Frederick Greig’s ambition was to be a playwright. Later rising to prominence in the business world and becoming the General Secretary of the Rotary Club of London, he was perhaps better known as the husband of Teresa Billington, the celebrated suffragette.[19] The 2018 statue of Millicent Fawcett, the suffragist leader and social campaigner, in Parliament Square, London, is a work by the Turner Prize-winning artist Gillian Wearing where the name of Theresa Billington Greig is also carved. [20]
After their marriage, Mr and Mrs James Welsh lived in 41 Esmond Street, Yorkhill where their only child, Frederick Welsh was born on 31 March 1911. It was a small flat where James had lived before his marriage and it was becoming too small for a growing family. Therefore, they moved in 1914 to a larger place in Smith Street, Hillhead. Built in the 1880s the individual apartments were of varying sizes but the one chosen by the Welsh family was a two bedroom flat with kitchen/living room and bathroom.
At this time, James Welsh started taking an increasingly active interest in politics. In 1913, when the Municipal Elections were held in Glasgow, on the division of the City of Glasgow, James Welsh was the Labour candidate representing Dalmarnock Ward. The election was a victory for Labour and also for James Welsh, as this was the beginning of his political career. He represented the Dalmarnock Ward from 1913-1929.[21] In June 1926 our donor and his family moved and settled in 1 Endfield Avenue, Kelvindale, Glasgow W2.[22]
On the outbreak of war in 1914 James Welsh enlisted for service in the army but was turned down on medical grounds. It was discovered that he had a heart murmur so there was no question of his signing on. He was immensely disappointed.
During the time he was a member of the Corporation of the City of Glasgow, he was a Bailie of the Burgh from November 1920 to November 1923. After resigning from his post in the Corporation in 1929, he stood as a Labour candidate to represent the people of Paisley and he was elected MP for Paisley in May 1929. After 2 years, in 1931, he was defeated by the Liberal Candidate in the general election and withdrew from politics and contemplated not continuing as a Labour candidate in Paisley. After a break of eight years he returned to the Council in 1937 as a representative of the Maryhill Ward and continued his service until 1949 when he did not seek re-election. During this time, he was involved in The Empire Exhibition which was held in Bellahouston Park, Glasgow and opened by King George VI and Queen Mary on 3 June 1938. The opening ceremony held in the Ibrox Stadium was attended by 146,000 people.
During 28 years of membership he gave service in many aspects of local government, but he will be remembered particularly for his outstanding contribution as Convenor of the Parks, Municipal Transport and Parliamentary Committees. He was Lord Provost from 1943 until 1945, in which latter year he was awarded the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws, LL.D by Glasgow University. His period of office as Lord Provost (2 September 1943 – 5 November 1945) was particularly onerous, coinciding as it did with the last two years of the Second World War and all the problems and adjustments which required to be met at that time, but he guided the Council through the difficult period and identified himself with much of the early post-war planning of the city. Apart from his civic duties, he devoted much of his time to the development of the arts and he held numerous offices in various cultural societies and associations.[23] James Welsh stepped down from his post as Lord Provost in November 1945 and did not seek re-election.[24] However, he remained as an elected councillor until 1949 when he retired.[25]
During the time when James Welsh was a member of the Corporation City of Glasgow and later the Lord Provost, T.J. Honeyman was the director of the Art Galleries and Museums of Glasgow. The two men got on extremely well and had a harmonious relationship. It was at this time that a decision was made by Sir William Burrell that his collection (now known as The Burrell Collection) should belong to the City of Glasgow.[26] John Julius Norwich writes in the Introduction to the book The Burrell Collection[27]:
Let there be no mistake about it: in all history, no municipality has ever received from one of his native sons a gift of such munificence as that which in 1944 The City of Glasgow accepted from Sir William and Lady Burrell.
Honeyman also mentions James Welsh in several places in his book Art and Audacity.[28]
Contributions to Glasgow Cinema
Apart from his interest in politics, James Welsh also had an interest in the art movements in Glasgow. Among these was the new form of entertainment of the time, the cinema. One of his close friends, George Smith, shared the same interest. George Smith, a lifelong friend, was a Labourite like himself, who had been born and brought up in the Bridgeton area. Like James Welsh, Smith was deeply involved in the Labour party and was to follow James into the City Chambers where he was to remain a Councillor for many years. This interest in cinema had stemmed from them being staunch socialists and their intense desire to give something to the people rather than their self-monetary interests. Over the years, working together, they managed to raise their name to be amongst the pioneers of cinema in Glasgow at the beginning of the twentieth century. Their venture in this endeavour began in 1910 when James and George rented a hall in Alexandria Parade in Dennistoun and together, they turned it into a cinema and they called it the Parade. One of the first films that was shown was a Western called The Range Rider and also an interest film Glimpses of Bird Life. The prices were 2d and 4d, with separate houses nightly at 7pm and 9pm. [29] The Parade was very popular with the people of Dennistoun and this encouraged the partners to open another one in 1912. The second cinema was in Church Street, Hamilton and called the Cinema House. It was equally successful. Now, they owned two separate companies – The Parade Picture Houses Ltd and The Hamilton Cinema Company Ltd. So successful was their emerging and growing cinema business that James Welsh felt able to devote all his time to that business and relinquish his position as an insurance agent. By this time the cinema had become a popular form of mass entertainment and picture shows were being held everywhere. In mid-1912, there were about 50 cinemas in Glasgow.[30]
Up until 1921 their two cinemas had been halls, originally built for other purposes. In 1921 the Welsh-Smith partners built their first cinema just round the corner from their existing one in Dennistoun. The (old) Parade had been on Alexandria Parade itself but the New Parade was built at 200 Meadowpark Street, just off the Parade. The cinema was designed by the architect Mr D MacKay Stoddart and was a substantial building with a well finished hall and a lofty auditorium, seating more than 1,400 people. The New Parade cinema was retained by the two partners throughout the twenties but was sold to a Gaumont subsidiary in 1928.[31] During Mr Welsh’s election campaign, located in the Cathcart district on the south side of Glasgow, the new Kingsway Cinema opened on 8 May 1929.[32] It was built for and operated by the independent Kingsway Cinema Ltd. which was owned by a conglomerate of shareholders, among them were James Welsh and George Smith. James Welsh was also named the Cinema Director and George Smith the Manager of the newly formed Kingsway Cinema Ltd. The cinema was designed by noted architect James McKissack in what was described as a Spanish-American style. Inside the auditorium, seating was provided in stalls and circle levels.[33]
This was to be Welsh-Smith’s fourth cinema and the first in south Glasgow.[34] However, on 7 January 1950 it was sold to George Singleton Cinemas Ltd. chain and was re-named the Vogue cinema, a name Singleton gave to all the cinemas in Glasgow that were operated by Singleton’s Circuit.
After building the Kingsway cinema, the architect James McKissack (also responsible for the La Scala) built two more cinemas for Welsh and Smith. The first one was the Mecca Picture House in Balmore Road, Possil built in 1933, to an imposing design by McKissack, to serve the new Corporation housing estate. It was opened in August 1933 and originally seated 1,620, (1,140 in the stalls and 430 in the balcony and served the older tenement area of Possilpark.[35]
The second cinema was one of the most important cinemas built by McKissack. This was the Riddrie Cinema which stands at 726 Cumbernauld Road, Riddrie. Perhaps, at this point, it is worth noting that the former Riddrie (later to become Riddrie-Vogue) cinema is one of the best preserved 1930s suburban super-cinemas in Scotland. [36] It was listed Category B by Historic Scotland in 2008. This was one of McKissack’s best designs and it seems no expense was spared by Smith and Welsh in its construction. On 7 January 1950, the same date as the Kingsway Cinema was sold to Singleton Circuit, the Riddrie was also sold to the Singleton’s and as before was renamed the Vogue (the Singletons also owned the McKissack-designed Cosmo – now the GFT (Glasgow Film Theatre) – and numerous other cinemas in the West of Scotland).[37] The Riddrie-Vogue remained a cinema until April 1968, when it went over to full time bingo.[38] It must be noted here that combining the two roles of a busy councillor and manager of two cinemas was very time consuming for our donor and it was no surprise that in 1940 Mrs Helen Welsh was appointed Manageress of the Mecca Cinema in Possilpark. Mrs Helen Welsh was a very capable and popular manageress who took to her new role with consummate ease. She dealt firmly but fairly with staff, had a good head for figures and mixed easily with the customers.
She had to make the complicated journey between Kelvindale and Possilpark and back every day the cinema was open. She had to carry the evening’s takings home with her each evening and one night in October 1942, she was the victim of a hold-up in Kelvindale Road. Three men were later arrested and a report of the Sheriff Court case appeared in the News of the World later that year. All three admitted assaulting Mrs Helen Welsh, wife of Mr James Welsh, a Glasgow Town Councillor, and threatening to shoot her. They also admitted assaulting the woman driver of Mrs Welsh’s car, and robbing Mrs Welsh of a handbag containing £96.[39]
The contribution made by our donor, James Welsh, to the world of cinema in Glasgow has been extremely impressive. Without a doubt, James Welsh’s and his colleague George Smith’s names will be among the pioneers of the cinema in this country.
The Final Years
On 2 September 1943, James Welsh was elected Lord Provost of the City of Glasgow.[40] He was the nominee of the Socialist Party. He remained Lord Provost until 5 November 1945 when he demitted his office at midnight of that day. However, The Glasgow Herald of 5 October 1945 reported this news, as well as the all the retiring councillors before the imminent council elections, on 6 November 1945.[41]
His wife, Helen, worked all her life and was always there supporting her husband, especially as the wife of the civic head of the City of Glasgow. In later life, it was an easy transition for her to undertake the supervision of one of the cinemas in which her husband was interested. In the management, especially of the Mecca picture house, she found work agreeable. Mrs Welsh was remembered by the cinema goers as a well-dressed petite lady who wore a different hat every night.[42] Nell Greig Welsh died on 28 February 1945.[43]
Unfortunately, she died too early for her to see her husband receiving his L.LD from Glasgow University on 26 October 1945. The event was reported on page 4 of the Glasgow Herald of Monday, 28 October 1945.[44]
Our donor had long been interested in the Scottish Orchestra. He had also been especially concerned with the promotion of the cultural side of the civic activities, such as the development of music, open air theatres and the Glasgow Art Gallery as he had been the Convener of the Art Galleries. Therefore, almost a year later our donor was again honoured in October 1946 when he was appointed a Member of the Arts Council of Great Britain.[45]
In the announcement of Deaths column of the Glasgow Herald of 17 December 1969, a small notice had appeared announcing that James Welsh died on 16 December 1969 and would be cremated in Linn Crematorium on 19 December 1969.[46] On page 8 of the same newspaper[47] under the columns entitled Death of Lord Provost of Glasgow, an obituary is printed where a summary of his life and achievements are listed and the following sentence was also included:
He combined his work with assiduous attendance at evening classes, studious reading of history, economics and widening his acquaintance with the world of art which his natural taste for music was already a passport.
Acknowledgement
I should like to acknowledge and thank Mr David Welsh for his help and time in providing me with a wider perspective of the life of our donor, Dr James Welsh, his grandfather in producing this blog. He very generously gave me a copy of his Grandfather’s unpublished biography ‘Just call me Jimmy’ A portrait of my grandfather, Dr James Welsh that he had meticulously and engagingly researched.
References
[1] City of Glasgow Corporation Minutes 1946-1947, Mitchell Library, Glasgow.
[3] Private Correspondence with Mr David Welsh and his unpublished biography of our donor “Just call me Jimmy” A portrait of my grandfather, Dr James Welsh.
Glasgow Museums Art Donors Group 