Can you help solve the mystery of town’s flag?
40-year puzzle of what happened to Royal Burgh’s flag
The Reformer’s letters pages have recently featured plenty of debate and discussion about the Town Hall flag.
Now one Rutherglen reader has harked back to past glories with this image of Rutherglen’s own coat of arms flying on Landemer Day in 1974.
And she’s sparked a mystery in the process.
The motif from the Rutherglen coat of arms was later adopted into the South Lanarkshire coat of arms, but the whereabouts of the old flag itself are unknown.
Rutherglen woman Dorothy Connor submitted the picture along with a letter to the Reformer.
She said: “The original Coat of Arms used to be above the Provost’s chair in the Rutherglen Town Council chambers in the Main Street.
“Its rightful place is, in my view, in the Town Hall.
“These items belong to us and should be on display here, not gathering dust in some storeroom.
“The original coat of arms is beautiful, the angels on either side have beautiful gold wings (in fact I used the coat of arms for my mum’s memorial).
“A smaller version can be seen on the ground floor of the Heritage Centre at the library on a roll of honour taken from Rutherglen Swimming Baths in Greenhill Road when they were demolished.
“The central part, the ship, can be seen high up on the outside front of the Town Hall and of course refers to our shipbuilding heritage.
“The motto Ex Fumo Fama - out of smoke, fame-also refers to our industrial heritage, the potteries and other industries.”
Gerry Campbell, General Manager of South Lanarkshire Leisure and Culture, said: “We have an extremely well documented Museums’ collection for the whole of South Lanarkshire, including Rutherglen, but we have no record of ever having held a flag depicting the Rutherglen coat of arms. We have also checked photographs of a local history exhibition that took place in the town about ten years ago and while there is a picture of the coat of arms and another flag on display, there was no flag on display bearing the town’s coat of arms.
“If anyone has any information that would help us trace the whereabouts of this flag, we’d be delighted to hear from them.”