INDUSTRY

Singer

The Singer Manufacturing Company Ltd established its first shop outside the United States in Glasgow in 1867. Demand for sewing machines was so intense that they decided to open their first factory in James Street, Bridgeton in 1873, employing 2,000 people producing 5,500 machines per week. It wasn’t long before demand outstripped the limited production capacity of the small plant, the Glasgow Evening News reports a waiting list for 40,000 sewing machines. Singer began looking around for a new location.

In 1882 the company selected the green field site of Kilbowie, very near the new shipyard of the Thomson brothers, Clyde Bank. It had the advantage of a good transport system by road, rail, canal and river so that good could be brought into the factory and the sewing machines transported to the rest of the UK and Europe easily. In 1883, the Glasgow Evening News described the site as one of the most desirable in the kingdom.

Over 20 million bricks were used in the construction of the factory including the two main buildings, the cabinet and box works, the foundry and the famous clock tower, placed in a line, the bricks would span from Glasgow to New York and beyond. Six miles of railway track was used between the different departments. Whilst finishing the roof , a slater, Matthew Connell, fell off the roof and was killed in 1884. Singer donated a sewing machine to his wife and family, at the time, an extremely magnanimous gesture.

At the time it was built, the clock tower was the largest four faced clock in the world. Each face weighed five tons and the clock itself took four men fifteen minutes to wind it up. This had to be done twice a week. The factory was the largest in the world and opened in 1885, producing 10,000 sewing machines a week. The North British Daily Mail wrote, in July 1885 that:

Little did the proverbial oldest inhabitant of quaint Duntocher, sombre Kilbowie. ancient Kilpatrick or more modern Clydebank, dream of having such a beehive of industry (and, above all, for making sewing machines) at their very doorstep.

The North British Railway Company started a special service for people working at Singer that would run twice a day. It would start at Dumbarton at 6am and call at every station on the way and then return from Kilbowie at 5.59pm. The Evening Times stated that:

This new train service will afford a good opportunity for work people living in the area to avail themselves of steady employment.

At the end of the year, the factory employed over 5,000 people, both men and women, eventually Singer employed over 75% of the available female workforce. This was very unusual for the Victorian Era, when working men out numbered women in Clydebank by 6:1. The female workforce was limited to unmarried girls, once married, women were expected to stay at home and look after the children: Clydebank was a young town with 33% of the population under ten years of age. The 1901 census classifies 75% of women as unoccupied but this is very misleading as it fails to take into account the part-time and temporary

work that most working class married women did.

By the 1890’s, Singer claimed to manufacture 80% of the world’s sewing machines, and Kilbowie was its lead manufacturing plant. In Glasgow, a large showroom in Union Street employed 100 people and sold every variety of sewing machine that Singer produced. It even had a fake factory bench complete with a gas powered industrial machine.

In many developing cultures affected by colonialism, Singer flourished. ‘Singer’ became associated with the verb ‘to sew’ and the noun ‘sewing.’ In reflection of the colonial attitudes of the time, Singer commissioned a series of 36 trade cards Costumes of the World, made from photographs taken by Singer agents around the world.

The sewing machine became known as the great civiliser, raising the standard of living and improving the social and cultural habits of the colonies. Instruction manuals were translated into 54 languages at this time. However, the sewing machine also revolutionised the role of women in the home. At a time when working class women had to make soap, chop wood, carry water, tend fires, cook and look after children, the also had to sew all clothes and linens for their family. The sewing machine could produce 900 stitches per minute, far out-pacing an experienced seamstress who would sew at 40 stitches per minute. The sewing machine was the first home appliance which could also provide a family income in times of need: it could make the difference between abject poverty and survival. Women could care for their children and earn a living at the same time.

Naturally, Singer took credit for this and advancing the status of women.

Throughout the Victorian Era, the Singer factory, in what became known as Clydebank, went from strength to strength. By the early 1900’s it was producing 17 different types of sewing machine and provided the blueprint for the next foreign factory, In Poldolsk, Russia in 1905.

The Victorian Era saw the expansion of the British Empire, and with it, the nation’s industrial, military and financial interests. During this time, Britain produced two thirds of the world’s coal, half of its iron, five sevenths of its steel supply and half of its cotton cloth. This was done more cheaply in Britain than anywhere else. Exports grew from £25.4 million to £76 million between 1809 and 1839. Ten years later they were worth £124.5 million. Major export markets included; Europe, India, Asia and the United States. Before 1840, Britain’s industrial expansion relied on cotton and wool textiles. The improvements to the steam engine, first by James Watt, who patented his steam condenser in 1769, and then Richard Trevithick who invented high pressure steam engines in the early nineteenth century, meant the growing industrialisation and mechanisation of factories, mines, agriculture, transport and most other areas of everyday life.

As factories became established in towns, people moved from rural parts of the country to the growing cities to find work. As towns and cities grew and industrialisation increased, ways of transport and communication became increasingly essential to move goods around the world.

Before the coming of the railways, roads were often poorly kept and difficult to use. The main road in West Dunbartonshire ran from Glasgow Cross to Dumbarton, travelling through the Barns O’Clyde, where Clydebank is now situated. Road traffic consisted of carts, carriages and horse-drawn buses, while stage coaches operated throughout the area, an example is the daily service between Duntocher and Glasgow.

Canal building also had an effect on the area. The Forth and Clyde canal was opened in 1790 and a spur was added from Cart Junction (Whitecrook) towards the Clyde in 1839. Ferries operated up and down the Clyde, a ferry service from Dalmuir to the opposite side of the Clyde (withdrawn in 1870) and six steamers also ran from Broomielaw in Glasgow to Dumbarton.

The first long distance railway line was opened in the first years of Queen Victoria’s reign: London to Birmingham in 1838. By 1845, 2 441 miles of railway had been built, carrying 30 million passengers. The first local railway was built by the North British Railway Company in 1858, running from Glasgow to Dumbarton and Helensburgh, followed by the Glasgow, Yoker and Clydebank railway in 1882 to serve the new Clydebank Shipyard. Singer Station was built in 1906 and this served the new factory. Railways were also used inside the factory to transport goods, as they were in the Glassworks in Dumbarton.

Employees could now travel to work cheaply throughout the area.

Communication also improved: the telegraph revolutionised Victorian life. Invented by William Fothergill Cooke and Charles Wheatstone, it became widely used after the first experimental line was set up in 1837. Samuel Morse improved the ease in which messages could be sent with his Morse Code, a system that used electric currents in long and short bursts – dashes and dots. The first permanent transatlantic cable was laid in 1866 and cables very quickly spread around the world. By 1890, all parts of the British Empire, except Fiji, the British Honduras, Tobago, the Falkland Islands, the Turks Islands and New Guinea had telegraph cables Seventy-five percent of the world’s under water lines were owned by the British. A telegram to India would cost four shillings per word, whilst one to Australia would cost 6s9d.

The Post Office after introducing the first stamp, the Penny Black, in 1840, experimented with bicycles in the 1860’s and used steam packets sailing vessels to carry mail abroad. Mail from the Empire was carried back on return journeys.

At the end of Victoria’s reign as Queen Empress, Britain dominated world industry, communication and geography. The industries in West Dunbartonshire contributed to this global dominance and had a huge impact locally, nationally and internationally.