Project plea for relatives of Pollok House workers
PEOPLE with relatives who may have worked at the Pollok House estate are been sought for a new history project.
The National Trust for Scotland at the heritage site have set out a new oral history project and exhibition examining the life of Sir John Stirling Maxwell.
The project and exhibition will look at the contributions Sir John made to the City of Glasgow and its continuing development.
Interviewers working on the oral history project are looking to record anyone who lived and worked on the Nether Pollok Estate, the core of which was gifted to the people of Glasgow and is now Pollok Country Park.
Anyone who may have a had a close relative who lived and worked on the estate are being asked to take part as they could help provide answers to help identify some of the people in the collection of photographs at Pollok House.
Sir John was integral to continuing his great uncle’s development of Pollokshields and used his influence in 1912, helping the creation of Westerton, a co-operatively owned affordable housing project for working class people near Bearsden.
The project was interrupted by World Wars but his commitment to local communities was unchanged as he donated Burgh Halls to the communities in both Pollokshields and Pollokshaws with gifts of stipends for their upkeep.
The eldest son of Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, 9th Baronet and Lady Anna Maria Leslie-Melville, second daughter of David Leslie-Melville, 8th Earl of Leven and Elizabeth Anne Campbell, he was educated at Eton College and at Trinity College, Cambridge.[1] He succeeded his father to the baronetcy in 1878.
In 1901 he married Ann Christian Maxwell, daughter of The Rt. Hon. Sir Herbert Maxwell, 7th Baronet. The couple had one daughter, Dame Anne Maxwell Macdonald, 11th Baronetess.
Funded by the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund’s Stories, Stones and Bones programme, ‘This Lad o Pairts’ is intended to reintroduce Sir John to the people of Glasgow.
Learning Officer at Pollok House, Joe Murray, said: “Sir John Stirling Maxwell is disappearing into the mists of time and I think that is a great pity for he did much for Scotland and especially the people of the South Side of Glasgow during his lifetime.
“Present generations of Glaswegians still reap benefits from his gifts and contributions to the city.”