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Wee Tam McSing

Before the relatively recent wave of new immigrants into Glasgow from the Eastern European nations there was, of course, a large group of immigrants from much further East; from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and from East African Asians who had left at threat of persecution from Idi Amin. The first Indian immigrant to Glasgow is said to be Mr Noor Muhammad Tanda who left Bombay in 1916 at the age of 19, and arrived in Glasgow via Liverpool, living in lodgings at the Broomielaw until he found work in Greenock at a shipyard. Mr Tanda had the wanderlust. After travelling extensively, he spent five years in Australia before returning to Glasgow to settle in the 1930s and setting up business in the Gorbals.

            The Indians immigrants, like the Highlanders, the Irish, the Jews, the Poles, left their homeland, more often than not, due to circumstance rather than through choice. The symptoms are always the same – famine, poverty, disease, persecution. Also, the British government encouraged them to take their labour and organisational skills to other colonies throughout the Empire.

            The British influence in India goes back a long way. In 1600, Queen Elizabeth I granted the East India Company a charter to trade with India. In 1668, when the East India Company rented Bombay ‘for ever’ from Charles II, a decree was passed making people born in Bombay ‘natural subjects’ of Britain. After the ‘The Great Revolt’ of 1857 – what the English refer to as ‘The Indian Mutiny’ – India was ruled from London and India’s population became subjects of the British crown. Many Indians found themselves as soldiers in the British army and as sailors in the British navy. Some of these found their way to Britain and some were seen on the docks of Glasgow as early as 1869.

            The 1914 Imperial Act, designed to utilise the man-power of Empire as soldiery in the First World War, had dictated that ‘everyone born within the allegiance of the crown in any part of the Empire was a British subject’, which meant they were free to live in any part of the Empire, including Britain. In 1937, the first Indian children – boys only, had come to join fathers already settled and entered Buchan Street Primary School in the Gorbals. By the beginning of the Second World War it is estimated that there were 50 members of the Glasgow Indian Community. By the end of the war this number had risen to around 100, most living in the Gorbals, and while most were Muslim some were Hindu and Sikhs. The first Sikh temple in Glasgow had been in existence since 1911. The first Muslim mosque was a billiard hall in Oxford Street hired for Friday prayers but by 1944 the Muslim community had bought the property and converted it – the first mosque in Scotland.

In 1947, a course of action was taken which has often been resorted to and which has always led to long-lasting trouble – partition of India into Pakistan and India. Ireland was partitioned in 1920; the partition of Palestine in 1947, proposed by the UN on the advice of the British mandate, resulted only in a Jewish independent state, while the Arab state was never formed; the partition of the Punjab took place in 1966; the partition of Cyprus in 1974. The partition of Yugoslavia in the 1990 led to the bitter ethnic wars which affected Bosnia, Herzegovina, Croatia and Kosovo. As Hindus and Sikhs migrated from Pakistan to India and millions of Muslims from India to Pakistan there were massive riots, mass murders and enormous loss of life on both sides. Many of the Asians who had lost homes, jobs and businesses were encouraged to come to Britain due to a labour shortage. This was aided by the passing of the British Nationality Act in 1948 which granted United Kingdom citizenship to people of Britain’s colonies and former colonies. Most of the jobs they took were jobs the native population did not want and which had remained vacant. Most of the jobs in Glasgow were with Glasgow Corporation Transport which was said to be desperately short of staff. The wages were relatively good for the time but due to the shift-work involved they were unpopular, especially as there was no shortage of other work in the city.

By 1960  the Asian population of Glasgow was around 3,000. As usual, the earliest wave of Asian immigrants moved to the Gorbals. By 1971, a survey estimated there was around 12,000 people of Asian origin in Glasgow. At that time the Gorbals was undergoing the slum clearances and many people, including the Asians, were moving out. The situation took a turn for the worse in the 70s and 80s with the rise in unemployment, especially youth unemployment, meant children of Asian immigrants who had been born and brought up in Glasgow, despite having good qualifications, found they were often passed-over in favour of white youths. In 1981, changes to the British Nationality Act made it difficult for further immigration from India and Pakistan unless family members were already settled in the UK. The 2011 census recorded 22,405 Pakistanis in Glasgow, with the largest Pakistani community being in Pollokshields. A Glasgow University survey found that the majority of Pakistanis in Glasgow support the SNP and Pakistanis feel more Scottish than English residents in Glasgow. In the same 2011 census the number of Hindus in the whole of Scotland was over 16,000, with 8,640 in Glasgow

There is a Hindu Mandir Temple in Glasgow facing Kelvingrove Park at 1 La Belle Place. The building was originally a Renaissance Hall known as the Queen’s Rooms and was designed by Glasgow architect Charles Wilson and has been a Category A listed building since 1966. Prior to becoming the Hindu Mandir Temple it was home to the First Church of Christ Scientist from 1948.

Queen's Rooms - Mandir Temple

Charles Wilson was born in 1810 and articled to the architect David Hamilton in 1827, whom he left in 1837. His later independent and classical work was known for its sophistication, or ‘feminine elegance’ as Thomas Gildard, another Glasgow architect named it (We’ll hear more of Gildard later when we come to the Brittania Music Hall of Argyle Street which he designed.) At the young age of 30, Wilson was commissioned to design the City Lunatic Asylum – Gartnavel Mental Hospital as it became known. As part of the commission he made a study-tour of similar facilities in England and France. It was while visiting one mental asylum in England that he was mistaken for a patient. The doctor assigned to guide him around the labyrinthine corridors had been called away suddenly and Wilson, left to his own devices, had wandered into a section of the hospital which was out of bounds. A guard, having no idea who this visitor was, mistook him for a well-to-do patient and attempted to lead him away. Wilson protested that he was an architect inspecting the facilities before designing a modern asylum in Glasgow. The guard took this as a symptom of delusion and attempted to detain Wilson. Wilson, understandably, cursed the man and became violent. The guard called for help and Wilson was retrained in a strait-jacket until the mistake was discovered two hours later. 

A great many of Wilson’s designs are still standing in Glasgow, especially in the West End surrounding Kelvingrove Park, Woodlands and Broomhill. He is also responsible for the layout of Kelvingrove Park itself, and, what is probably his most visible building, Free Church College, otherwise known as Trinity College which is perched high on the hill of Park Circus with its tower being one of the most visible points of Glasgow. Wilson won the commission for this building by competition in 1856 and the tower was completed in August 1859. The tower is included among the photographer's pictures but not as the main point of interest, it is merely in the background of some of them. I'm not a big fan of Wilson's work, I don't think there is anything special about the tower other than it's height and prominence on the Glasgow sky-line. The Queen's Hall is more distinctive for the bas-relief around its front than for the building itself and the bas-relief was designed by John Mossman. 

Mossman and his family - father William, brothers William and George - were English sculptors who moved to Glasgow. The family had originated in Scotland and a relative, James Mossman, was a supporter of Mary Queen of Scots. He was beheaded after the siege of Edinburgh Castle in 1572. The family firm dominated sculptural work in Glasgow in the mid 19th century. John Mossman's work has already been mentioned in this blog as he designed the statue of Robert Peel in George Square. The family produced a vast number of monuments for the Necropolis and other cemeteries in Glasgow. The were also responsible for the sculpting of the Stewart Memorial Fountain in Kelvingrove Park in 1872, which we have also already seen. The firm of J & G Mossman finally closed its Glasgow office and showroom on the 27th May, 2011.