Workers Village c1830

Workers Village c1830

A workers’ village was built around the mills c.1830, and by 1836 its population was approaching 2000.

Dale & Monteith had difficulty recruiting local people to work in the mills, and on one occasion apparently recruited around 200 would-be Highland emigres whose ship was stranded at Greenock, persuading them to accept Blantyre instead of Canada.

The self-sufficient mill community facilities included a public washing house, bleaching green, graveyard, school, post office and farm.

With the decline of the textiles industry and the Company in liquidation, the houses making up the village were allowed to fall into disrepair and were condemned in 1913, although it took another twelve years for the local authority to begin demolishing them.

Shuttle Row tenements and the surrounding grounds were eventually bought by the founders of the Livingstone Memorial in 1927.

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